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Have you heard of GlusterFS?



GlusterFS is cluster file system that is already tried and tested disk file systems like ext3, ext4, xfs, more to store data. It can easily scale up to petabytes of storage under a single mount point for the user. It is free and open source software available as GNU GPL v3 and some parts as GNU GPL v2.

GlusterFS Servers run glusterfsd daemon to export local file system as volume and glusterfs client process can connect to servers through custom protocol over TCP/IP.  The final volume can be mounted by the client using NFS v3 protocol also.

Why should I use this?
I find it useful typically in cloud environment where I need to scale out. More importantly, when I use AWS cloud, GlusterFS is available as AMI. With standard and premium support subscriptions available from Gluster, the option enables your solution's business continuity by providing disaster recovery capability. Also, Now, I can view file storage service as a commodity. Finally, Gluster is the only highly available storage solution for AWS EC2 AND AWS EBS.

Where do you want to use?
Imagine a scenario where you are designing the solution that involves EC2 and EBS deployment. There is a need for shared file system. The options are plenty, however the simple solution could be to use NFS server. While this is a real solution, You still need to address the problems of production like the following:

1.     What if your storage goes beyond the limit that you envisaged at the time production?
2.     What if your storage infrastructure fails for any reason?

The answer is that the designers will have to provide disaster recovery, high availability and scale out strategies. Alternatively, you can use GlusterFS support on AWS to address all your production needs; In one line, You have outsourced your storage solution support to Gluster support.

However, this comes at cost, and I think, its fair as its Pay as you go model.

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