We ran tests with the SmartConnect configuration in place and the SMB shares were mounted using the SmartConnect zone name. All tests resulted in zero dropped video.
Video playback test
As video is being written to the storage, we recalled or reviewed the video at a rate equal to 30 percent of the write rate.
The review did not affect the write rate or video quality.
Disk failure test
A single disk failure is the most common failure affecting storage systems today. When a disk fails, that disk is removed and replaced. The replacement disk is then reconstructed.
The PowerScale cluster was protected using a +2 protection scheme that allows for two simultaneous disk failures. In our test, we failed and recovered two disks. The SmartFail process started and the CPU utilization of the node increased with no observed effect to the write streams.
NIC failure test
A NIC failure test is conducted to evaluate node to node NIC failure/recovery resiliency.
We performed the NIC failure test by removing one NIC cable from the active node that was involved in active recording. When the network fails, the server must recognize the failure, then it must establish a new connection with a peer node. The TCP socket connections are left open and remain open on the cluster until PowerScale's OneFS forces them closed, which allows the server to continue writing.
For more information on reducing the open TCP sockets close duration, see the SMB specific configuration section in the Dell Storage with Avigilon Control Center Configuration Guide.
NIC failure test with NIC aggregation in active/passive
The NIC aggregation test are conducted to evaluate the NIC failure/recovery resiliency within a single node.
We did a hard NIC failure test with active/passive aggregation by removing the active NIC port cable. After the network failure, writing to the same node continued and the NIC that was passive was immediately changed to the active NIC. The NIC failure caused no apparent loss.
Node reboot test
We performed reboot tests to verify that video is not interrupted during maintenance cycles or other reboot activities.
Node poweroff test
We simulate an unexpected single node hard failure, which causes the servers that were writing to that node to reconnect to a new node. Tests showed that in some cases video loss is possible using the default OneFS lazy queue depth.
For more information on setting the Lazy Queue for a no loss configuration, see the SMB specific configuration section of the Dell Storage with Avigilon Control Center Configuration Guide.