xnat on a server: set-up advice?

[John McLean]

We've just started discussions with our IT server folks to determine how we should configure our server to host xnat.

I have few preconceptions about how this should be done so I've been looking through the xnat discussion forum and the examples of other xnat sites to see what configuration might best suit us.

We have the following loose outline so far

Linux OS on the server

RAID 5

My feeling from reading around the other sites was that the VM version of xnat seems to work well. My sites requirements are small to medium sized projects in the first instance. We believe our 10Tb server will keep us going for a while. I've also installed the xnat VM on a local PC and I like the fact it requires minimal configuration. Is there a compelling argument for not running the XNAT VM and to install all the xnat components onto the host OS?

One potential concern our IT guy raised about using the XNAT VM was that this might cause an issue as it is essentially a single file on the system. Has anyone experienced this? Might this pose a problem for RAID, perhaps in terms of time to recover data or other factor?

Advice on any of the above would be most welcome

Thanks

John

[Adam Harding]

> the VM version of xnat seems to work well.

> Is there a compelling argument for not running the XNAT VM and to install all the xnat components onto the host OS?

If you have some preferred OS in your IT infrastructure, dependencies for your backup solution, investment in configuration management, or similar, you might prefer to install XNAT yourself. You might find any system customization you require easier using whatever you're more familiar with. The published VM provides a quick way to get started with XNAT.

> [VM is essentially a single file on the system]
It's probably best not to put the data store on a virtual disk-backed filesystem, but you say you have a filer you'll be using so this won't be an issue for you. You can install your XNAT into its own Tomcat container with its own JDK into your xnat user's home director right on the filer and put the data store in a directory next to that. We even host the PostgreSQL backing database on VM; the important thing is that everything gets backed up one way or another, whatever it lives on.

As an aside, we run the majority of our web and application infrastructure on VMs whose disks are backed by filers and whose applications and associated data are backed by the same.

> Might this pose a problem for RAID, perhaps in terms of time to recover data or other factor?

We snapshot and backup whatever is on the filer. If that includes a virtual machine, it gets backed up too. You'll certainly want to make sure your backing database is backed up too, one way or another. Remember that RAID gains you performance and reliability, but not copy backup redundancy for your data.

In case "time to recover data" encompasses "RAID rebuild time", just follow the normal RAID configuration rules, trading out RAID size/speed for the reliability you're after.

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