[Swift-devel] Swift-issues (PBS+NFS Cluster)

[Tim Freeman]

On Thu, 07 May 2009 11:39:40 -0500
Yi Zhu <yizhu at cs.uchicago.edu> wrote:

> Michael Wilde wrote:
> > Very good!
> > 
> > Now, what kind of tests can you do next?
> 
> Next, I will try to let swift running on Amazon EC2.
> 
> > Can you exercise the cluster with an interesting workflow?
> 
> Yes, Is there any complex sample/tools i can use (rahter than 
> first.swift) to test swift performance? Is there any benchmark available 
> i can compare with?
> 
> > How large of a cluster can you assemble in a Nimbus workspace ?
> 
> Since the vm-image i use to test 'swift' is based on NFS shared file 
> system, the performance may not be satisfiable if the we have a large 
> scale of cluster. After I got the swift running on Amazon EC2, I will 
> try to make a dedicate vm-image by using GPFS or any other shared file 
> system you recommended.
> 
> 
> > Can you aggregate VM's from a few different physical clusters into one 
> > Nimbus workspace?
> 
> I don't think so. Tim may make commit on it.

There is some work going on right now making auto-configuration easier to do
over multiple clusters (that is possible now, it's just very 'manual' and
non-ideal unlike with one physical cluster).  You wouldn't really want to do NFS
across a WAN, though.

> 
> 
> > What's the largest cluster you can assemble with Nimbus?
> 
> I am not quite sure,I will do some test onto it soon. since it is a 
> EC2-like cloud, it should easily be configured as a cluster with 
> hundreds of nodes. Tim may make commit on it.

I've heard of EC2 deployments in the 1000s at once, it's up to your EC2 account
limitations (they seem pretty efficient with making your quota ever-higher).
Nimbus installation at Teraport maxes out at 16, there are other 'science
clouds' but I don't know their node numbers.  EC2 is the place where you will
be able to really test scaling something.

Tim