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Most Used high availability Storage Solutions

In the real world, for high availability (HA), the following solutions are most commonly used depending on the scale and requirements of the environment:

1. DRBD (Distributed Replicated Block Device) + Pacemaker

  • Usage: DRBD is widely used in high-availability clusters to replicate data in real time at the block level between two or more nodes. Pacemaker acts as the cluster manager to ensure failover between nodes.
  • Real-World Usage: DRBD + Pacemaker is a common setup in environments where high availability is critical (e.g., databases, web servers, or file servers) without requiring a full distributed filesystem. It’s often used in on-premises data centers or smaller cloud deployments.

2. GlusterFS

  • Usage: GlusterFS is frequently used in HA setups for its ability to provide distributed, replicated storage across multiple nodes. It ensures data redundancy and availability across different servers in the cluster.
  • Real-World Usage: Popular for large-scale environments that need both horizontal scaling and high availability, such as cloud providers or enterprises with large storage requirements (e.g., media companies, research labs).

3. Ceph

  • Usage: Ceph provides highly available object, block, and file storage across a distributed cluster. It is designed for environments that require scalable and fault-tolerant storage.
  • Real-World Usage: Ceph is commonly deployed in large cloud infrastructures, particularly in environments using OpenStack or Kubernetes. It is popular among cloud providers and enterprises with vast amounts of data where data availability and redundancy are crucial.

4. Kubernetes + Persistent Volumes with Ceph or GlusterFS

  • Usage: For containerized environments, Kubernetes is commonly paired with persistent volumes provided by Ceph, GlusterFS, or other distributed storage solutions. This ensures high availability of data for applications running in containers.
  • Real-World Usage: Widely used in modern cloud-native applications, Kubernetes clusters with Ceph or GlusterFS-backed storage provide HA for microservices-based architectures.

5. Amazon S3 / Google Cloud Storage / Azure Blob Storage

  • Usage: In cloud environments, managed storage services like AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, or Azure Blob Storage are commonly used for high-availability file storage with automatic redundancy across multiple data centers.
  • Real-World Usage: These are standard for enterprises operating in public cloud environments where data redundancy and durability are critical. They are used for storage and backup purposes in websites, applications, and other critical infrastructure.

6. LVS (Linux Virtual Server) + Keepalived

  • Usage: LVS combined with Keepalived is a popular load-balancing solution to provide high availability for services. Keepalived monitors the health of servers and automatically fails over when a node goes down.
  • Real-World Usage: Commonly used for web applications, database clusters, or any service requiring load balancing and failover (e.g., NGINX or HAProxy load balancers).

7. ZFS Replication

  • Usage: ZFS snapshots and replication are used in high-availability setups, especially in environments using ZFS as the filesystem. Data can be replicated in real time or asynchronously between nodes.
  • Real-World Usage: ZFS replication is often used in enterprise environments where data integrity is a priority, such as in database servers or file storage systems.

8. MySQL/MariaDB Galera Cluster

  • Usage: For databases, the MySQL/MariaDB Galera cluster provides synchronous replication, ensuring all nodes are up-to-date. This is used for high availability and load balancing across multiple database nodes.
  • Real-World Usage: It is widely used in businesses that require high-availability database solutions, such as e-commerce websites, financial institutions, or SaaS providers.

9. NFS with HA (Pacemaker/Corosync)

  • Usage: Network File System (NFS) can be paired with Pacemaker or Corosync to create a highly available NFS server. Multiple NFS servers can provide redundancy and failover.
  • Real-World Usage: NFS with HA is commonly used for file sharing in environments where data needs to be accessed by multiple servers, such as in application clusters or virtual machine hosting environments.

Summary of Popular Choices for HA:

  • Small to Medium Scale: DRBD + Pacemaker, GlusterFS, and NFS with Pacemaker are widely used.
  • Large Scale/Enterprise: Ceph and GlusterFS are popular for distributed HA across large environments.
  • Cloud Environments: AWS S3, Kubernetes + Ceph/GlusterFS, and managed cloud storage services are commonly used for high availability.
  • Databases: Galera clusters or distributed database setups are used for database HA.

These options are scalable and reliable solutions in real-world high-availability deployments depending on the specific requirements like data replication speed, complexity, and geographic redundancy. Let me know which one you’re interested in for further guidance.

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