SteelHead™ Deployment Guide - Protocols : Other Protocol Optimization : NFS Optimization
  
NFS Optimization
NFS optimization provides latency optimization improvements for NFS operations by prefetching data, storing it on the client SteelHead for a short amount of time, and using it to respond to client requests. You enable NFS optimization in high-latency environments.
You can configure NFS settings globally for all servers and volumes or you can configure NFS settings that are specific to particular servers or volumes. When you configure NFS settings for a server, the settings are applied to all volumes on that server unless you override settings for specific volumes.
NFS optimization is not supported in an out-of-path deployment.
NFS optimization is only supported for NFS v3.
For each SteelHead, you specify a policy for prefetching data from NFS servers and volumes. You can set the following policies for NFS servers and volumes:
  • Global Read/Write - Choose this policy when the data on the NFS server or volume can be accessed from any client, including LAN clients and clients using other file protocols. This policy ensures data consistency but does not allow for the most aggressive data optimization. Global Read/Write is the default value.
  • Custom - Create a custom policy for the NFS server.
  • Read-only - Any client can read the data on the NFS server or volume but cannot make changes.
  • After you add a server, the Management Console includes options to configure volume policies.
    For detailed information, see the SteelHead Management Console User’s Guide.
    Implementing NFS Optimization
    This section describes the basic steps for using the Management Console to implement NFS. For detailed information, see the SteelHead Management Console User’s Guide.
    Basic Steps
    Perform the following basic steps to configure NFS optimization.
    To configure NFS optimized connections
    Enable NFS in the Optimization > Protocols: NFS page.
    Enable NFS on all desired client and server SteelHeads.
    For each client SteelHead, configure NFS settings that apply by default to all NFS servers and volumes. For details, see the SteelHead Management Console User’s Guide.
    Configure these settings on all desired client SteelHeads. These settings are ignored on server-side SteelHeads. If you have enabled NFS optimization (as described in the previous step) on a server-side SteelHead, NFS configuration information for a connection is uploaded from the client-side SteelHead to the server SteelHead when the connection is established.
    If NFS is disabled on a server-side SteelHead, the appliance does not perform NFS optimization.
    For each client-side SteelHead, override global NFS settings for a server or volume that you specify. You do not need to configure these settings on server-side SteelHeads. If you have enabled NFS optimization on a server-side SteelHead, NFS configuration information for a connection is uploaded from the client-side SteelHead to the server-side SteelHead when the connection is established.
    If you do not override settings for a server or volume, the global NFS settings are used. If you do not configure NFS settings for a volume, the server-specific settings, if configured, are applied to the volume. If server‑specific settings are not configured, the global settings are applied to the server and its volumes.
    When you configure a prefetch policy for an NFS volume, you specify the desired volume by an FSID number. An FSID is a number NFS uses to distinguish mount points on the same physical file system. Because two mount points on the same physical file system have the same FSID, more than one volume can have the same FSID.
    For details, see the SteelHead Management Console User’s Guide.
    If you have configured IP aliasing for an NFS server, specify all of the server IP addresses in the SteelHead NFS-protocol settings.
    View and monitor NFS statistics in the Management Console Reports > Optimization: NFS Statistics.
    Configuring IP Aliasing
    If you have configured IP aliasing (multiple IP addresses) for an NFS server, you must specify all of the server IP addresses in the SteelHead NFS protocol settings for NFS optimization to work properly.
    To configure IP aliasing on a SteelHead
    In the Management Console, choose Optimization > Protocols: NFS.
    Select Add New NFS Server to expand the page.
    In the Name box, specify the name of the NFS server.
    Enter each server IP address in a comma-separated list in the Server IP box.
    Click Add.