AoE Support

AoE Support

Project Description

AoE (ATA over Ethernet) is a network protocol that has been designed for high-performance access to PATA and SATA disks over an Ethernet network. This technology allows for storage area networks (SAN) to be built using standard, low-cost consumer technologies.

The goals of this project are to test the performance and reliability of AoE under heavy load for x86_64 based systems; if successful, it will be tested and implemented on ARM based systems.

http://aoetools.sourceforge.net/

Project Leader(s)

• David Liscio

Project Details

This project will involve testing if AoE for ARM is a viable solution compared the current NFS implementation of shared network storage. Performance and stability will be evaluated between two x86_64 based systems for initial testing; if successful, AoE testing and implementation will be ported to the ARM architecture for further analysis. The ARM port will consist of a server and client setup for testing AoE. The final stage will consist of a working AoE network storage solution that could possibly replace the current NFS storage used.

Project Plan

Tracking mechanism: TBD

Key contacts:

• ctyler
• jacwang
• Paul.W

Goals for each release and plans for reaching those goals:

• 0.1 - Test AoE under heavy load between two x86_64 based systems

       - Release stable server/client configuration

• 0.2 - Port AoE to ARM and test with an x86_64 server and client setup

       - Release working ARM client/x86_64 server configuration

• 0.3 - Build a working, tested solution for AoE on ARM

       - Release ARM kernel with AoE module (if stable)
       - Release tested and stable x86 server and arm client configuration

Communication

Mailing Lists

http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=130453

Links/Bugs/Tracking

Pandaboard NIC driver drops connections when under heavy load. This is a workaround fix to resolve the issue.

1. The driver smsc95xx, used by both Beagleboard XM and Pandaboard uses
2. turbo mode by default, that enables multiple frames per Rx transaction,
3. increasing performance but consuming more kernel memory.
4. To avoid page allocation failures and smsc kevent drops we need to
5. increase the minimum free system memory in the kernel to a higher value.
6. If you’re still having page allocation failures, try to increase this
7. value to 12288 or even higher. You could also disable the driver’s turbo
8. mode, but decreasing the ethernet performance.
9. If you encounter problems due to the settings please file a bug
10. against the jasper-initramfs ubuntu package.
11. For more details please check http://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/746137

vm.min_free_kbytes = 8192

Blogs

http://dliscio.wordpress.com