[Beowulf] GPFS on Linux (x86)

[Craig Tierney]

Brent Franks wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> We have been researching GPFS from IBM and are very interested in what
> looks like promising performance and scalability.
> 
> Does anyone use GPFS, we are looking at running it in a distributed
> mode, rather than using one central SAN.
> 
> Additionally, the sales information seems to be rather elusive.  We
> have contacted IBM, however the channels we contact have all been
> somewhat dissapointing as we have had to educate the sales people on
> what the product is.
> 
> We are very interested in setting up a trial of the software and then
> purchasing if it meets our needs.  Does anyone have a contact at IBM
> or solutions provider who is familiar with GPFS and could send out an
> eval kit?  30 or 60 day time bomb would be fine, we just need to
> justify to management that it will indeed work for our application.
> 

The last time I tried to talk with IBM about GPFS on one of our
clusters (about 2 years ago), the only supported configurations
required that you buy their storage.  Also the licensing of
GPFS was based on the quantity of storage, which I didn't like.

However, there was an announcement that Linux Networx was reselling
GPFS as their high-performance filesystem.  Also, I know that
the DOD has it on some of their systems (The Linux version).

I really don't seem many people discussing the good and bad things
about the current crop of distributed/shared filesystems.  Do
they sign a contract saying they can disclose any information about
their operation?  There are so many options out there, you would think
that if one was working, people would be discussing that.  With the
commercial distributed/shared filesystems available that may
work with Clusters:

IBM GPFS
Ibrix
Isilon
Terrascale
Netapp
(Did I forget some).

Someone must be happy with their solution.

Craig


> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks and kindest regards,
> 
> - Brent
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