Solaris X86 and IBM..

How is Solaris X86/X64 doing?

I often run into people wondering this very question. I recently answered this and thought I'd share my comments:

For Solaris x86, a lot of the major products are there (Oracle, Sybase, Weblogic, WebSphere, DB2, SAP, CA products, Symantec/Veritas products, Sun JES products, etc.). So from a commercial standpoint, all of the major products are supported. Even for niche products there is support (Matlab, SAS, Tibco, etc.).

For compilers, there's of course Sun Studio which is free:).

There are tons of drivers released (NVidia, Realtek, Adaptec, Broadcom, Emulex, Intel, Lexmark, Marvell, Mylex, Symbios/LSI logic, SysKonnect, Tekram, 4Front Tech, LynnSoft PC Card, etc.). So the driver gap people talk about is bit on the FUD side of things. For other stuff, there are ppl who are writing or porting drivers. A good example would be the wireless support, apci power mgmt, etc. You can find out more here:

http://opensolaris.org/os/community/device_drivers/

Of course there are some holes, like no Adobe Acrobat Reader, bluetooth drivers, no iTunes, etc.. But there is growing demand for Solaris x86 and as such there's $$ to be made:) So if you have something you want on Solaris x86, it's best to talk with the vendor and show there's a demand.

On the free software side, the majority of stuff works. There are sites like Sunfreeware, Blastwave, and of course tools like pkgsrc, ports, etc. You just have to look out for software that is poorly written or was not meant to be portable (like some multimedia stuff for Linux). The gaps are closing pretty fast though!

I remember how it was two years ago, where many of the major products were not supported. But this has changed very quickly. The main drivers are companies who have a lot of Solaris SPARC and want a cheaper solution, but are not interested in Linux or Windows. Interestingly enough, there are a lot of major companies like that. And most of the road blocks today are more political than technical.

Sun and IBM...

So recently Sun and IBM announced a partnership. Some people didn't read the announcement in detail to understand what the partnership is about. But here are the key points:

• It's an OEM agreement where IBM can sell Solaris subscriptions and do Pre-sales on Sun support contracts.
• IBM will support the hardware and work with Sun to insure that it works on their xSeries and BladeCenter x86 gear.
• Sun will do the OS support for the equipment IBM sells with the support contracts.

So this is not Sun trying to exit the hardware business. Solaris x86 is selling well and the majority of the customers getting licenses and buy support for it are on IBM, HP, and Dell equipment. This is not bad news for Sun. It shows that the product works on mainstream x86 servers and that the Solaris market extends beyond the Sun hardware market. This agreement just makes it easier for IBM customers to buy a server or blade and get better Solaris support because Sun and IBM are working together. Of course some people will ask the question, "Well doesn't that mean Sun should give up on hardware?". So which I say, "Uh, hell no!". It just means that there is a wider market for Solaris support and Sun products to be sold to. Microsoft would never have gotten this far if they only sold their software on an IBM box. Not everyone buys from IBM.

Giving customers choice is a powerful thing and for Sun to work with IBM to make things easier for customers is not a bad thing. And besides, the big reason most companies will buy from IBM or HP or Dell when they need an x86 box for Solaris is usually due to customer negotiations they already have in place for their Windows servers. For many companies, it makes sense to buy from one or more vendors to drive the price down. And if you can run all of your OS's on the same hardware, the better it is for your organization. Of course Microsoft has certified it's OS's on the Sun Galaxy servers. So it's a matter of customers working with Sun to lower the costs for all x86 equipment for customers. But it takes two to tango. So Sun has to do it's part to advertise and make companies aware of the choices they have.

Hey, where are the Sun commercials on TV? I know there are lots of banner ads, magazine ads, etc. But it's really the TV commercials that catch the eyes of corporate folks who sign checks. I have seen some great on-line commercials and interviews from Sun. I wish they would put these on their web site.

Protect Your Virtual Disk Images

Alexandre Chartre has a handy script to help you deal with bug 6544963, where the VDS service can loose the disk label of your virtual disk images when you rebind a guest domain. This script has saved my bacon a couple of times and prevented me from having to rejump guest domains. Hopefully, this will get fixed soon and negate the need for this script. He also has a great post about the format command and its issues with LDom's.

64 LDom's Booted Up!

Ashley Saulsbury has another demo showing 64 LDom's booting up on an UltraSparc-T2. Check it out here. Definitely a cool demo to watch. Of course the practicality of setting up 64 LDom's is questionable since you need enough VCPU and Memory resources in the Primary (Control/Service) domain to support all the I/O. There is also the issue of the CPU affinity where splitting a core out between guest domains can cause cache thrashing. Hopefully, this has been resolved with the UltraSparc-T2. But until I get my hands on such a machine, it'll be difficult to know for sure. (Hint: Sun should send one to my home so I can blog about it!)

UltraSPARC-T2 (Niagara 2) Servers: Not Released Yet

While was I watching the UltraSPARC-T2 product launch, I caught the message that the servers will be released in the next quarter. So it looks like we'll have to wait a little longer. However it was very encouraging that Sun is going to OEM the technology out to vendors and that there is a lot of interest from the telco and security sectors. Also, the fact that the cost of an UltraSPARC-T2 processor will be below $1000, means that the base costs should be low. If anything, the memory will probably the be the most expensive part of the servers.

Well time to read up some more on the website:)

UltraSPARC-T2 (Niagara 2) Launch Today!

Big news for today! The UltraSPARC-T2 (Niagara 2) product launch is TODAY! There will be a webcast today at 10am PST. Read below for more info:

• Launch Site
• UltraSPARC-T2 Info

Enjoy!

Niagara II About to Take Center Stage

Now the media outlets are starting to confirm that Sun is about to announce the Niagara 2 or UltraSparc-T2 processor. According to InformationWeek, which has slides from Sun customer presentation on the Niagara 2, the processor will have the features I've mentioned before on my blog.

One of the interesting things in the article beyond some of the major details on the Niagara 2 was the mention of server growth for Sun in the last quarter. Apparently, high-end server sales is up 225% and 39% for the rest of the product line. Thats a lot of growth for Sun and shows that there is strong demand for high-end servers.

I've always found it interesting when people make claims that no one is buying large servers anymore. Yet, when I go to large data centers, it's not uncommon to see Sun Fire 6900's, E15k's, or E25k's. Of course I see more v240's - v890's. But most of those are web or application servers. The bigger iron is primarily used for databases and data warehousing. Of course with the Niagara line and the future ROCK servers, I expect things to get smaller and more dense. Already with the APL line, there is a reduction in the number of rack units required to get the same amount of compute power. I can only assume this will continue on.

Another interesting point in the article was the difference between commodity processors from Intel or AMD and the processors from the Sun, IBM, etc. As multi-core designs become common place, there will be a huge shift in how applications and OS's are designed. I've already seen cases where single threaded web applications that are redesigned to be multi-threaded perform better on processors like the UltraSparc-T1 than on an Opteron. Both Intel and AMD have to catch up to Sun on the hardware front. But it'll also take expertise in programming and choosing the right language to take advantage of these advances. Luckily, Sun has been on this path for a long time when you look at Solaris and the SMP servers they have built over the years. Sun has even provided the programming tools to help out, such as Sun Studio. The Niagara and ROCK servers are an extension of this and helps to position Sun for the future.

While it's doubtful that desktop applications like MS Office will take advantage of multi-core or CMT designs, it's clear that enterprise applications will take full advantage. In many cases, applications like Oracle or Weblogic already take advantage. But this will change over time. A good example is how PhotoShop for the Mac took advantage of dual cpu's ahead of many applications on the Mac. There has to be demand from the end-users for applications to perform better on multi-core desktops. With multi-media requirements exploding for music, video, games, and fancy desktops, it's only a matter of time.

Hopefully with the release of the Niagara 2 products, the price on a T1000 will come down enough for me to buy a used one for home. Then again, it may be a few years before they are priced cheap enough on Ebay:(

An Introduction to Logical Domains, Part 1

Here's the link to my first article. You'll have to login with your USENIX account. If you are not a member, I'd highly recommend joining. The first article gives an overview of the LDom technology and the terminologies around it. The second article will be twice as long with tutorials. I'd like to thank Rik Farrow, the ;login: editor, for helping me out with writing these articles. It has been a fun experience and I'm looking forward to writing more articles. Perhaps one day I'll write a book!