Re: [PERFORM] Postgres on Netapp

Hi There,

We are considering to use NetApp filer for a highly
busy 24*7 postgres database and the reason we chose
netapp, mostly being the "snapshot" functionality for
backing up database online. The filer would be mounted
on a rh linux server (7.3), 4g RAM, dual cpu with a
dedicated card for filer.

I'd appreciate if anyone could share your experience
in configuring things on the filer for optimal
performance or any recomendataion that i should be
aware of.

Thanks,
Shankar

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--On Monday, January 12, 2004 13:45:45 -0800 Shankar K <shan0075(at)yahoo(dot)com>
wrote:

> Hi There,
>
> We are considering to use NetApp filer for a highly
> busy 24*7 postgres database and the reason we chose
> netapp, mostly being the "snapshot" functionality for
> backing up database online. The filer would be mounted
> on a rh linux server (7.3), 4g RAM, dual cpu with a
> dedicated card for filer.
>
> I'd appreciate if anyone could share your experience
> in configuring things on the filer for optimal
> performance or any recomendataion that i should be
> aware of.
I run a (not very busy) PG cluster on a NetAPP.

It seems to do just fine.

The issue is the speed of the network connection. In my case it's only
FastEthernet (100BaseTX). If it's very busy, you may need to look
at GigE.

LER

>
> Thanks,
> Shankar
>
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--
Larry Rosenman http://www.lerctr.org/~ler
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> I'd appreciate if anyone could share your experience
> in configuring things on the filer for optimal
> performance or any recomendataion that i should be
> aware of.

Netapps are great things. Just beware that you'll be using NFS, and NFS
drivers on many operating systems have been known to be buggy in some
way or another which may cause dataloss or corruption during extreme
conditions (power failure, network interruption, etc.)

If you can configure it as a SAN, you may find it works out better.

On January 16, 2004 11:53 am, Larry Rosenman wrote:
> --On Monday, January 12, 2004 13:45:45 -0800 Shankar K <shan0075(at)yahoo(dot)com>
> wrote:
> > We are considering to use NetApp filer for a highly
> > busy 24*7 postgres database and the reason we chose
> I run a (not very busy) PG cluster on a NetAPP.

I run a very busy PG installation on one.

> It seems to do just fine.

Ditto.

> The issue is the speed of the network connection. In my case it's only
> FastEthernet (100BaseTX). If it's very busy, you may need to look
> at GigE.

With the price of GigE adapters I wouldn't consider anything else.

I have a huge database that takes about an hour to copy. The netApp snapshot
feature is very nice because I can get a "moment in time" image of the
database. Even though I can't run from the snapshot because it is read only
(*) and PG needs to write to files just to open the database, I can copy it
and get a runnable version of the DB. If I copy directly from the original I
can get many changes while copying and wind up with a copy that will not run.

(*): It would be nice if PG had a flag that allowed a database to be opened in
read only mode without touching anything in the directory.

--
D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy(at){druid|vex}.net> | Democracy is three wolves
http://www.druid.net/darcy/ | and a sheep voting on
+1 416 425 1212 (DoD#0082) (eNTP) | what's for dinner.

D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote:
> With the price of GigE adapters I wouldn't consider anything else.
>
> I have a huge database that takes about an hour to copy. The netApp snapshot
> feature is very nice because I can get a "moment in time" image of the
> database. Even though I can't run from the snapshot because it is read only
> (*) and PG needs to write to files just to open the database, I can copy it
> and get a runnable version of the DB. If I copy directly from the original I
> can get many changes while copying and wind up with a copy that will not run.
>
> (*): It would be nice if PG had a flag that allowed a database to be opened in
> read only mode without touching anything in the directory.

PostgreSQL has to read the WAL to adjust the contents of the flat file
on startup in such a setup, so I don't see how we could do it read-only.

--
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