"Oracle and Sun together are hard to match. Just ask IBM. Its fastest server now runs an impressive 6 million TPC-C transactions, but on October 14 at Oracle OpenWorld, we'll reveal the benchmark numbers that prove that even IBM DB2 running on IBM's fastest hardware can't match the speed and performance of Oracle Database on Sun systems. Check back on October 14 as we demonstrate Oracle's commitment to Sun hardware and Sun SPARC."
Sun is announcing the intent to discontinue production of the Solaris Express Community Edition (SXCE) by the end of October time-frame. As we intend to continue on a bi-weekly build schedule, consolidations will move towards producing native Image Packaging System (IPS) packages alongside SVR4 packages and then phase out the latter completely. Technologies such as IPS, Automated Install, Snap Upgrade and the Distribution Constructor will be integrating into a consolidation after following through the established processes including architectural (ARC) review.We recognize that this transition will require some effort for all members of the OpenSolaris development community, and are committed to working with all of you in making that transition a success. You can expect updated information from us and the communities which manage the consolidations as we further plan the transition schedules.Questions can be directed to David Comay, Glynn Foster, William Franklin, Stephen Hahn, Dave Miner, Vincent Murphy, or Dan Roberts.
This project proposes two new "basic" privileges.
FILE_READ
Allows a process to read a file or directory whose
permission or ACL allow the process read permission.
FILE_WRITE
Allows a process to write a file or directory whose
permission or ACL allow the process write permission.The purpose of these privileges is the ability to create a "read-only" (no FILE_WRITE privilege) and a "write-only" (no FILE_READ privilege) process.The FILE_WRITE basic privilege is required for any modification to a file or directory: open(2), creat(2), link(2), symlink(2), rename(2), unlink(2), mkdir(2), rmdir(2), mknod(2) etc.The FILE_READ basic privilege is required for opening a file with O_RDONLY or O_RDWR.Note: a "basic" privilege is a privilege which is part of the default I, P and E privilege set.
SummaryProvide zfs with the ability to control the use of resources used for synchronous (eg fsync, O_DSYNC) requests. In particular it enables substantially better performance for Oracle and potentially other applications.
BackgroundOracle manages two major types of files, the Data Files and the Redo Log files. Writes to Redo Log files are in the path of all transactions and low latency is a requirement. It is critical for good performance to give high priority to these write requests.Data Files are also the subject of writes from DB writers as a form of scrubbing dirty blocks to insure DB buffer availability. Write latency is much less an issue. Of more more importance is achieving an acceptable level of throughput. These writes are less critical to delivered performance.Both types of writes are synchronous (using O_DSYNC), and thus treated equally. They compete for the same resources: separate intent log, memory, and normal pool IO. The Data File writes impede the potential performance of the critical Redo Log writers.
Proposal
Create a new "logbias" property for zfs datasets.If logbias is set to 'latency' (the default) then there is no change from the current implementation. If the logbias property is set to 'throughput' then intent log blocks will be allocated from the main pool instead of any separate intent log devices (if present). Also data will be written immediately to spread the write load thus making for quicker subsequent transaction group commits to the pool.To change the property, an admin will use the standard zfs set command:
# zfs set logbias=latency {dataset}
# zfs set logbias=throughput {dataset}
