Having a well known node configuration that is trivial (one step) to create is 
your best maintenance bet. We are using 4 disk nodes in the following 
configuration:

disk1: boot_raid1 os_raid1 cassandra_commit_log
disk2: boot_raid1 os_raid1 cassandra_data_dir_raid0
disk3: cassandra_data_dir_raid0
disk4: cassandra_data_dir_raid0

This gives us a solid stable foundation for the OS and the recommended 
configuration for cassandra commitlog and data dirs. Every node in the ring can 
be replaced with a single command via cobbler to have a replacement provisioned 
from bare metal to take over for a node if it fails. We will never bother with 
repairing a node -  we will replace it entirely upon failure from bare metal. 
The node with the issue will be taken out of service, the issue resolved and 
put back into a pool of spares.


On May 4, 2011, at 9:52 AM, Anthony Ikeda wrote:

I wouldn't be concerned more about the performance with this configuration I'm 
looking more form a maintenance perspective - I have to draft some maintenance 
for our infrastructure team whom are used to a standard NAS storage setup which 
Cassandra obviously breaks.

Ultimately, would keeping the cassandra service separate from the data and/or 
commit logs benefit from a recovery perspective where if we lose the primary 
partition, we could restore that from the data that is still on the secondary?

What it considered best practice?
What kind of routine health checks are best to look for daily? monthly? 
annually?

Basically how do you up-skill a technical infrastructure team to be able to 
maintain a Cassandra node ring?

Anthony



On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 9:39 AM, Eric tamme 
<eta...@gmail.com<mailto:eta...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 12:25 PM, Anthony Ikeda
<anthony.ikeda....@gmail.com<mailto:anthony.ikeda....@gmail.com>> wrote:
> I just want to ask, when setting up nodes in a Node ring is it worthwhile
> using a 2 partition setup? i.e. Cassandra on the Primary, data directories
> etc on the second partition or does it really not make a difference?
> Anthony
>


I don't think it makes much difference from a performance perspective
at all.  You might want to create a separate LVM for your data, or
entire /var


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