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Dell HPC NFS Storage Solution High Availability Configurations with Large Capacities
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NFS server configuration in NSS-HA Figure 4.
The NSS-HA architecture is discussed in detail in the previous version of this solution guide
(4)
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3.1. Storage in NSS-HA
The NSS-HA is a storage solution, in which a shared storage array is directly connected to the HA
cluster nodes, as shown in Figure 1 and Figure 3. Access to the storage is provided to users via the HA
service defined in the HA cluster. This section provides general information about the NSS-HA storage
configuration. Appendix A: NSS-HA Recipe includes detailed instructions on the storage and file system
configuration for NSS-HA. Figure 5 lists the steps for deploying a storage stack in NSS-HA. There are
four steps in total:
1) Step 1 – Storage configuration
In this step, the storage array is configured. As NSS-HA uses the Dell PowerVault storage arrays,
Dell Modular Disk Storage Manager (MDSM) is required for the configuration. For the purpose of
ensuring data integrity as much as possible, RAID 6 is adopted and RAID controller caching
mirroring is enabled on the storage controllers. The RAID 6 based virtual disks are created on
each of the storage arrays used in the solution. For example, if four storage arrays are included
in the solution, there are four virtual disks created.