[Samba] Ideas for distributed Samba servers

[Robert LeBlanc]

On Sun, Apr 11, 2010 at 7:47 PM, Stan Hoeppner <stan at hardwarefreak.com>wrote:
>
> I would think it would be cheaper and more straight forward to replace the
> GbE port on each end of the fiber link with a 10GbE port than to deal with
> the complexity of caching and replication, or other such options,
> especially
> for two buildings on the same campus.  The fiber link is on campus and thus
> you control any right-of-way issues, correct?
>
> If this is the case, upgrading the link speed on the fiber is definitely
> the
> way to go.  If multiple pairs were run when the line was originally
> trenched, as is customary, setup ISL bonding of two 10GbE links between the
> two buildings' switches.  Problem solved.  Make sure you have at least one
> 10GbE NIC (preferably two NICs bonded) in the Samba server that exports the
> data on the disk array or the fat pipe between the buildings won't matter
> much.
>
> It will be interesting to see what Samba bottlenecks you run into after you
> get the big phat pipes setup.
>
>
Although the buildings are on the same campus (multiple buildings about 8
total that we occupy and only parts of building for most of the buildings)
we don't have control over the network. That is in the hands of the campus
IT organization and they like things done a certain way. We can light some
fibre, but it's only point to point and we don't have that much fibre
running to our building to connect all the buildings, plus the expense would
be astronomical as we can't tie into their network and so connection in the
other buildings would be limited. Since they are finally deciding to upgrade
the core switching to 10GbE, they are possibly putting our building on the
list to get a 10GbE link first. I think that would alleviate the biggest
part of the problem, as we suspect that most of the storage will sit idle
and not really accessed. Since all the desktops are only running 100 Mb
connections, it gives us enough concurrent connections that we
feel comfortable with.

Robert LeBlanc
Life Sciences & Undergraduate Education Computer Support
Brigham Young University