CrossBow

CrossBow official page.

Read Sunay blog entry - CrossBow: Solaris Network Virtualization & Resource Control

Sun gains market share

Sun recoups server martek share:

"The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company's server revenue rose 15.5 percent to $1.59 billion in the quarter, according to statistics from research firm IDC. The increase outpaced the overall growth of 0.6 percent to $12.29 billion worldwide, with faster gains in x86 servers, blade servers and lower-end models costing less than $25,000.

Sun's three main rivals fared worse. In contrast, IBM's revenue dropped 2.2 percent to $3.42 billion; Hewlett-Packard's dropped 1.7 percent to $3.4 billion; and Dell's dropped 1.3 percent to $1.27 billion."

New servers from Sun

New HW from Sun:

• US IV+ 1.8GHz
• available in v490 an up
  
• looks like it beats latest IBM's POWER5+ CPUs
• X2100 M2 server
• comparing to standard x2100 server it has latest 1200's Opterons, DDR2-667, 4x GbE
  
• X2200 M2 server
• 2x 2000s Opterons (dual-core), 64GB memory supported, 4x GbE, LOM, 2x HDD
  
• Ultra 20 M2 workstation
• comparing to U20 it has latest Opterons, 2x GbE, DDR2-667, better video

Sun's new servers page.
Official Sun announcement.
Related story.

HW RAID vs. ZFS software RAID - part II

This time I tested RAID-5 performance. I used the same hardware as in last RAID-10 benchmark.
I created RAID-5 volume consisting 6 disks on a 3510 head unit with 2 controllers, using random optimization. I also created software RAID-5 (aka RAID-Z) group using ZFS on 6 identical disks in a 3510 JBOD. Both HW and SW RAIDs were connected to the same host (v440). Using filebench's varmail test below are the results.

These tests show that software RAID-5 in ZFS can not only be as fast as hardware RAID-5 it can even be faster. The same is with RAID-10 - ZFS software RAID-10 was faster than hardware RAID-10.

Please note that I tested HW RAID on a 3510 FC array not on some junky PCI RAID card.


1. ZFS on HW RAID5 with 6 disks, atime=off
IO Summary: 444386 ops 7341.7 ops/s, (1129/1130 r/w) 36.1mb/s, 297us cpu/op, 6.6ms latency
IO Summary: 438649 ops 7247.0 ops/s, (1115/1115 r/w) 35.5mb/s, 293us cpu/op, 6.7ms latency

2. ZFS with software RAID-Z with 6 disks, atime=off
IO Summary: 457505 ops 7567.3 ops/s, (1164/1164 r/w) 37.2mb/s, 340us cpu/op, 6.4ms latency
IO Summary: 457767 ops 7567.8 ops/s, (1164/1165 r/w) 36.9mb/s, 340us cpu/op, 6.4ms latency

3. there's some problem in snv_44 with UFS so UFS test is on S10U2 in test #4
4. UFS on HW RAID5 with 6 disks, noatime, S10U2 + patches (the same filesystem mounted as in 3)
IO Summary: 393167 ops 6503.1 ops/s, (1000/1001 r/w) 32.4mb/s, 405us cpu/op, 7.5ms latency
IO Summary: 394525 ops 6521.2 ops/s, (1003/1003 r/w) 32.0mb/s, 407us cpu/op, 7.7ms latency

5. ZFS with software RAID-Z with 6 disks, atime=off, S10U2 + patches (the same disks as in test #2)
IO Summary: 461708 ops 7635.5 ops/s, (1175/1175 r/w) 37.4mb/s, 330us cpu/op, 6.4ms latency
IO Summary: 457649 ops 7562.1 ops/s, (1163/1164 r/w) 37.0mb/s, 328us cpu/op, 6.5ms latency


See my post on zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org list for more details.


I have also found some benchmarks comparing ZFS, UFS, RAISERFS and EXT3 - ZFS was of course the fastest one on the same x86 hardware. See here and here.

DTrace in Mac OS

Thanks to Alan Coopersmith I've just learned that DTrace will be part of MacOS X Leopard.

Mac OS Leopard Xcode:

Track down problems

When you need a bit more help in debugging, Xcode 3.0 offers an extraordinary new program, Xray. Taking its interface cues from timeline editors such as GarageBand, now you can visualize application performance like nothing you’ve seen before. Add different instruments so you can instantly see the results of code analyzers. Truly track read/write actions, UI events, and CPU load at the same time, so you can more easily determine relationships between them. Many such Xray instruments leverage the open source DTrace, now built into Mac OS X Leopard. Xray. Because it’s 2006.

btw: such a GUI tool would be useful for many Solaris admins too

HW RAID vs. ZFS software RAID

I used 3510 head unit with 73GB 15K disks, RAID-10 made of 12 disks in one enclosure.
On the other server (the same server specs) I used 3510 JBODs with the same disk models.

I used filebench to generate workloads. "varmail" workload was used for 60s, two runs for each config.


1. ZFS filesystem on HW lun with atime=off:

IO Summary: 499078 ops 8248.0 ops/s, (1269/1269 r/w) 40.6mb/s, 314us cpu/op, 6.0ms latency
IO Summary: 503112 ops 8320.2 ops/s, (1280/1280 r/w) 41.0mb/s, 296us cpu/op, 5.9ms latency

2. UFS filesystem on HW lun with maxcontig=24 and noatime:

IO Summary: 401671 ops 6638.2 ops/s, (1021/1021 r/w) 32.7mb/s, 404us cpu/op, 7.5ms latency
IO Summary: 403194 ops 6664.5 ops/s, (1025/1025 r/w) 32.5mb/s, 406us cpu/op, 7.5ms latency

3. ZFS filesystem with atime=off with ZFS raid-10 using 12 disks from one enclosure:
IO Summary: 558331 ops 9244.1 ops/s, (1422/1422 r/w) 45.2mb/s, 312us cpu/op, 5.2ms latency
IO Summary: 537542 ops 8899.9 ops/s, (1369/1369 r/w) 43.5mb/s, 307us cpu/op, 5.4ms latency


In other tests HW vs. ZFS software raid show about the same performance.
So it looks like at least in some workloads software ZFS raid can be faster than HW raid.
Also please notice that HW raid was done on real HW array and not some crappy PCI raid card.

For more details see my post on ZFS discuss list.

Solaris Internals

Finally both books of new Solaris Internals are available. It's must buy for everyone seriously using Solaris.
See here and here.