LDoms static Direct I/O support

Logical Domain capable servers can soon assign devices on a slot granularity to LDOMS. Previously only whole PCI-busses could be assigned to domains. This will provide more freedom and better performance for virtualized environments using logical domains. A LDOM could with this enhancement have direct access to it's own NIC and HBA for better performance. It could also make smaller configurations less complex since no virtual disk servers and or virtual networks switches would be needed in an I/O domain. This features has integrated in b133 and will be part of the OpenSolaris 2010.03 release.

"This is an RFE filed to Static Direct I/O feature support in Solaris.
This project enables PCI express devices to be assigned directly to logical domains at the slot level. The assignments are "static" in the sense that any changes to the disposition of devices requires a reboot of the root domain to take effect."

LDoms static Direct I/O support (6848789)

Text based install with OSOL b131!

The Text based installer project have produced preliminary install imaged for both SPARC and X86. Good news but no time to write got to continue to watch the Sun/Oracle webcast

Download links are available on the here.

A first test installation in a OSOL xVM domU works good apart from that I seemed to have some problems with the terminal settings:

No more Sunshine

Sun is no more.

This feels a bit awkward but Oracle has completed the acquisition of Sun Microsystems (JAVA, the stock ticker previously known as SUNW). I hope not everyone follows Jonathan's advise and let go of the Sun culture, the products and support are far from the whole value of the company. I also hope that the majority of all the talented people still at Sun will get a chance to continue to produce great hardware and software inside Oracle.

Lets hope something good comes out of this, that Oracle can make more money on the products from Sun and that more resources are spent developing existing and future technologies and products that relate to Unix and Solaris. I also hope that Oracle understands that we need the openness that we have come to learn from Sun in recent years, we want to be part of the development process and have access to the sources and development releases.

We'll have to wait for another hour or so to see the Oracle webcast will shred some light on all this.

Best of luck to all Sun employees and to the new Oracle corporation, goodbye Sun and thanks for the fifteen years I have known you. The next Sunrise will not be purple but pure red.

Read the announcement here.

Darren in ZFS-crypto video interview

For those of you waiting for ZFS on-disk encryption, here is an video interview with Darren. He gives a overview of the projects and even get's into some preliminary thoughts about performance.

It still looks like the Integration Target is Q1CY10 which would place it in a build quite close to the OSOL 2010.03 release (which targets build 134). But it has been pushed forward several times before, also all the Oracle integration will probably not make it happen any sooner.

Don't let zpool(1M) scare you

While doing some reliability tests for my new storage node I came across some negative behavior from zpool(1M). It has a tendency to recommend that you destroy the whole pool and restore from backup even if it's possible that the pool can be saved.

Like when trying to import a raidz2 pool which has lost connectivity with one too many disks:

cannot import 'zpool01': I/O error
        Destroy and re-create the pool from
        a backup source.

Or even worse, when importing a second pool with the same name:

cannot import 'rpool': pool already exists
        Destroy and re-create the pool from
        a backup source.

Both situations where easily solved, the first by reconnecting a drive and the second I just had forgot to provide zpool import with a new name for the pool. Of course the first case could have been a fatal failure for the pool, but I think the error messages should be a bit less pessimistic, it can otherwise make new users do terrible things.

I've filed a bug but have not yet received a bugid for it.

Green light from EU for Oracle/Sun

Another non-technical post, but it affect most of the things i write about here. As it turns out, the European Commission had nothing to object to the deal after all, it has now been approved. Not much to say about this, it's all over the web by now. Read the whole press release here.

From the press release:
Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said: "I am now satisfied that competition and innovation will be preserved on all the markets concerned. Oracle's acquisition of Sun has the potential to revitalise important assets and create new and innovative products."

News on future Sun/Oracle strategy

Looks like we may get some more answers regarding the future of Oracle and Sun soon, Oracle hosts an event on January 27.

Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) announced today that it will host a live event for customers, partners, press and analysts on January 27, 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM PT, at its headquarters in Redwood Shores, California. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, along with executives from Oracle and Sun, will outline the strategy for the combined companies, product roadmaps, and how customers will benefit from having all components - hardware, operating system, database, middleware, and applications - engineered to work together. The event will be broadcast globally.

I hope we at least will get some concrete answers on how they plan to handle Solaris and OpenSolaris.

Here is the full press release but the above is pretty much it without lots of disclaimers.