[Gluster-users] gigabit to "infiniband storage network"

[tegner at renget.se]

I'm planning a storage solution for our HPC environment which is built on
both gigabit and infiniband switches. The "gluster storage nodes" are
connected to a "infiniband storage switch", and the question is how to
connect our gigabit based subclusters to this storage network.  As we see
it we could either:

(i) equip all gluster nodes with gigabit nodes and attach them to a
"gigabit storage network" (as well as the "infiniband storage network").
Our gigabit subclusters are then attached to a "gigabit storage network".

or

(ii) use a separate computer as router equipped with a bunch of gigabit
ports (for connecting with the gigabit subclusters) and a few infiniband
ports (for connecting with the "infiniband storage network"). This
computer could even play the double role as a gluster node?

Are there any praticular drawbacks with either of these ways of doing it?

As of today our gigabit subclusters are connected to single fileserver,
connected to a raided bunch of disks using FC, giving us sufficient I/O
performance. We are therefore inclined to believe that the second option
above would also be sufficient.

Regards, and thanks,

/jon