[DRBD-user] Setup question using DRBD, cluster FS & KVM

Trey Dockendorf treydock at gmail.com
Mon Nov 21 08:46:30 CET 2011

Note: "permalinks" may not be as permanent as we would like,
direct links of old sources may well be a few messages off.


On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 1:55 AM, Florian Haas <florian at hastexo.com> wrote:

> Hi Trey,
>
> On 11/18/11 07:22, Trey Dockendorf wrote:
> > In preparation to begin testing DRBD I've found my superiors have new
> > requirements.  The desired setup is 3 nodes in the cluster, replicating
> > a LVM volume between all 3.  The volume will contain QCOW2 images for
> > KVM, and to have concurrent access I've been looking at using GFS2.
>
> OK, so if it's 3 nodes that a hypervisor is meant to run on, then that
> rules out putting DRBD-based storage and the hypervisors on the same
> boxes. (It certainly doesn't rule out the use of DRBD altogether; see
> below).
>
> > The potential complication is all 3 servers are not identical.  Two are
> > identical, Dell 2950s.  The other is a new Dell R510.  The 2950s run 6 x
> > SATA 7200RPM in RAID 6, and the R510 has it's system on RAID1 SAS and 6
> > x SAS 10000RPM in RAID 6.  Is it correct that with DRBD, the combination
> > of mismatched performance of the disk I/O would be a problem?  How much
> > more difficult is a 3 node cluster over 2 node?
>
> For multiple-node write access, it's impossible. What DRBD currently
> supports is adding a third node in a stacked configuration, but that is
> only useful for backup and DR purposes. You can't really think of the
> third node as a fully-fledged member of the virtualization cluster.
>
> > Also, if I'm able get an iSCSI, what role would DRBD play in the model
> > of 3 servers w/ shared storage?  I assume to allow concurrent access to
> > the same iSCSI space, that I would have to still use a cluster file
> > system (live migration).  Would DRBD then be used to replicate the
> > system partitions or with KVM is it only useful to replicate the VM
> > store when not using shared storage?
>
> You can put your iSCSI on DRBD-backed storage, and then use that iSCSI
> target as centralized storage for your hypervisors. You may not even
> need to set up cLVM. That's what this talk explains:
>
> http://www.hastexo.com/content/roll-your-own-cloud
>
> (Free-of-charge registration required, or just use your Google Profile
> or WordPress account, or anything else that supports OpenID, to log in.)
>
> You can also take a look at this Tech Guide which I wrote while working
> at Linbit, which is still hosted on their site:
>
>
> http://www.linbit.com/en/education/tech-guides/highly-available-virtualization-with-kvm-iscsi-pacemaker/
>
> > With or without a shared storage device (most likely without), how would
> > failover work for the virtual servers?   Is that where Pacemaker comes
> > in?  Basically a way to trigger the still-alive servers to bring up the
> > VMs that were running on the failed server.
>
> Yes, watch the talk. :)
>
> Cheers,
> Florian
>
> --
> Need help with High Availability?
> http://www.hastexo.com/now
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>

Thanks for the info!  This will keep me busy with research and testing, and
hopefully allow me create a proper infrastructure plan.

Thanks again,
- Trey
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