9843767b21
Change-Id: I40999b1eb923fc3796cbb6d982e03d39cdf8c720 Implements: blueprint consistency-file-rename
99 lines
4.5 KiB
ReStructuredText
99 lines
4.5 KiB
ReStructuredText
===========
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Replication
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===========
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Because each replica in Object Storage functions independently and
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clients generally require only a simple majority of nodes to respond to
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consider an operation successful, transient failures like network
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partitions can quickly cause replicas to diverge. These differences are
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eventually reconciled by asynchronous, peer-to-peer replicator
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processes. The replicator processes traverse their local file systems
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and concurrently perform operations in a manner that balances load
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across physical disks.
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Replication uses a push model, with records and files generally only
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being copied from local to remote replicas. This is important because
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data on the node might not belong there (as in the case of hand offs and
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ring changes), and a replicator cannot know which data it should pull in
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from elsewhere in the cluster. Any node that contains data must ensure
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that data gets to where it belongs. The ring handles replica placement.
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To replicate deletions in addition to creations, every deleted record or
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file in the system is marked by a tombstone. The replication process
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cleans up tombstones after a time period known as the ``consistency
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window``. This window defines the duration of the replication and how
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long transient failure can remove a node from the cluster. Tombstone
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cleanup must be tied to replication to reach replica convergence.
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If a replicator detects that a remote drive has failed, the replicator
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uses the ``get_more_nodes`` interface for the ring to choose an
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alternate node with which to synchronize. The replicator can maintain
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desired levels of replication during disk failures, though some replicas
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might not be in an immediately usable location.
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.. note::
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The replicator does not maintain desired levels of replication when
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failures such as entire node failures occur; most failures are
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transient.
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The main replication types are:
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- Database replication
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Replicates containers and objects.
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- Object replication
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Replicates object data.
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Database replication
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Database replication completes a low-cost hash comparison to determine
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whether two replicas already match. Normally, this check can quickly
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verify that most databases in the system are already synchronized. If
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the hashes differ, the replicator synchronizes the databases by sharing
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records added since the last synchronization point.
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This synchronization point is a high water mark that notes the last
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record at which two databases were known to be synchronized, and is
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stored in each database as a tuple of the remote database ID and record
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ID. Database IDs are unique across all replicas of the database, and
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record IDs are monotonically increasing integers. After all new records
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are pushed to the remote database, the entire synchronization table of
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the local database is pushed, so the remote database can guarantee that
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it is synchronized with everything with which the local database was
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previously synchronized.
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If a replica is missing, the whole local database file is transmitted to
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the peer by using rsync(1) and is assigned a new unique ID.
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In practice, database replication can process hundreds of databases per
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concurrency setting per second (up to the number of available CPUs or
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disks) and is bound by the number of database transactions that must be
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performed.
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Object replication
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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The initial implementation of object replication performed an rsync to
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push data from a local partition to all remote servers where it was
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expected to reside. While this worked at small scale, replication times
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skyrocketed once directory structures could no longer be held in RAM.
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This scheme was modified to save a hash of the contents for each suffix
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directory to a per-partition hashes file. The hash for a suffix
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directory is no longer valid when the contents of that suffix directory
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is modified.
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The object replication process reads in hash files and calculates any
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invalidated hashes. Then, it transmits the hashes to each remote server
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that should hold the partition, and only suffix directories with
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differing hashes on the remote server are rsynced. After pushing files
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to the remote server, the replication process notifies it to recalculate
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hashes for the rsynced suffix directories.
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The number of uncached directories that object replication must
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traverse, usually as a result of invalidated suffix directory hashes,
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impedes performance. To provide acceptable replication speeds, object
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replication is designed to invalidate around 2 percent of the hash space
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on a normal node each day.
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