RHEL5 Server and GFS

[blu at scrunch.net (Bob - BLU)]

On 03/02/07 11:28, Christoph Doerbeck wrote:
> 
> I am planning on presenting this months meeting.  In my current plan,  
> I have the intent to deliver a session on GFS and iSCSI.  This falls 
> right in line with my usual enterprise-linux theme discussions.

A lot of fun, thanks Christoph!

At the meeting there was some discussion about which "enterprise capabilities" are available in RHEL5 Server versus Advanced Platform.  In specific, does the Server version provide GFS support.  I believe that answer is Yes, you get GFS, but not the Cluster Suite.  I think the idea is that you get to set up servers with GFS, and when you're ready to scale into a cluster, purchase the Advanced Platform license to get the clustering capabilities.

I base this upon the following marketing literature:

Two links that indicate GFS and Cluster Suite are not part of the Server platform:

  http://www.redhat.com/rhel/server/compare/
  http://www.redhat.com/apps/store/server/

Two links that read as if GFS is available:

  http://www.redhat.com/apps/store/server/rhel.html (Benefits)

"Easy upgrade and transition from small, non-virtualized systems to larger configurations: (Contains single system guest versions of Logical Volume Manager (LVM),Global File System (GFS) and Distributed Lock Management DLM making it easier to maintain a consistent file system and logical volume configuration)"

  http://www.redhat.com/rhel/server/details/#file_systems_virt

"Single systems or virtualized guests using these technologies can be easily upgraded to operate in multi-system and multi-guest configurations by upgrading to Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform, which provides multi-system and multi-guest (cluster-wide) versions of the LVM, GFS and DLM. This seamless migration eliminates the need to remap the storage subsystem, reformat disk partitions, or rewrite application synchronization routines when moving from a standalone server to a multi-system or virtualized configuration."


There was also a question if RHEL5 Server included GNBD support.  I can't pull the answer from the marketing goop, but here is what GNBD is:

  https://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-5-manual/Global_Network_Block_Device/index.html
  https://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/csgfs/browse/rh-cms-desc-ov-en/s1-gnbd-overview.html


As an FYI - RHEL5 Server (standard non-Xen kernel) appears to function under VMWare workstation.


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