Crettol, Norbert

Formaz, Frank

Infoscience - École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne

 ICOMMUNCATIONIDIAPRue du Simplon 4IDIAP Research Institute1920 Martigny − Switzerlandwww.idiap.chTel: +41 27 721 77 11 Email: info@idiap.chP.O. Box 592Fax: +41 27 721 77 12The IDIAP Multimedia FileServerFrank Formaz a,Norbert.Crettol aIDIAP–Com 04-05June 2004a {Frank.Formaz,Norbert.Crettol}@idiap.chIDIAP–Com 04-05 1Contents1 Abstract 22 Introduction 23 Needs and Requirements 24 Solution developed 24.1 First settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.2 New Solution Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34.2.1 RAID Adapter and disks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34.2.2 Mainboard and memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34.2.3 Network adapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44.2.4 Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44.3 System Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44.4 Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44.4.1 www . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54.4.2 ftp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54.4.3 rtsp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54.4.4 jsp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54.4.5 network access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54.4.6 filemanager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64.5 Performances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Data Processing 66 Conclusion 77 Acknowledgements 72 IDIAP–Com 04-051 AbstractThe IDIAP Multimedia File Server is a system designed to store and share all the data generatedby our Smart Meeting Room [10] and our partners using different ways. This document presents adetailed description of the system including the hardware and the services.2 IntroductionIn addition of our Smart Meeting Room we needed to setup a system to share the recorded data toour partners. Because of the size of those data (detail below) and the variety of required services, itwasn’t possible to use one simple computer. That’s why a completely new solution has been set.3 Needs and RequirementsAfter a first set of scripted meetings [8] some details for the implementation have been fixed. Theraw video data will not any more stored but only the original DV tapes are kept as backup. Thiswill save a lot of disk space as DivX compression will be used to compressed the raw video data. Thefollowing parameters have been chosen for the DivX tunning: bitrate 2300 and keyframes 300 whichreduce dramatically the data size (raw data 250MB/min/camera divx data 17MB/min/camera) butkeep a enough good quality for further processing. For the audio, the original 48kHz recordings aredownsampled to 16kHz and original files are not saved.In order to share the data, various capabilities are needed. Firstly all the ”public” data have tobe available from the web and thought ftp. In addition, to allow people to have a first look on thedata, realmedia files have also to be provided.Finally, this system should be available to other partner though protected areas and has to be OSindependent.Internally the data have to be shared to either Unix or Windows people with restricted rights.Some security policies have been defined in order to recover from a possible lost of data. All the audioand video data are burned on DVD-R to allow a fast recovery of original data in case of disater ofto share data to partners. Because the size of this system, a backup with tape will be as expensiveas the complete system so we decided not to implement such a solution. That’s why the systemhas to be hardware defect robust and a weekly backup should also be available to avoid user wrongmanipulations..4 Solution developedFor either cost or performances reasons, a linux platform has been chosen for this project with usageas much as possible to opensoftwares. The main reason for this choice is the the fact that peopleusing various systems have to be able to deal with the data and we should not be limitated by specificlicenses in term of users number.4.1 First settingsA first system based on an old PIII-500 PC with 2 NAS of 320 GB mirrored once a week has been setwith the rsync software [13]. Rapidly the limits in terms of performances and disk size were reachedbut all the required services were present for a really low cost as it was common hardware. The majorproblem for this system was the security because of the difficulty to manage access on the data. Dueto this problem it was not possible to internally share data to people however everything was availableon the web or throught ftp. For all those reasons it has been decided to develop a new dedicatedsystem able to manage all those features.IDIAP–Com 04-05 34.2 New Solution DescriptionAfter looking on commercial products able to share TB of data and able to be flexible enough toprovide easily new services for an affordable price we were in front of a problem because nothing wasreally available. So we decided to start from scratch in order to exactely match our needs. The goalwas to obtain a system as much flexible as possible with high performances in term of disk access,speed of network shares access and local application running. Last but no least we started this projectin middle of year 2003.4.2.1 RAID Adapter and disksAs one of the most important point was the financial aspect of the project, we decided to have a lookon IDE disks intead of SCSI or FC one however there are more often used for this type of application.The difference in term of price can be a coefficient of 4 to much more. Different manufacturers provideRAID adapters which support IDE disks. We choose finally 3ware for the following reasons:• RAID 5 support with dedicated controllers supported on linux (up to 12 disks/controller)• Hotswap and hotspare support.• Good linux supportThe fourth generation of those cards is supporting the new SATA disks which seems to be thefuture reference for low price storage. However the prices are a little bit more expensive (6than normalIDE disks,we have the big advantage of a better performance in addition to the much more smallercables size which is better for the ventilation of a small rack case 4.2.4. The final choise has so bedone on the 3ware Escalade 8506-8 SATA RAID Controller [3].Figure 1: 3ware Escalade 8506-8 SATA RAID ControllerIn order to avoid later problems if we have to contact the 3ware support we also have to choose adisk which is known as supported by 3ware [1]. The final choice has been done on a 250GB disk fromMaxtor [9].4.2.2 Mainboard and memoryAs for the disk choice, the mainboard need also to be known as compatible with the 3ware card. Acompatibility list is provided [2] and so the choice has to be done between an Intel or AMD architecture.The Intel Xeon architecture is finally chosen because of it’s better performance treating I/O. The finalchoice has been done on the SuperMicro X5DPE-G2 motherboard [15].To provide a good solution to local applications running at the same time than data sharing andother services like www, ftp, rtsp or filemanager, we need a computer with enough memory andpowerfull CPU. That’s why we choose to install two Xeon 2.66GHz with 2GB DIMM (2 x Kingston1GB DDR 266MHz CL2.5).4 IDIAP–Com 04-05Figure 2: SuperMicro X5DPE-G2 Motherboard4.2.3 Network adapterThe two onboard gigabit network ports are based on an Intel chipset which is not only well knownbut also one of the better supported ethernet chipset on linux and one of the most efficient [12].4.2.4 CaseAs case we have to concider a rackmount system which can be used with a dual Xeon motherboardand at least 16 hotswap disks. The final choice has been done on a 3U rackmount case from AIC [4].This system is robust to fan or power supply defect which was one of our requirement. This rackcan also aquire a small 2.5 inches HDD which will store the system. This will simplify our life for theconfiguration and let us the 16*250GB only for the data.4.3 System ConfigurationFrom the raw capacity of 4T (16*250GB) we setup 2 RAID 5 volumes of 8 disks (1 parity, 1 spare, 6data) using the ext3 filesystem. Those two 1.5GB volumes are then merged into one simple RAID 0volume of 3TB. Using the LVM capabilities available on the system, we are able to set smaller logicalvolumes into this space and change their size on the fly. We finally set 3 volumes. One for the systembackup, one for the mmm data and the last one for weekly backups in order to provide a user misusagereliability. This latest volume can be deleted at any time in case of new capacity needs for mmm.With this setting we are robust to disk crash and in case of problem we can replace defect hardwarewithout system interrupt. In case of system disk crash, we setup a mirror on the data volume whichcan also be use to boot or correct eventual problems. We are also able to boot with a CD.4.4 ServicesAfter the hardware setting we started the services configuration. Based on a debian distribution, ourlinux box has been configured with following services:IDIAP–Com 04-05 5Figure 3: The MMM server4.4.1 wwwMain way to access mmm data, this service is based on the well known apache [5] server. A simpleinterface has been designed to show the recorded meetings and powerfull tools are beeing developpedto provide dynamic access to the whole data stored on the server (video, audio, white board, beamer,pen, meeting documents, ....).4.4.2 ftpThe ftp protocol is provided by the very light but powerfull vsftp [17]. This server is not only one ofthe lightest on the market but also one of the most secure.4.4.3 rtspIn order to have a quick look on the data content without downloading the whole data (which ismandatory especially for partners who cannot download tenth of gigabytes over the internet), a videostreaming system has been setup. Two main concurent are available on the market. The WindowsMedia Server from Microsoft and Real Server from Realnetworks [11]. The second has finally beenchosen because of the availability of players on both unix and windoze world.4.4.4 jspTo develop some of the front end interfaces of the system, the use of java programming was necessary.That’s why a tomcat5 [16] server has been setup on the system.4.4.5 network accessThe sharing of data is done by two ways. For unix people an internal NFS3 share is provided and forwindows people the same data are shared using samba [14]. Different access rights such as read only6 IDIAP–Com 04-05or write only on some directories have been setup to allow clear distinction between different type ofusers (guest users, developer, data manager, administrator).4.4.6 filemanagerFor the M4 project partners, a protected area has been setup on top of the web server using a modifiedversion of FileManager [7]. This interface allow authorized people not only to access private data butalso to upload personal data on the server.4.5 PerformancesPerfs: some bench tests have been run on the system to check performances. In order to stress atmaximum the system we used the bonnie++ benchmark suite [6]. We got so locally 280MB/s forread and 60MB/s for write (which correspond to services access such as web). Through the networkwe obtain 80MB/s for read and 15MB/s for write (which correspond to nfs or smb access).5 Data ProcessingAfter setting up the services, the use of them is the best way to be sure of their behaviour. In order tobe usable on the final front end, the recorded data have to be prepared to deal with special formats.In addition data have to be provided in two modes. Previsualization mode and research mode. Thefirst one is available on the web page and allows people to have a first look on the recorded data andso, the goal is to provided data the lighter as possible. But, in order to use those data for researchpurpose people need data the more detailed as possible and that’s why we also have to provide datain high quality mode (wav for audio and DivX for video). The following picture 4 explains the wholepreprocessing work which allow us to provide wav, divX, real and other files.httpftprtspjspDV plaveranalogvideoDVDivXRealwavMMM serverDVS−VideostorageLinux ServerservicesPreProcessing workstationminiDV taperecorded into SMRFigure 4: Data ProcessingIDIAP–Com 04-05 76 ConclusionA fully icompact, usable and affordable 3TB system has been setup with hardware robustness andserious access control in order to manage the data recorded from our SMR in addition to otherpartners. Those data are shared to user using various services such as www, jsp, ftp, rtsp, nfs or smband is flexible enough to deal with future extensions. In addition, as new products are coming on themarket now using this technology (SATA RAID), it confirm us it was a good and efficient choice.7 AcknowledgementsA big part of this project has been realized by Marcel de Riedmatten who managed all the initialsetting of the System. Other people at IDIAP have also been involved in the installation and settingof the new Server. These people are: Pierre Wellner, Sbastien Marcel, Mael Guillemot, Mike Flynnand Thierry Collado.References[1] 3ware. 3ware PATA/SATA drive compatibility list. http://3ware.com/products/pdf/Drive compatibility list.pdf.[2] 3ware. 3ware tested motherboard compatibility list. http://3ware.com/products/pdf /Mother-board compatibility list.pdf.[3] 3ware. Escalade 8506-8 SATA RAID Controller. http://www.3ware.com/products/serial ata.asp.[4] AIC. AIC RMC3E 3U Rackmount 16 x S-ATA Hot-Swap w/650W Redundant PS.http://www.aicmicro.com.[5] apache. apache Project Page. http://www.apache.org.[6] Russell Coker. Bonnie++ Benchmark Suite. http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/.[7] horsburg. FileManager Project Page. http://www.horsburgh.com/h filemanager.html.[8] D. Gatica-Perez I. McCowan and S. Bengio. Meeting data collection specifications. TechnicalReport IDIAP-COM-03-10, IDIAP, 2003.[9] Maxtor. Maxtor 250GB, 720RPM, 8MB cache SATA disk 7Y250MO. http://www.maxtor.com/.[10] D. Moore. The idiap smart meeting room. Technical Report IDIAP-COM-02-07, IDIAP, 2002.[11] Real Networks. Real Server. http://www.real.com.[12] A. Betz P. Gray. Performance evaluation of copper-based gigabit ethernet interfaces. In 27thAnnual IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN’02), Tampa, Florida, 2002.[13] rsync. Rsync Project Page. http://rsync.samba.org/.[14] samba. Samba Project Page. http://www.samba.org.[15] SuperMicro. Mainboard SuperMicro X5DPE-G2-O. http://www.supermicro.com/PRODUCT/MotherBoards/E7501/X5DPE.htm.[16] tomcat. Tomcat Project Page. http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat.[17] vsftpd. vsftpd Project Page. http://vsftpd.beasts.org/.

The IDIAP Multimedia File Server

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The IDIAP Multimedia File Server

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Infoscience - École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne