[Samba] Samba, HSM and Windows 2000 Data Center.

[Jess Carruthers]

Background:
I have a Windows 2000 Data Center Server (4 way 4GB Mem) running as a
CIFS client to a Sun E5500 (the samba server with similar memory CPU
etc).   
The Sun E5500 is running LSCI's "ASM" software which manages a
StorageTek powderhorn tape library.
There is ample 622 ATM bandwidth between the two servers for samba
traffic.

The ASM software is an HSM product it archives our images (65K to 50 MB
files) to tape -
then ASM leaves a stub file in the directory for retrieval.  This
directory is shared out via Samba.
To retrieve the file from tape all the user or client application has
to do is open (read) the file and wait.
ASM then restores the original file overtop the stub file. There can be
up to a 2 minute delay between beginning 
to read the file and actually getting data passed back
Our client application on the Windows 2000 is written to do just that,
and has been working fine using NFS on an NT server.
Running the same NFS configuration on the new version of  WIndows blue
screens Microsoft's Data Center. 

Question: Is anyone using samba with LSCI's HSM application in this
way?

The Samba Setup:
workgroup,    protocol=NT1,      security=share,   guest=root,    
hosts allow=ip address of client. 
Everything seems to work properly until I start ramping up the image
transfers.
The samba log files are void of any errors.

The three visible problems I am having:
1. File browser response time on the Windows is intermittent. Sometimes
when we open up the "My Computer" icon the samba mounts take up to 1
minute to show up.  I went  though the Samba "Troubleshooting
Techniques" - everything checked out.   Pings (even large packets) are <
10ms.

2. The client application occasionally says that there is not enough
free disk space to archive a new file, although there is..
I think this could be a side effect of item #1. In the old NFS
implementation we had to set the "File Cache Timeout", "Attribute Cache
Timeout" and "RPC Timeout"  to large numbers. Anything like this in
Samba?

3.  Also the client application occasionally reports that it cannot
open an image file. Only about 2% are failing, if you try the same file
a second time it works fine - the data's been restored and already
sitting on disk.  Could Samba be having an issue with files that take
longer than the average time to retrieve? 

Thank You in advance for any help you can offer.


Jess Carruthers
Project Manager
Information Services
William Beaumont Hospital
Phone 248-597-2655
Fax 248-597-2490