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Sun has published a very nice, detailed, step-by-step guide for installing the Solaris 10 11/06 Operating System, Solaris Cluster 3.2 software, the QFS 4.5 cluster file system and Oracle 10g Release 2 RAC.

This document also provides detailed instructions on how to configure QFS and Solaris Volume Manager so they can be used with Oracle 10g R2 RAC.

The installation procedures can be used for SPARC or x64 platforms, for installations with up to eight nodes using IP over InfiniBand (IPoIB) or Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) for the private interconnect and with any level of I/O redundancy.

After you complete the procedures, you can use any combination of raw devices, Solaris Volume Manager, Automatic Storage Manager (ASM), or QFS cluster file systems to store data files.

A must-have!

» Download PDF

You may be aware that Sun has released the Solaris Cluster source code through the HA Clusters community on the OpenSolaris site. Solaris Cluster is a multi-system, multi-site disaster recovery solution that manages the availability of applications services and data across local, regional and vastly dispersed datacentres.

Sun has recorded a podcast on the the open sourcing of Solaris Cluster and how multiple parties within the ecosystem will benefit. Highlights include:

• The seeding of open source from the Solaris Cluster product, namely Open High-Availability Cluster, and binary distribution of Solaris Cluster that runs on open Solaris.
• A three-phased approach starting with agents, followed by the geographic edition (disaster recovery), and then finally, the core infrastructure.
• How open sourcing of Solaris Cluster addresses a need in the system administrator development community.
• How an open-source set of tools can stimulate better conversations between application developers and deployers about making products do what they should, when they should.
• The release of the testing infrastructure to ensure that what has been developed actually works.
• Details of the open license.

[Source: Innovating@Sun]

» Listen to Podcast (MP3)

If you're interested to learn how the Sun Fire X4500's high storage density and high throughput can solve the challenges associated with data warehousing, HPC storage cluster and media streaming -- and more -- you should definitely check the following and very informative Sun Net Talk:

[Watch] Sun Fire X4500: The First and Only Hybrid Data Server

In a recent article and accompanying screencast, InfoWorld explains why ZFS is so powerful and easy to use, and why ZFS and the Sun Fire X4500 server, codenamed Thumper, are a perfect match...

"Soon after I started working with ZFS (Zettabyte File System), one thing became clear: the file system of the next 10 years will either be ZFS or something extremely similar. The fluidity, the malleability, and the scalability of ZFS far surpass anything available now on any platform. We're talking about a file system that can address 256 quadrillion zettabytes of storage, and that can handle a maximum file size of 16 exabytes."

(Paul Venezia is senior contributing editor of the InfoWorld Test Center)

» InfoWorld Article: Sun ZFS breaks all the rules
» InfoWorld Screencast: Sun's ZFS on Thumper

If you missed this year's JavaOne event, the conference PDFs and multimedia sessions are now available on sun.com. Sun will add more content over the coming weeks, so check the site on a regular basis.

Enjoy!

http://developers.sun.com/learning/javaoneonline/j1online.jsp?track=1&yr=2007

This new white paper on sun.com explores the performance characteristics and differences of Solaris ZFS and the Veritas File System through a series of tests using the Filebench benchmarking framework which reproduces the I/O patterns of applications, as well as the popular IOzone benchmark which tests specific I/O patterns. In many instances, Solaris ZFS outperforms the combination of the Veritas Volume Manager and Veritas File System.

Find out more...

» Download PDF: Solaris ZFS and VERITAS Storage Foundation File System Performance

This newly-published white paper on sun.com explores the performance characteristics of Solaris ZFS and the ext3 file system through IOzone, BenchW and Postmark benchmark testing.

For the conditions tested, Solaris ZFS outperforms the Red Hat Enterprise Linux ext3 file system for many workloads, especially Postmark and relational database indexed queries. In other cases, Solaris ZFS exhibits comparable performance but does not require the performance or data integrity trade-offs that are inherent in the ext3 file systems, when running in ordered and writeback modes.

Conclusions drawn suggest that Solaris ZFS provides the same or greater data protection as the Red Hat Enterprise Linux ext3 file system running in journalled mode. However, the ext3 file system often delivers the lowest performance, while Solaris ZFS can provide equal or greater performance than the ext3 file system operating in the ordered or writeback mode.

Read more...

» Download PDF: Solaris ZFS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux ext3 File System Performance

Sun has published a new white paper that details and reviews the performance characteristics and differences of Solaris ZFS and the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 NTFS file system through a series of publicly available benchmarks, including BenchW and Postmark.

Depending on the test, Solaris ZFS can significantly outperform the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 NTFS file system for many workloads. Find out more...

» Download PDF: Solaris ZFS and Microsoft Windows 2003 Server NTFS File System Performance

What's the alternative to a backup of your data onto DVD or onto an external drive?

Well, according to Eric Kustarz at Sun, the alternative is a ZFS snapshot. Check Eric's blog to learn more and to find out why ZFS and laptops are a perfect fit!

Go to: blogs.sun.com/erickustarz/entry/zfs_on_a_laptop

You're right to ask. Sun has three server families and each is designed for particular workloads.

In short...

SUN FIRE COOLTHREADS SERVERS:
Sun Fire CoolThreads servers are powered by the UltraSPARC T1 Chip Multi-Threading processor and are ideally suited for massive transactional throughput. If you need a server that can manage large numbers of web-based transactions, they're your perfect fit.

SUN FIRE X64 SERVERS:
In areas that require an x86 chip and demand both multithreaded and high floating point performance, AMD Opteron (and now also Intel Xeon with the new Sun Blade 6000) processor-based Sun Fire x64 servers would prove a better choice.

SUN ENTERPRISE SERVERS:
For heavy-duty database applications where single-threaded performance trumps throughput, Sun Enterprise servers -- powered by an UltraSPARC IV+ or SPARC processor -- will give you the necessary horsepower.

In essence, Sun's Logical Domains (LDoms) technology allows you to allocate a system's various resources, such as memory, CPUs and devices, into logical groupings and create multiple, discrete systems, each with their own operating system, resources, and identity within a single computer system. By careful architecture, a logical domains environment can help you achieve greater resource usage, better scaling and increased security and isolation.

Sun has published a blueprint which will help you gain a better understanding of how you can easily and effectively deploy Sun's Logical Domains technology.

It will help you determine how and where to use logical domains to the greatest effect using best practices. The document discusses strategies for deploying logical domains on the Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 systems -- the first systems to offer Logical Domain support -- and the various best practices for these platforms.

The guide works through step-by-step examples that include the commands to set up, deploy and manage logical domains and looks at commonly asked questions and advanced techniques.

The good thing about this guide is that it has been designed for several different levels of user and intended to be used as both an introduction to concepts and technologies, and as a handy reference for more complex approaches.

» Download PDF

Q. I upgraded from SSH1 to OpenSSH. It generated a new SSH-1 RSA host key, instead of noticing and preserving my existing host key. Also, it appears to be ignoring my sshd_config file!

A. SSH1 and OpenSSH have different default directories in which they look for configuration files: SSH1 uses /etc, whereas OpenSSH uses /usr/local/etc. You can either move your existing hostkey and other SSH configuration files to the new location, or build OpenSSH with configure --sysconfdir=/etc.

Interested to learn more? Check out the SSH Frequently Asked Questions at: www.snailbook.com/faq

Sun is introducing today new Blade servers where you can mix and match SPARC, AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon architectures. Interested? Check out the web launch today at 4.00pm G.M.T.: www.sun.com/launch