[Dovecot] Best Cluster Storage

[Eric Rostetter]

Quoting Jonathan Tripathy <jonnyt at abpni.co.uk>:

> I'm hearing different things on whether dovecot works well or not with GFS2.

Dovecot works fine with GFS2.  The question is performance of
Dovecot on GFS2.  I do dovecot on GFS2 (with mbox instead of maildir)
and it works fine for my user load...  Your userload may vary, and
using maildir may make your results different than mine.

> Of course, I could simply replace the iSCSI LUN above with an nfs  
> server running on each DRBD node, if you feel NFS would work better  
> than GFS2.

Either should work.  I'd use GFS2 myself, unless you have some compelling
reason not to...

> Either way, I would probably use a crossover cable for the DRBD cluster.

I use 2 1Gb links bonded together, over crossover cables...

> Could maybe even bond 2 cables together if I'm feeling adventurous!

Yes, recommended.  That is what I do on all my clusters.

> The way I see it, is that there are 2 issues to deal with:
>
> 1) Which "Shared Disk" technology is best (GFS2 over LUN or a simple  
> NFS server)
> and
> 2) What is the best method of HA for the storage system
>
> Any advice is appreciated.

Best is relative to workload, budget, expectations, environment, etc.
And sometimes, it is just a "religious" thing.  So I don't think you
will get much of a consensus as to which is "best" since it really
depends...

-- 
Eric Rostetter
The Department of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin

Go Longhorns!