NFS for Archive Storage

[run8]

Has anyone successfully used a mounted NFS filesystem as part of the archive storage for iSeries?

This document suggests it's possible..
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27010455&aid=1

However the documents' examples use an iSeries system for both the client and NFS server. My customer wants to use an NFS server implemention on Windows 7 Enterprise.

If anyone has used a similar setup (non-iSeries NFS server) I'd be interested in hearing problems, solutions, gotchas etc.

...John Reay

[Alessandro Perucchi]

Hello John,

I've been an Unix Admin before being an CMOD admin for many years, and there is one thing I know, don't use NFS for any critical setup.
If there are any network problem, or server problem on the NFS server side, then you could have some big issues.

NFS is nice, but one needs to be careful with it.

The main advice I can also give you, the server who writes file, should be server.
If a client try to write on the share, and for any reason the path where is the nfs mounted is not accessible anymore, then you might have different scenario:

1) it write in local filesystem and not in the remote NFS filesystem, causing some strange synchronisation problem
2) blocks, and wait until the server is able to speak again
3) or you might have an error, and it means you'll need to redo your operation.

Anyway, another thing that I find incredible is Windows 7 Enterprise for NFS. NFS is meant for Unix, and every implementation of NFS on Windows I've used was a nightmare. I would avoid it at any rate.
It would cheaper and more reliable to use a small Linux than any Windows server for such usage, at any point of view.


Well for CMOD, even after reading this paper, I still don't understand the goal of that mounted NFS.
If it is to have a Desaster Recovery setup, and you don't have the budget for a SAN setup, why not... but I would not do it personnaly, I would prefer any other solution to duplicate the server in several location than to rely on NFS.

Sorry to be so negative on NFS. But I have been beaten so many times, that I cannot give positive feedback on such crucial setup.

But if somebody else has better experience with that, I would be happy to hear that, and maybe change a little bit my mind.

Cheers,
Alessandro

[Justin Derrick]

Totally agree with Alessandro about NFS -- I *do* know places that use it, but they have decades of experience, and an entirely dedicated network strictly for NFS shares.  The problems that can be caused by even a brief NFS outage are difficult to repair cleanly, and in CMOD, could go unnoticed for weeks, months, or even years.

-JD.

[Alessandro Perucchi]

I *do* know places that use it, but they have decades of experience, and an entirely dedicated network strictly for NFS shares.

Thanks for that info, it's true, in that case it's like a "SAN" setup, without SAN :-)

Cheers,
Alessandro

[run8]

Thanks folks, this kinda confirms what I suspected.

It seems to boil down to (a) don't do it and (b) especially don't do it using Windows!

...John Reay