More Niagara, LDOM, and Xen goodies!

Some articles of interest:

• Sun Readies LDOM Partitioning for Sparc T1 Servers
• Sun Begins work on Niagara 3 Chip
  
• Your OS on the T1 Hypervisor
• Solaris Virtualization and th Xen Hypervisor
  
• Xen BootCamp
  

My wife is awesome!

So my wife bought for me the first season of the new Dr. Who series on DVD for me! Absolutely awesome! I started watching the new series on the Sci-Fi channel not too long ago. At first I was really worried if the series was going to be a bomb like the Fox TV movie. But the effects and the stories are great and touch on some of the darker sides of the series. The second season started to air recently and I'm happy with the new Doctor, who brings a little more humour to the series (kinda like Tom Baker/Sylvester McCoy). Here are some links incase you haven't checked it out:

• BBC Link
  
• Sci-Fi Channel Link
  

A night out..

My wife and I finally got a chance to go out and see a movie together. We went out to see "The Prestige" which was really great! It has a great line up of actors, including Michael Caine. The movie touches on magic/illusionists, sci-fi, mystery, etc. Definitely has some interesting twists that will keep you interested and amazed. It was definitely great having a chance to go out and see a movie without it being a kids film;)

Oracle Selling Linux?

Yeah, you heard that correctly! Apparently, Oracle will sell it's own rebranded RedHat distro and provide enterprise support for it. Definitely a slap in the face for RedHat. Choice is good for the Linux community, but I really question the need for more distros. On the flip side, I can see Oracle providing better support than RedHat or Novell. I wonder if Oracle will make it's own OpenSolaris distro next? They do make extensive use of Solaris within their own product development and business processes. But as always, I remind people that Oracle wants to run on all platforms possible. This just cuts RedHat out of the picture for customers looking for a cheap software stack for Oracle products with support.

Sun Device Detection Tool

Finally, Sun has created a tool to help you identify if Solaris 10 x86 will support your hardware! Basicly, it's a Java application that looks at your hardware and lists if there are drivers in Solaris 10 for it. It runs on Solaris, Windows, and Linux. Definitely a handy tool for anyone curious about switching to Solaris on thier desktop or laptop. Unfortunately, it doesn't list drivers that are in OpenSolaris or on the OpenSolaris.org website, such as the wireless drivers.

Project Blackbox Pictures

I'm sure you've already read all the articles and seen the basic photos of Project Blackbox. But here are some nice links to photos of the inside:) I can definitely see uses for this in DR plans and of course the military.

JET, zones, and Build 49

So I finished downloading SX:CR build 49 for x86 and jumpstarted my laptop and even a VMware image! Sad to say that the pkgadd bug is still present in build 49. But the bug has already been filed on it. Hopefully that will get fixed and I can convert my custom module packages back into pkg datastream files. But it's nice to have everything on build 49. Just have to finish reinstalling my software.

I've been playing around with the zones module for JET a lot over the weekend. I've added some functionality to it and will probably continue to do so over this week. I'm hoping to send my additions to the JET guys. It would be nice if they end up integrated it.

One of the tricky bits to get around is SBD (Secure By Default). After the first boot off of the jumpstart client's disks, you don't have NFS services running. Definitely a pain. I have a quick and dirty fix that drops an RC script in place in the custom_files field of the custom module. It basicly enables the required services and removes itself. Ideally, I'd like to have an SMF based solution. So I have to play around with that.

In the middle of all of this fiddling about with JET, I've decided that I'm going to add some functionality to it over the next few months:

• Better Zone support.
• Resource Management.
• ZFS
• Pkg-get?

I just have to figure out where to inject such features. I might be able to get the zone module updated with my fixes. The other items will probably be modules. I'll post more information as I progress with my work.

That reminds me, I really need to finish that JET documentation:)

LDOMS and Xen Around the Corner

So Sun released some more information on LDOM's and Xen. For those who have been keeping up with the OpenSolaris forums and the OpenSparc site, this is not any real news. But I've provided the links here for everyone to check out, plus a bonus document:

• News
• Virtualization Site
• Sun BluePrints Guide on Solaris Containers

Definitely a good read and worth looking around the virtualization site. Definitely nice to see that LDOM firmware upgrade on the T1000/T2000 is just around the corner. And it's nice to see that Sun is starting to talk more about Xen.

Niagara II Goodies

Looks like Niagara 2 is around the corner:) Great slides on the features and even a picture of a demo box! This is going to kick some serious butt!

Niagara II and SPARC64 VI

Here's an article with some information on the upcoming Niagara II processor from Sun and the SPARC64 VI processor from Fujitsu that will be in the APL line. The APL line is just around the corner and will bring some interesting changes to the line-up at Sun and Fujitsu. I highly recommend talking with Sun or Fujitsu about having them do a presentation on the APL line for your company. The APL line will cover the mid-range to high-end server line-up for both companies. I'm not sure where the current mid-range to high-end SunFire line will stand after the transition. But the entry level will consist of the Niagara based servers.

I'd love to have a T1000 right now(Hint: Sun should send me one for free!).

Upgraded Ultra60 to SX:CR Build 49

Well over the weekend, I realized that build 49 was available and so had to download the iso's before I bothered doing the "Jumpstart Shuffle" with JET 4.3.2. I did find an interesting problem with build 48, pkgadd is broken when processes pkg datastream files. That forced me to convert my packages in the JET custom module to pkg directory format:( I'll have to test if this is fixed in build 49.

Anyways, I got build 49 running on my Ultra60. I've restored just about everything(ZFS usb drive rules!), other than the Sun Ray setup and misc. games (Star Control II). Hopefully, I'll get to that shortly. I still have to download the x86 isos for build 49 and jumpstart my Compaq laptop. If that works out well then I'll give BrandZ zones a try on the laptop.

Then I have to get test out Solaris 10 Update 3 Beta. I'll probably break out the Netra X1 for that. Too bad I don't have an APL box to test it out on:( I also have to get the current beta for JES installed on the Ultra60. Hopefully zone support has improved, we'll see!

I started to fool around with the zones module for JET and got it to work. I have to play around with some of the settings to get what I want. Once I figure that out, I'll post a short how-to.

Speaking of how-to's, I'm working on a guide for JET! Hopefully, I'll have it ready before the end of the month and have it posted on the JET website.

Solaris PowerPC Code Released

SunLabs have finally released the PowerPC bits to the OpenSolaris Community. This is a huge step forward for the PowerPC port. This means it will be possible to boot OpenSolaris on the Genesi Pegasos ODW and the Apple G4 class Macs! Many developers were not happy with the long wait once SunLabs had a working kernel. I'm sure that the Polaris distro will come back to life shortly. I'd love to see OpenSolaris running on a PPC Mac and an IBM Power server!

Read more here.

T1 Hypervisor and Logical Domains

Many people may not remember, but when the T1 was announced, it was stated it had a built-in hypervisor. Of course, now lots of people have their T1000's and T2000's. It would appear that Sun will release at some point a firmware upgrade to enable this feature to create Logical Domains so you can carve up a T1 based server. Each LDOM will have it's own OBP instance and act just like a normal Solaris SPARC environment. The kicker is that this is all in firmware! This is not Zones or Xen. I see this as a huge step in the right direction for Sun and can only hope that it gets released soon. Here's an interesting article on the subject that gives a good idea of what will be possible. I especially like the slide on page 3 that shows CPU, Memory, and *I/O* being virtualized with the next version of Solaris. I'm really interested in finding out more about these features. With these kinds of features in such a small package, it opens up a lot of possibilities for virtualization and consolidation. With the ability to have LDOM's running different versions of Solaris (10, 10u2, Solaris Express, etc) and run zone's inside of those domains is really interesting. This could benefit developers, engineers, and of course production environments. When the Niagara II servers come out, the performance will be there to take this to the next level. Of course, we'll all have to wait and see how this will unfold.

NOTE: If Sun needs a beta tester, I'm available:)

Wireless Apple

So after the move we got DSL again and decided to have the iMac in the family room. This obviously raised the issue of needing a wireless router again. While the DSL company we went with provided a really small DSL router (less than a 3rd the size of my little 8port switch), it doesn't have wireless built-in. To complicate things even more so, I didn't want to drag the printer with the iMac. So I looked around and read about the Apple Airport Express which does the wireless stuff and allows a USB printer to be connected and shared! Unfortunately, I could not find this at Best Buy or Circuit City. So we went to the Apple store and bought it. It's really small and the software installed with out any problems on the iMac. The installation is pretty simple like everything else on the Mac. So we were happy to see it "Just Work". So now the family can enjoy the iMac wirelessly and print with no problems.

I like going to the Apple store to see all the new stuff. The difficult part is the thought "Should I buy a mac mini or an Ultra20M2 replace the Ultra60?". I still have not decided what to do. I'd love to have something small and quiet. And then again, I'd like something I can tinker with and expand.

Now for the not so fun part..

So the software updater wanted to install a bunch of stuff.. it had been weeks since the iMac had been on the net. So I of course thought "How nice.. install!". Everything seemed to be alright until my wife used iTunes 7.0.1. Duplicate songs, broken shuffling, and wacky playlist issues were brought to my attention. Luckily, one of my friends works for Apple and I asked him about it. So I learned how to back out iTunes and install an older version. It worked like a charm and was pretty simple. So now everyone is happy:)

JET 4.3.2

So while downloading Solaris Express B48 and getting ready to jumpstart my Ultra60 from my laptop, I noticed a new version of JET came out, 4.3.2. So I upgraded and I'm starting to scan thru it to find what's changed. I noticed on the JET website that some new modules have been posted. It's nice to see community envolvement in adding modules. I'd like to see JET Open Sourced with all of the SunPS modules. I did post on the mailing list the idea of integrating JET into OpenSolaris. However, Marty pointed out some good reasons not to do so. The big reason is that JET changes quickly and Sun would have to hire someone full-time to support JET if it were included in the WOS. Of course, I'd take the job in a heart beat!