Gfs Overview; Performance, Scalability, And Economy; Gfs Functions - Red Hat GLOBAL FILE SYSTEM 4.7 Manual

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Chapter 1.

GFS Overview

Red Hat GFS is a cluster file system that is available with Red Hat Cluster Suite. Red Hat GFS

nodes are configured and managed with Red Hat Cluster Suite configuration and management

tools. Red Hat GFS provides data sharing among GFS nodes in a Red Hat cluster. GFS

provides a single, consistent view of the file-system name space across the GFS nodes in a

Red Hat cluster. GFS allows applications to install and run without much knowledge of the

underlying storage infrastructure. GFS is fully compliant with the IEEE POSIX interface, allowing

applications to perform file operations as if they were running on a local file system. Also, GFS

provides features that are typically required in enterprise environments, such as quotas, multiple

journals, and multipath support.

GFS provides a versatile method of networking your storage according to the performance,

scalability, and economic needs of your storage environment. This chapter provides some very

basic, abbreviated information as background to help you understand GFS. It contains the

following sections:

•

Section 1, "Performance, Scalability, and Economy"

•

Section 2, "GFS Functions"

•

Section 3, "GFS Software Subsystems"

•

Section 4, "Before Setting Up GFS"

You can deploy GFS in a variety of configurations to suit your needs for performance,

scalability, and economy. For superior performance and scalability, you can deploy GFS in a

cluster that is connected directly to a SAN. For more economical needs, you can deploy GFS in

a cluster that is connected to a LAN with servers that use GNBD (Global Network Block Device).

The following sections provide examples of how GFS can be deployed to suit your needs for

performance, scalability, and economy:

•

Section 1.1, "Superior Performance and Scalability"

•

Section 1.2, "Performance, Scalability, Moderate Price"

•

Section 1.3, "Economy and Performance"

Note

The deployment examples in this chapter reflect basic configurations; your needs

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