Re: PostgreSQL NetApp and NFS

> I need to know if anyone out there is/has run their PostgreSQL on NetApp
arrays via NFS. My particular situation is RH Linux 4 servers running
Postgresql 8.1. I need
> to provide our Operations manager with specific reasons why we should not
run PostgreSQL over NetApp NFS. Otherwise, they will go forward with this.

> If you have any real life good or bad stories, I'd love to hear it.
Given the NetApp arrays supposedly being very good NFS platforms, overall,
is this a recommended way
> to run PostgreSQL, or is it recommended to not run this way.

We have been running Postgres over NFS to a NetApp since 7.1 and we have
nothing but good things to say. We have 75 databases in 3 clusters all
connected to one netapp. We don't store a huge amount of data, currently
~43Gig, but it is constantly updated.

We keep the pgsql/data directory on the netapp. If one of our db servers
ever have a problem, we can just swap out the box, mount the drive and
restart postgres.

We like our support we get from them, the only issue we ever have is having
a drives fail which they get replacements to us promptly. Our NetApp has an
uptime currently over 2 years.

By the way, I though NetApp boxes came with an iSCSI license. NetApp
downplayed the iSCSI with us because they said you cannot share drives
between servers, but for postgres you don't want that anyway. It could
have also been that the NetApp is better tuned for NFS throughput and they
want to steer the user toward that.

If you want more specifics, feel free to ask.

Woody
iGLASS Networks