Win 2k3 co-located server and Linux Samba Mirrors

[Michael Butash]

I'll second dfs, or dfs-r(2) preferably.  You more or less have to run 
real windoze dc's at some point anyways, so take advantage of the 
proprietary solution within it unless you can afford netapp/emc/other 
storage solutions that do it more effectively as a canned, optimized 
solution.

Cisco and other enterprise-y vendors do "wan optimization" products 
around dfs as well effectively, using it as a caching solution for 
remote wan solutions when you get large enough to need it.  Sharepoint, 
wiki's, etc are built to scale around file storage (and sorting of it), 
whereas dumb storage is just that.  Can only grow the san so far without 
being more intelligent about storing the data anyways.

Look at something that does dedupe too so those 58mb tps reports aren't 
replicated 300 times bi-weekly. Check out opendedup.org and tell us how 
you fare.

-mb



On 04/09/2012 08:44 PM, Stephen wrote:
> well if you have windows servers depending on the traffice you can use
> DFS quite successfully.
>
> If you have Linux servers locally to the clients then i would probably
> look into rsync
>
> the real challenge is how much delta to the same set of files from
> what locations you will see.. this becomes a logistical nightmare.
>
> On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 5:37 PM, James Dugger<james.dugger at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I have a Company that has recently co-located their Windows 2003 Server to a
>> datacenter.  The system has been in a LAN environment for 15 years.  The
>> main file server consists of 2 Dell 2800 poweredge file servers with just
>> under 2 TB of stored files on these 2 servers in an array (don't know what
>> type either 5, or 10).  The company is an engineering firm and so the
>> project files involve AutoCAD .DWG, .DWF, and PDF drawings, along with
>> excel, doc, and pst files (exchange server is also co-located with the
>> database at 16 GB but is physically separate from the file server).
>>
>> The clients to this system are now connecting through VPNs to do work on
>> their workstations.  In principle it sounds great however the biggest issue
>> is the AutoCAD drawings.  The average drawing file in AutoCAD Civil3D is not
>> small 100K to 250K and each file references other shared networked drawings
>> (called externally referenced drawings).  These files can be the same or
>> larger.  This presents an issue with bandwidth (they are limited to 5Mbps
>> for the entire firm to share).
>>
>> I was thinking that each work site would improve there performance by
>> setting up an onsite mirror of the co-located file server and that each site
>> mirror would sync to the co-located server  2 -3 times per day.  This would
>> be only for the file server, exchange would continue pointed to the
>> co-location site.
>>
>> My questions are based on using Linux w/Samba on a file server to mirror and
>> sync with the Windows file server:
>>
>> 1. What recommendations for FOSS backup synchronization software does anyone
>> have experience with that they could recommend for this type of use.
>>
>> 2.  Given the fact that populating the mirrors will take an enormous amount
>> of time up front is there any recommendations again with item 1. or
>> procedurally that will make this an easier process.
>>
>> 3.   Any other pitfalls or thoughts regarding the VPN, tunneling, ssh,
>> connections between mirrors etc that come to mind again in relation to FOSS
>> software, Linux and Samba.
>>
>> Just as a further note, the files stored on the server are standard Office
>> documents and AutoCAD formats, as well as jpeg, TIFF, PDF, GIF.  there are
>> no databases or web servers running on the system to contend with.
>>
>> Thanks in advance for your thoughts and advice
>>
>> --
>> James
>>
>>
>>
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