Nexenta's take on ZFS, Oracle and NetApp

Interesting post from Nexenta on recent developments in regards to ZFS, Oracle and NetApp. There is also a podcast which is a Q&A session with Evan Powell, CEO of Nexenta.

Oracle to buy NetApp?

The Register:

"Oracle boss Larry Ellison said he'd love to have the 60 per cent of NetApp's business that plugs NetApp boxes into Oracle software, hinting that a NetApp purchase could be on his mind.

[...]

A combination of Oracle and NetApp would be a truly formidable server/storage play, even if the IBM NetApp reseller deal subsequently collapsed. Will Oracle actually make an approach? Will NetApp respond positively? The key there is whether it truly believes an independent, best-of-breed stance is viable or whether the stack-in-a-box, centralised IT approach is a sustained tank attack that threatens to flatten its business.

A future inside Oracle in those circumstances might look a lot better than a slow fade into a Unisys-like state while EMC, buoyed up with VMware and products above raw storage arrays, grows and prospers."

Bloomberg also reports on Oracle acquisitions plans.

SPARC T3 On-Chip Security Accelerator

New SPARC T3 Systems

Joerg reports:

Oracle announced several new SPARC systems based on the SPARC T3 processor. SPARC T3 is the next iteration of SPARC in the throughput arena: 16 cores running at 1.65 GHz., so 128 threads per socket, on-chip PCIe 2.0, on-chip 10GBe ...

It starts with one 16-core 1.65GHz SPARC T3 processor on the SPARC T3-1 Server . So you get 128 Threads packaged in a 2 rack units chassis.

Above this you will find the SPARC T3-2 with two SPARC T3 processors. It gives you 256 threads and 256 GB. You get this amount of power in 3 RU.

At the high-end is the T3-4 with four of the SPARC T3 CPU giving you 512 threads, 512 GB of main memory with 8 GB DIMMs and 16 PCI Express Modules. This system is somewhat larger: 5 RU.

At last there is a new blade for the Blade 6000 chassis: SPARC T3-1B. As the name suggests it provides 1 SPARC T3 processor, so 128 Threads on one blade.

The Register reports on the new systems as well.

If you are interested in a brief summary of what T3 is read Joerg post about it here.

OpenIndiana

See the announcement and slides. You can also download ISOs here which are based on snv_147.

So it has begun... Is it going to survive in the long term?

OpenIndiana

http://openindiana.org

OpenIndiana is a continuation of the OpenSolaris operating system. It was conceived during the period of uncertainty following the Oracle takeover of Sun Microsystems, after several months passed with no binary updates made available to the public. The formation proved timely, as Oracle discontinued OpenSolaris soon after in favour of Solaris 11 Express, a binary distribution with a more closed development model to debut later this year.

OpenIndiana is part of the Illumos Foundation, and provides a true open source community alternative to Solaris 11 and Solaris 11 Express, with an open development model and full community participation.

Announcement Details

We will be holding a press conference in London (UK) at the JISC offices at 6:30pm UK Time (BST, GMT+1) to formally announce the project and provide full details, including information on gaining access to download our first development release. In addition, we will be broadcasting live on the internet – please see http://openindiana.org/announcement for details of attending in person or on the web.

We believe this announcement will deliver the distribution the community has long sought after.

Solaris 10 License Change

Joerg reports on Solaris 10 license change.

Solaris 10 9/10

What's New:

• Installation Enhancements
• SPARC: Support for ITU Construction Tools on SPARC Platforms - In this release, the itu utility has been modified to support booting a SPARC based system with the install-time updates (ITU) process.
• Oracle Solaris Auto Registration - before you ask ... you can disable it
• Oracle Solaris Upgrade Enhancement for Oracle Solaris Zone– Cluster Nodes
• Virtualization Enhancements for Oracle Solaris Zones
• Migrating a Physical Oracle Solaris 10 System Into a Zone - cool, my RfE found its way into Solaris 10
• Host ID Emulation
• Updating Packages by Using the New zoneadm attach -U Option
• Virtualization Enhancements for Oracle VM Server for SPARC (formerly known as LDOMs)
• Memory Dynamic Reconfiguration Capability
• Virtual Disk Multipathing Enhancements
• Static Direct I/O
• Virtual Domain Information Command and API - the virtinfo command
• System Administration Enhancements
• Oracle Solaris ZFS Features and Enhancements
• ZFS device replacement enhancements - namely autoexpand
• some changes to the zpool list command
• Holding ZFS snapshots
• Triple parity RAID-Z (raidz3)
• The logbias property
• Log device removal - at last
• ZFS storage pool recovery
• New ZFS system process – In this release, each storage pool has an associated process, zpool-poolname
• Splitting a mirrored ZFS storage pool (zpool split)
• Fast Crash Dump
• x86: Support for the IA32_ENERGY_PERF_BIAS MSR
• Support for Multiple Disk Sector Size
• iSCSI Initiator Tunables
• Sparse File Support in the cpio Command
• x86: 64-Bit libc String Functions Improvements With SSE
• Automated Rebuilding of sendmail Configuration Files
• Automatic Boot Archive Recovery
• Security Enhancements
• net_access Privilege
• x86: Intel AES-NI Optimization
• Language Support Enhancements
• New Oracle Solaris Unicode Locales
• Device Management Enhancements
• iSCSI Boot
• iSER Initiator
• New Hot-Plugging Features
• AAC RAID Power Management
• Driver Enhancements
• x86: HP Smart Array HBA Driver
• x86: Support for Broadcom NetXtreme II 10 Gigabit Ethernet NIC Driver
• x86: New SATA HBA Driver, bcm_sata, for Broadcom HT1000 SATA Controllers
• Support for SATA/AHCI Port Multiplier
• Support for Netlogic NLP2020 PHY in the nxge Driver
• Freeware Enhancements
• GNU TAR Version 1.23
• Firefox 3.5
• Thunderbird 3
• Less Version 436
• Networking Enhancements
• BIND 9.6.1 for the Oracle Solaris 10 OS
• GLDv3 Driver APIs
• IPoIB Connected Mode
• Open Fabrics User Verbs Primary Kernel Components
• InfiniBand Infrastructure Enhancements
• X11 Windowing Enhancements
• Support for the setxkbmap Command
• New Chipset Support
• ixgbe Driver to Integrate Intel Shared Code Version 3.1.9
• Broadcom Support to bge Networking Driver
• x86: Fully Buffered DIMM Idle Power Enhancement
• Fault Management Architecture Enhancements
• FMA Support for AMD's Istanbul Based Systems
• Several Oracle Solaris FMA Enhancement
• Diagnostic Tools Enhancements
• Sun Validation Test Suite 7.0ps9
• Enhancements to the mdb Command to Improve the Debugging Capability of kmem and libumem

You wil find a more in-depth description at docs.sun.com.

NetApp, Oracle Drop ZFS LawSuits

The Wall Street Journal:

"NetApp Inc. and Oracle Corp. have agreed to dismiss patent lawsuits against each other, putting to bed a battle that had been ongoing since 2007.

The terms of the agreement weren't disclosed, and the companies said they are seeking to have the lawsuits dismissed without prejudice.

NetApp President and Chief Executive Tom Georgens said Thursday the companies would continue to collaborate in the future.

NetApp, which sells data-storage systems, and Sun Microsystems, which has since been bought by Oracle, began the fight in 2007, with each company alleging the other was infringing some of its patents.

Lawsuits were filed on both companies' behalf, with NetApp alleging that Sun's ZFS file-system-management technology infringed a number of its patents. Sun at the time also said NetApp products infringed its patents."

See also The Register article.