fidzu : Solaris

30 Jul 2010 10:00pm GMT

As I mentioned in my farewell to Sun, I am excited by the future; as you may have seen, that future is joining Joyent as their VP of Engineering.

So, why Joyent? I have known Joyeurs like Jason, Dave, Mark and Ben since back when the "cloud" was still just something that you drew up on a whiteboard as a placeholder for the in-between crap that someone else was going to build and operate. But what Joyent was doing was very much what we now call cloud computing - it was just that in describing Joyent in those pre-cloud days, I found it difficult to convey exactly why what they were doing was exciting (even though to me it clearly was). I found that my conversations with others about Joyent always ended up in the ditch of "virtual hosting", a label that grossly diminished the level of innovation that I saw in Joyent. Fortunately for my ability to explain the company, "cloud" became infused with much deeper meaning - one that matched Joyent's vision for itself.

So Joyent was cloud before there was cloud, but so what? When I started to consider what was next for me, one of the problems that I kept coming back to was DTrace for the cloud. What does dynamic instrumentation look like in the cloud? How do you make data aggregation and retention scale across many nodes? How do you support the ad hoc capabilities that make DTrace so powerful? And how do you visualize the data that in a way that allows for those ad hoc queries to be visually phrased? To me, these are very interesting questions - but looking around the industry, it didn't seem that too many of the cloud providers were really interested in tackling these problems. However, in a conversation at my younger son's third birthday party with Joyeur (and friend) Rod Boothby, it became clear that Joyent very much shared my enthusiasm for this problem - and more importantly, that they had made the right architectural decisions to allow for solving it.

My conversation with Rod kicked off more conversations, and I quickly learned that this was not the Joyent that I had known - that the company was going through a very important inflection point whereby they sought a leadership position in innovating in the cloud. To match this lofty rhetoric, the company has a very important proof point: the hiring of Ryan Dahl, inventor and author of node.js.

Before getting into the details of node.js, one should know that I am a JavaScript lover. (If you didn't already know this about me, you might be somewhat surprised by this - and indeed, there was a time when such a confession would have to be whispered, if it could be said at all - but times have changed, and I'm loud and proud!) My affection for the language came about over a number of years, and crescendoed at Fishworks when I realized that I needed to rewrite our CLI in JavaScript. And while I'm not sure if I'm the only person or even the first to write JavaScript that was designed to be executed over a 9600 baud TTY, it sure as hell felt like I was a pioneer in some perverse way…

Given my history, I clearly have a natural predisposition towards server-side JavaScript - but node.js is much more than that: its event driven model coupled with the implicitly single-threadedness of JavaScript constrains the programmer into a model that allows for highly scalable control logic, but only with sequential code. (For more on this, see Ryan's recent Google tech talk - though I have no idea what was meant when Ryan was introduced as "controversial".) This idea - that one can (and should!) build a concurrent system out of sequential components - is one that Jeff and I discussed this in our ACM Queue article on real-world concurrency:

To make this concrete, in a typical MVC (model-view-controller) application, the view (typically implemented in environments such as JavaScript, PHP, or Flash) and the controller (typically implemented in environments such as J2EE or Ruby on Rails) can consist purely of sequential logic and still achieve high levels of concurrency, provided that the model (typically implemented in terms of a database) allows for parallelism. Given that most don't write their own databases (and virtually no one writes their own operating systems), it is possible to build (and indeed, many have built) highly concurrent, highly scalable MVC systems without explicitly creating a single thread or acquiring a single lock; it is concurrency by architecture instead of by implementation.

But Ryan says all that much more concisely at 21:40 in the talk: "there's this great thing in Unix called 'processes.'" Amen! So node.js to me represents a confluence of many important ideas - and it's clean, well-implemented, and just plain fun to work with.

While I am excited about node.js, it's more than just a great idea that's well executed - it also represents Joyent's vision for itself as an innovator up and down the stack. One can view node.js as being to Joyent was Java was to Sun: transforming the company from one confined to a certain layer into a true systems company that innovates up and down the stack. Heady enough, but if anything this analogy understates the case: Joyent's development of node.js is not merely an outgrowth of an innovative culture, but also a reflection of a singular focus to deliver on the economies of scale that are the great promise of cloud computing.

Add it all up - the history in the cloud space, the disposition to solving tough cloud problems that I want to solve like instrumentation and observability, and the exciting development of node.js - and you have a company in Joyent that I believe could be the next great systems company and I'm deeply honored (and incredibly excited) to be a part of it!

30 Jul 2010 8:46pm GMT

• Oeffentlich-Rechtliche Sender: Vom Volk bezahlte Verbloedung - Gesellschaft - ZEIT ONLINE
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• Starttermin und Handlung: "Monster AG 2": Sully & Mike treffen erwachsene Boo | News | kino.de
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30 Jul 2010 7:00pm GMT

There is a official webpage for Oracle Solaris Premier Support on non-Sun HW at oracle.com.

30 Jul 2010 12:54pm GMT

Last night a really large putback found it's way into the codebase: It centers around the Fault Management Architecture of Solaris. A lot of new features found their way in Opensolaris. For example smtp-notify:

smtp-notify is a small, lightweight daemon that is fully managed by the Service Management Facility (SMF). It uses the interfaces delivered in libfmevent to subscribe to both software and FMA problem lifecycle events. Upon receipt of an event, it produces an email notification based on a set of notification preferences which are stored in the SMF service configuration repository.

or snmp-notify

snmp-notify will generate one of two types of SNMP traps, based on the event class. For FMA events (list.* events), snmp-notify will generate the existing sunFmProblemTrap trap as defined in /etc/net-snmp/snmp/mibs/SUN-FM-MIB.mib. For software events (swevent.*), snmp-notify will generate a sunSweventTrap trap as defined in /etc/net-snmp/snmp/mibs/SUN-SWEVENT-MIB.mib.

Furthermore there are lot of other changes, for example a way to configure the notifications in the SMF repository or the definition of FMA events for instance state transitions (eg. a service going online or offline or in maintainance state).

As SMF is running in each zone on it's own, the fmd (the fault management daemon) had to be enabled to run in non-global zones as well. This was introduced by PSARC 2010/225:

This RFE will enable fmd and associated SMF services in a non-global Solaris zone. The set of fmd plugins delivered into a zone will be restricted to those that are relevant - the hardware-oriented modules, particularly, will not be delivered in a non-global zone.

The first consumer of the fmd service in a non-global Solaris zone will be SMF; this will work with fmd to achieve snmp and email notifications of instance state transitions.

30 Jul 2010 9:25am GMT

The world celebrates the 11th SysAdminDay today. To all the users out there: This is a nice opportunity to thank your admin staff for doing migrations at night to keep your business running at day, for making seemingly impossible requirements possible, for keeping the systems up and running, for answering your questions, that would be able to answer yourself with google in the time you need to pick up the phone

And keep in mind, your admin would do everything for you to restore the operations of your datacenter:

30 Jul 2010 7:44am GMT

Yesterdays announcement regarding support subscriptions on HP and Dell x86 system has a much broader background. In this article i want to share this information with you:

• Albeit the recent announcement just talked about HP and Dell, this offer is valid for all certified systems on the HCL. There are 508 server systems right now on the HCL. You will find the HCL here. If the systems isn't on the HCL, ask your vendor to certify it. So you are able to buy support and for Fujitsu Systems as well as for IBM systems for example.
• Pricing is socket-based. You pay $1000 for Oracle Premier Support for Operating Systems per year per socket for systems with one to four sockets and $2000 per socket per year for systems with more than five sockets.
• As most of my readers are interested in Solaris, i think i know the next question: As you may know, the Software License Agreement for Solaris for example just allows you to use Solaris 10 up to 90 days in production use without entitlement. This support offering provides you a non-perpetual entitlement to run Solaris 10 on a non-Oracle HW. To say it simple: It's a subscription. This entitlement is valid for the same period as your support. When you don't renew the support, you don't have an entitlement to use Solaris in production after your support expires.
• The support is provided directly from Oracle.
• The rules with Sun servers are different: You get a bundled perpetual license with your server and pay only 8% (SW) or 12% (SW+HW) of the net systems price for support.
• Albeit you have now the choice to run Solaris on non-Oracle x86 servers, i see several advantages to use Solaris on Sun equipment. Those advantages range from "Same vendor of OS and HW" to "Better integration of the system into the Fault Management Architecture of Solaris"

(Safe Harbour: Keep in mind, that this blog is a private one. I don't write in my function as a Oracle employee. The interpretation of the rules expressed by an Oracle representant is the authoritative one)

30 Jul 2010 5:12am GMT

• Kritik an Wikileaks: Daniel Ellsbergs Pentagon-Papiere waren besser - Afghanistan - Politik - FAZ.NET
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29 Jul 2010 7:00pm GMT

Just choked on my tea and spew it halfway to my display while reading this:

Okay, i won't call TPM by his other name, as he didn't called me SunHead or so ...

29 Jul 2010 5:34pm GMT

I had an important meeting this afternoon. I signed a contract, the ink is dry and now i will leaving Hamburg in three month or so.
Continue reading "Now it's official ...."

29 Jul 2010 5:04pm GMT

Oracle just announced:

• Oracle today announced Dell and HP will certify and resell Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM on their respective x86 platforms.
• Customers will have full access to Oracle's Premier Support for Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM running on Dell and HP servers. This will enable fast and accurate issue resolution and reduced risk in a company's operating environment

29 Jul 2010 4:39pm GMT

As you may already know, Oracle Sun patches are now available from My Oracle Support (MOS).

We've uploaded over 30,000 6-2 digit PatchIDs to MOS, including all Solaris 8, 9, and 10 patches, SunCluster, and patches for over a thousand other products. Virtually any patch which is available on SunSolve is now also available from MOS, making MOS your one stop support shop for all Oracle products.

Customers with an Oracle support contract can log into My Oracle Support.

Click on the "Patches & Updates" tab and you'll see that the Patch Search options have been expanded to "Patch Name, Number or Sun CR ID". As it suggests, you can search by the 6-2 digit PatchID or a Sun CR (Change Request) number (i.e. 7 digit BugID).

You can also search by "Product". For example, select "Solaris Operating System" and then in the next line select the versions you are interested in. MOS remembers choices across login sessions, so previous choices will appear top of the list next time you login. You can refine your search - for example, click on the arrow beside "Platform" and select "Type". If you select "Patchset" and click the "Search" button, it'll return the Patch Clusters and Patch Bundles such as the Solaris OS Recommended Patch Cluster and Solaris OS Critical Patch Update (CPU).

So which Oracle Sun patches are currently available from MOS ?:

• Over 30,000 Oracle Sun 6-2 digit PatchIDs (i.e. of the format xxxxxx-xx) for over a thousand products and product versions. This includes all Solaris 8, 9, and 10 patches, SunCluster patches, etc.
• Almost all the Oracle Sun Patch Clusters and Patch Bundles.

What's not yet available (but coming soon) ?:

• Oracle Sun "patches" which are not hosted on SunSolve. These are patches which are not in 6-2 digit PatchID format and are not applied using the Solaris 'patchadd' utility, including Firmware patches for x86 and M-Series. It is planned to upload these in a future MOS release. In the meantime, please continue to download them from the existing download sites. See http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/systems/patches/firmware/index.html.
• StorageTek 6-2 digit PatchIDs. Most StorageTek patches are in a mainframe patch format and are not applied using the Solaris 'patchadd' utility. To host them on SunSolve after the StorageTek acquistion, we wrapped them in a 6-2 digit PatchID. However, it doesn't make sense to wrap these StorageTek 6-2 digit PatchIDs in Oracle BugDB IDs which would be a second level of indirection. Instead, it is planned to upload the original Storagetek patches natively to MOS in a future release. In the meantime, please continue to download them from SunSolve.
• Really, really old patches, such as SunOS 1.x patches, Solaris 7 and older patches, etc. These are utterly obsolete products so there's no point in propageting this crud forward.
• The multi-part Solaris Update Patch Bundles. These will be coming soon. In the meantime, please continue to download them from the SunSolve Patch Cluster and Patch Bundle Download Page.
• Security T-Patches and ISRs (Interim Security Relief). It is planned to support these in a future MOS release. In the meantime, please continue to download them from the SunSolve Temporary or Interim Security Updates page.
• Public patches available without a support contract, such as OpenOffice and StarOffice patches. It is planned to support these in a future MOS release. In the meantime, please continue to download them from SunSolve.
• Some patch metadata files such as the "Checksum" and "patchdiag.xref" files. It is planned to support these in a future MOS release. In the meantime, please continue to download them from SunSolve.

Enjoy!

29 Jul 2010 12:22pm GMT

Richard Fichera of Forrester writes in "Does SPARC Have a Future?":

Our net take is that while it may still be hard to convince a new customer to jump on board the SPARC bandwagon, existing customers have no reason to make an abrupt migration, and can wait and see if Sun delivers on the milestones that they will reveal over the remainder of 2010 and into 2011. As these milestones are disclosed we will have further analysis.

Interestingly there is an comment about Solaris on x86 at the end of the article:

On a related topic which we will address in more depth in future posts, Solaris on x86 will remain a solid enterprise choice for both current and new users. Customer issues with Sun were centered around SPARC and the strategic future of the company as opposed to technical issues with Solaris functionality, performance or stability. The continued availability of this proven operating environment, with an anticipation of continued investment and improvement by Oracle, is a strong positive for any customer looking for an enterprise-class Unix environment on an x86 platform.

29 Jul 2010 9:28am GMT

The Opensolaris SATA subsystem got TRIM support with this putback to the codebase. The TRIM command is really interesting for SSDs, as the operating system can tell the SSD which blocks aren't used by the filesystem any longer with this comment. This helps the internal garbage collection of the drives to work more efficiently at erasing blocks ahead of their usage. As erasing is really an costly operating with Flash-SSD, erasing the blocks before you need them speed up things a lot.

29 Jul 2010 6:23am GMT

Just in case you are asking yourself, where Bryan Cantrill will work in the future - it's Joyent:

Joyent, a leading global provider of cloud computing solutions, today named Bryan Cantrill as VP of Engineering. Cantrill will be responsible for overseeing worldwide development focused on operating systems, including building additional innovation into Joyent's SmartOS and SmartDataCenter.

28 Jul 2010 8:12pm GMT

Is this a new trend in IT sales? Companies offering AMEX gift cards for attending a sales presentation. Got the second mail of this kind. Greenbytes offered $50 for listening to them, a few minutes ago i've got a similar mail from a company called Exagrid offering $100 for an half hour web presentation.

Somehow i'm not sure what i should think about that: Should i translate this "We are so sure that you will buy the product that we pay you to take a sales call!" or "We are so desperate that we need to pay people just to take a sales call...".

Perhaps you could make a living out of professional sales attending ... given that such examples are representing a trend ... or auction an hour a day on eBay in half-hour increments for such paid sales calls

28 Jul 2010 7:54pm GMT