Disclaimers - I work for DDN - we sell lustre and GPFS. I know GPFS much better than I know Lustre.
The biggest difference we find between GPFS and Lustre is that GPFS - can usually achieve 90% of the bandwidth available to a single client with a single thread. Lustre needs multiple parallel streams to saturate - say an Infiniband connection. Lustre is often faster than GPFS and often has superior metadata performance - particularly where lots of files are created in a single directory. GPFS can support Windows - Lustre cannot. I think GPFS is better integrated and easier to deploy than Lustre - some people disagree with me. Regards, Vic On 8 Aug 2014, at 14:14, Sergi Moré Codina <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > About main differences between GPFS and Lustre, here you have some bits from > our experience: > > -Reliability: GPFS its been proved to be more stable and reliable. Also > offers more flexibility in terms of fail-over. It have no restriction in > number of servers. As far as I know, an NSD can have as many secondary > servers as you want (we are using 8). > > -Metadata: In Lustre each file system is restricted to two servers. No > restriction in GPFS. > > -Updates: In GPFS you can update the whole storage cluster without stopping > production, one server at a time. > > -Server/Client role: As Jeremy said, in GPFS every server act as a client as > well. Useful for administrative tasks. > > -Troubleshooting: Problems with GPFS are easier to track down. Logs are more > clear, and offers better tools than Lustre. > > -Support: No problems at all with GPFS support. It is true that it could take > time to go up within all support levels, but we always got a good solution. > Quite different in terms of hardware. IBM support quality has drop a lot > since about last year an a half. Really slow and tedious process to get > replacements. Moreover, we keep receiving bad "certified reutilitzed parts" > hardware, which slow the whole process even more. > > > These are the main differences I would stand out after some years of > experience with both file systems, but do not take it as a fact. > > PD: Salvatore, I would suggest you to contact Jordi Valls. He joined EBI a > couple of months ago, and has experience working with both file systems here > at BSC. > > Best Regards, > Sergi. > > > On 08/08/2014 01:40 PM, Jeremy Robst wrote: >> On Fri, 8 Aug 2014, Salvatore Di Nardo wrote: >> >>> Now, skipping all this GSS rant, which have nothing to do with the file >>> system anyway and going back to my question: >>> >>> Could someone point the main differences between GPFS and Lustre? >> >> I'm looking at making the same decision here - to buy GPFS or to roll >> our own Lustre configuration. I'm in the process of setting up test >> systems, and so far the main difference seems to be in the that in GPFS >> each server sees the full filesystem, and so you can run other >> applications (e.g backup) on a GPFS server whereas the Luste OSS (object >> storage servers) see only a portion of the storage (the filesystem is >> striped across the OSSes), so you need a Lustre client to mount the full >> filesystem for things like backup. >> >> However I have very little practical experience of either and would also >> be interested in any comments. >> >> Thanks >> >> Jeremy >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> gpfsug-discuss mailing list >> gpfsug-discuss at gpfsug.org >> http://gpfsug.org/mailman/listinfo/gpfsug-discuss >> > > > -- > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Sergi More Codina > Barcelona Supercomputing Center > Centro Nacional de Supercomputacion > WWW: http://www.bsc.es Tel: +34-93-405 42 27 > e-mail: [email protected] Fax: +34-93-413 77 21 > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > WARNING / LEGAL TEXT: This message is intended only for the use of the > individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain > information which is privileged, confidential, proprietary, or exempt > from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended > recipient or the person responsible for delivering the message to the > intended recipient, you are strictly prohibited from disclosing, > distributing, copying, or in any way using this message. If you have > received this communication in error, please notify the sender and > destroy and delete any copies you may have received. > > http://www.bsc.es/disclaimer.htm > > > _______________________________________________ > gpfsug-discuss mailing list > gpfsug-discuss at gpfsug.org > http://gpfsug.org/mailman/listinfo/gpfsug-discuss _______________________________________________ gpfsug-discuss mailing list gpfsug-discuss at gpfsug.org http://gpfsug.org/mailman/listinfo/gpfsug-discuss
