T4 focus in new S10 8/11 KUP

As expected Oracle is focusing on the yet to be released SPARC T4 processor in maintenance patches for Solaris 10 8/11. The recently released kernel patch has several changes specific for the new platform. All we need now is the hardware itself.

From patch 147440-02:

6994535: watchdog timeouts seen on small subset of T3/T4 systems
7014100: Solaris cpu-mondo queue filling up on T3/T4 systems
7040407: T4 should not advertise cspare hwcap
7045829: libc_psr memmove needs to avoid use of block init store for T4
7045836: memcpy on T4 could run substantially faster
7047568: perf counter changes for T4 1.2
7079983: T4 memcpy triggers compiler CR 7076485

Patch details 147440-02 - SunOS 5.10: Solaris kernel patch

Solaris 10 8/11 released

Solaris 10 8/11 (update 10) has now been released and is available for download.

A short summary of some of the changes since last update besides support for the SPARC T4:

• Support for Two-Terabyte Memory Systems
You can install Oracle Solaris on systems with more than 2 TB of memory.
• ZFS Enhancements such as ZFS diff, ZIL synchronicity, RADIZ/mirror hybrid allocator and read-only import.
• diskinfo Utility
The diskinfo command-line utility enables system administrators to see the relationship between logical disk names (cXtYdZ) and bays in a JBOD or blade chassis.
• Shared Memory Enhancements
Changes in creating, locking, unlocking, and destroying Intimate Shared Memory (ISM) and Dynamic Intimate Shared Memory (DISM) have resulted in significant performance improvement in the startup and shutdown of the Oracle database.
• SPARC: Support for Fast Reboot
The integration of the Fast Reboot feature of Oracle Solaris on the SPARC platform enables the -f option to be used with the reboot command to accelerate the boot process by skipping certain POST tests.
• libmtmalloc Improvements
libmtmalloc has undergone a performance improvement that specially targets 64-bit applications with a large number of threads.
• LDAP Name Service
This section summarizes enhancements that have been made to the LDAP name service in this release. LDAP name service stand-alone support – This enhancement enables the LDAP name service tools ldapclient, ldapaddent, and ldaplist to populate and test an LDAP directory without having to configure the name service switch to use LDAP.
• Samba Upgrade to Version 3.5.8
  Samba, which provides file and print services to SMB/CIFS (Server Message Block/Common Internet File System) clients, has been upgraded to version 3.5.8.

Update: This release could provide better ZFS performance besides the new features, around 7-20% for reads and 10-15% for writes. The tests where done with a few simple dd(1) instances but interesting anyway, read more here.

What's New in the Oracle Solaris 10 8/11 Release
Oracle Solaris Downloads
Solaris 10 update 10 ZFS refresh
Solaris 10 update 10 update
Solaris 10 update 10

Solaris 10 8/11 KUP

The first sustaining kernel patch for Solaris 10 8/11 (update 10) is now available: 147440-01. But Solaris 8/11 is yet to be released, they could be waiting until Oracle world for the release or they are having trouble with the release. The patch does not contain many changes but another interesting patch that requires the update 10 kernel patch was also just released:

147159-01: T4 crypto performance patch

7030953: AES CBC mode code path spends 50% time in non-encryption operations
7032670: AES-128-ECB 16KB encryption on T4 can be significantly better
7032698: AES-128-CFB128 16KB encryption (via ucrypto API) on T4 can be significantly better
7033814: assertion failure in OpenSSL speed RSA-4096 test via pkcs11 engine on T4
7036405: heavy mutex contention in libumem results in negative scaling of multi-threaded RSA test
7045416: PROFILE TRIGGER VALUE DROP-DOWN DOESN'T POPULATE FOR FIELDS BASED ON TABLES
7048794: 64-bit libsoftcrypto not enabled for T4
7069494: AGILE00205948:CAN'T DELETE STEP IN WORKFLOW EASILY

This is is the second proof that Solaris 10 will indeed support the new SPARC T4 processor.

Update: The final release of Solaris 10 8/11 have the the first sustaining kernel patch already installed (147440-01/147441-01).

Solaris 10 Update 10 KUP

The kernel patch for Solaris 10 8/11 (Update 10) have been released on OTN, the patch information is available here. This indicates that the new Solaris update is due for release quite soon. The patch metadata confirms my previous speculations regarding updated ZFS functionality that even includes the new hybrid block allocator.

One of the most interesting things is that it includes support for upcoming SPARC T4.
6946852: Solaris support for SPARC T4 platforms

As always it contains numerous bug fixes and other enhancements, follow the links bellow for previous posts about new features in this update. More information will be posted when full images of the update have been released.

Update:
The ISO images seems to have been available briefly from Oracle but have now been pulled for some reason, you can still see the links in googles cache but the full page is not available.

Solaris 10 update 10 update
Solaris 10 update 10 ZFS refresh
Solaris 10 update 10

Solaris 10 update 10 ZFS refresh

The internal builds of Solaris 10 8/11 (update 10) have had another refresh of the ZFS code. It is now be synced with snv_153 which is a even later build than Solaris 11 Express 2010.11 is based on. Also related to storage this update will support the LSI SAS 2308 HBA and the LSI SSS 6200 Solid State Storage.

Enable cases for s10u10 tech refresh 2

Solaris 10 update 10 update

Two Solaris releases for the T4 in 2011?

Solaris 11 is not the only Solaris release we can expect to see in 2011. The next update of Solaris 10, update 10 or Oracle Solaris 10 8/11 which seems to be what Oracle are aiming for in both name and release date is also coming in 2011. Earlier posts have included some of the expected content but the name and release window recently surfaced.

I found this in a publicly available bug report:

                Oracle Solaris 10 8/11 s10x_u10wos_02 X86
Copyright(c) 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
                    Assembled 22 November 2010
     Early Access Build for Evaluation and Test Purposes Only.
         NOT SUPPORTED FOR PRODUCTION USE.  Not patchable.

With the 8/11 target it seems that Oracle wants to release the update in time before Oracle World 2011, perhaps to have a new Solaris release to talk about in the sessions but it also seem likely that it will support the upcoming SPARC T4 (Yosemite Falls) processor that could be launched at the same time ( Oracles road maps have pointed to the second half of 2011 and Rick Hetherington stated in the recent interview that it was less than 12 month away ).

Another interesting thing is that in the Oracle roadmap, Solaris 11 was plotted at the same time as the SPARC T4, sometime in the second half of 2011. Could this mean both Solaris 11 and Solaris 10 8/11 will be released at the same time and at Oracle world 2011? Given all the announcement at last Oracle world it would make sense.

Take a look at the slides of John Fowler, Executive Vice President of Systems, page 8 for the roadmap.

This gives some more substance to Fowlers statement that they will continue to produce Solaris 10 updates for some time, the timeframe for the release was probably not very hard to guess but it is interesting that there now seems to be a preliminary name. It looks like next year will be an interesting year for both Solaris and SPARC.

Here is some information on some of the expected content of the update:
Solaris 10 update 10 update

Solaris 10 update 10 update

Some additional details on the next Solaris 10 update have surfaced, they compliment the list in my previous post. No huge updates, Solaris 10 should not be seeing any ground breaking changes this late in its lifespan but good additions besides the bug fixes.

• IPfilter IPv6 NAT support
• 10Gb Ethernet support for Mellanox ConnectX-2 chipset
• SSH Support for ChrootDirectory and ConnectTimeout
• PSARC/2008/256 Native LDAP standalone tools (Duckwater Phase 0)
• Updated FireFox to 3.6.8+ and Thunderbird 3.1+

The ZFS update should include bits similar to snv_148 which among other things include the following:

• RAID-Z/mirror hybrid allocator
• Missing log import (PSARC/2010/292) (CR 6733267)
• ZIL synchronicity PSARC/2010/108
• read-only import (PSARC 2010/306)

There might also be an update to the bundled samba which is a bit overdue. This was delayed earlied due to change of licenses but that should now have been solved. This might slip again, as it did previously, but it looks like a 3.5+ version of samba will be included.

Update:

I should probably have mentioned that it seems that the name for the release will be Oracle Solaris 10 8/11 which means it is scheduled for a release around August/September 2011. This would be just one or two months before Oracle World so it seems highly likely it will support the expected SPARC T4. This new release cycle with one release per year seems like a better fit for enterprise customers, Solaris 10 9/10 is probably not in many datacenter yet.

Solaris 10 update 10

Solaris 10 update 10

There is a another update planned for Solaris 10 after the yet to be released Solaris 10 9/10. It is still very unclear and probably not fully decided what this update will include, but i'we found indications on the following:

• RDSv3 for use with Oracel RAC
• PSARC/2007/587 Volo Low Latency Socket Framework
• PSARC/2010/108 zil synchronicity
• Adobe reader for X86 version 9.3.X
• Lightning Thunderbird extension for Oracle Beehive

With the zil synchronicity update it seems likely that the next update, just as the last few, will get a large backport of ZFS code from Solaris Next, but with some features turned off, deduplication will be still be disable in update 10. This would release will probably also include support for the new SPARC T processors with better single thread performance, releasing them without having an well established operating system supporting it would probably not make much sense. Since update 9 is not even released yet but planned for this fall update 10 will probably be delivered mid next year or towards Oracle World 2011. I would not be surprised if this will be the last update to Solaris 10 before moving on to Solaris 11.

John Fowler mentioned the upcoming Solaris 10 updates in the systems webcast:

"We will continue to produce Solaris 10 updates for some time for customers who are used to and have deployed Solaris 10 and want to take advantage of new hardware platforms. Comming up with new product introductions this year and then extending in the previous years"