Oracle Linux on SPARC Arrives!

 

[SPARC M7 Die with Floor Plan]

Oracle Linux on SPARC Arrives!

Abstract:

Sun Microsystems had long hosted multiple processors in their workstation and server platforms, dating back Motorola 68000, Intel x86, SPARC, and re-introducing Intel again. Sun had mostly run SunOS, rebranding as Solaris with the investment of AT&T SVR4, and occasionally running multiple OS derivatives under various appliances. Today, Oracle is bringing Oracle Linux is becoming as an official supported platform under SPARC.

[Courtesy: Oracle Exadata SL6 SPARC Linux Presentation]

Presenter:

Juan Loaiza

Senior Vice President

Oracle Corporation

[Courtesy: Oracle Exadata SL6 SPARC Linux Presentation]

Major Points

Linux is supported on a new SPARC Exadata platform. There were two presentation covered.

[Courtesy: Oracle Database Exadata SL6 SPARC Linux Presentation]

SPARC M7

The worlds fastest General Processor with Software in Silicon breakthroughs.

[Courtesy: Oracle Database Exadata SL6 SPARC Linux Presentation]

DAX

32 Database Accelerators added on the M7 Silicon are available under Linux.

[Courtesy: Oracle Database Exadata SL6 SPARC Linux Presentation]

Decompression

32 Decompression Engines added on the M7 Silicon are available under Linux.

[Courtesy: Oracle Database Exadata SL6 SPARC Linux Presentation]

Security in Silicon

Buffer Overflow Attacks eliminated under Linux.

[Courtesy: Oracle Database Exadata SL6 SPARC Linux Presentation]

Intel Replaced with Faster SPARC

With the Exadata SPARC Linux platform, the slower Intel nodes are replaced with a higher speed SPARC node. The cost is the same.

Conclusions:

Oracle not only offers the fastest databases, SPARC as the fastest General Purpose CPU, and now a popular Linux Operating System to supplement the Solaris Operating System.

SPARC: Oracle Linux Coming Soon!

[SPARC International Logo, Courtesy SPARC International]

Abstract:
Linux has been available under SPARC for some time. Ubuntu had committed to supporting Linux under UltraSPARC T systems. Fujitsu offered Linux under their SPARC systems for their MPP based clusters. China had offered Linux for small controllers based upon SPARC. Oracle is getting into the business of releasing Linux for their systems.

[Oracle Corporation Logo, Courtesy Oracle]

Source: Job Posting:
Oracle made a public job posting, foreshadowing an upcoming product release: Course/Curriculum Dev 4-Training

Oracle VM Server for SPARC is highly efficient, enterprise-class virtualization enabling the creation of 128 virtual servers on one system leveraging Oracle's SPARC servers... The change here is to remove any mention of "Solaris"... This product will also be available on Linux going forward so Linux or Solaris are equally valid. 

Documentation of a training class for a product is a pretty reliable source for a new product release.

[SPARC M7 Die, Courtesy The Register]

Not the Only Source
Larry Ellison, currently the CTO of Oracle, announced that Oracle Enterprise Linux was coming to SPARC back in 2010, around the acquisition time of Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation.

"We think Sparc will become clearly the best chip for running Oracle software. At that point we'd be nuts not to move Oracle Enterprise Linux there. We're a ways away, but I think that's definitely going to happen," Ellison said. It's likely to happen in "the T4, T5 timeframe."

The SPARC T4 & T5 processors are currently being sold. More SPARC processors are coming...

[San Francisco California, courtesy Oracle Corporation]

Reading the Tea Leaves
The T5's are about to be supplanted with the SPARC M7 pending release. and the SPARC T7 pending release. Oracle OpenWorld is about to occur. This seems like the right timing for a product announcement or release... get your new SPARC processors with Oracle Linux or Solaris could be a great marketing campaign!

Conclusion:
If your company has been holding out for a large vendor to support Linux under SPARC, this may be your opportunity. This could also be foretelling of the inevitable decline of Intel under Oracle Engineered Systems. The bundling of Linux under a lower cost SPARC could be the beginning of Oracle re-entering the HPC market.

Ksplice: Kernal Update Without Reboot

[Ksplice image courtesy Linux by Knight]
Ksplice: Kernel Update Without Reboot

Abstract:
Operating Systems normally comprise two distinct layers: the kernel and the user space. Normally, updating the kernel would require a reboot, so the OS can apply a new kernel module. Operating Systems like Solaris created a mechanism called "live update" to update OS Kernel, OS User Space, or even third-party applications (not to mention provide rollback) with merely a reboot. Oracle Solaris 11 facilitates virtually unlimited patch/rollback cycles leveraging ZFS. The new Ksplice tool from Oracle allows for Linux to get closer to Solaris uptime requirements by providing for kernel updates without reboot, leaving OS User Space and Applications to normal reboot or application restart cycles.

Overview:
Ksplice is a feature of Oracle Linux which installs kernel updates on live systems without reboot, it is free with Oracle Premier Linux Support, and is available today. Even IBM an developer network has some nice things to say about Ksplice, owned by Oracle, and provides a detailed description of how it works.

Caveats:
Ksplice will only work on kernel code distributed by Oracle, no third-party open source kernel modules. Ksplice: facilitates kernel updates in the memory of the system; is used in conjunction to Yum or Uptodate for Kernel and OS User Space binaries on-disk; does not provide for a mechanism to update applications.

Example Commands:
Some important commands, highlighted in a recent screen cast from Oracle include:
uptrack-update - allows for kernel version updates on a live system without boot
uptrack-uname - shows updates on the
uptrack-show - shows updates and effective kernel version
uptrack-remove - allows rollback of kernel versions on a live system without boot
/etc/init.d/uptrack - installs Ksplice kernel updates or on-disk kernel on [re]boot; allow on-disk kernel or even allows to automatically install updates dynamically.
http://uptrack.ksplice.com/ - Web GUI interface to see updates on all servers


Screen Cast Video:
This screen cast provides a Ksplice overview, kernel patching demo, as well as a FAQ.


Network Management Implications:
Solaris offers a single reboot for OS Kernel, OS User Space, and Applications updates, while Ksplice provides Oracle Enterprise Linux with a way to increase availability to avoid reboots with OS Kernel updates (while leaving third-party drivers, OS User Space, and Applications with solving the problem by themselves.)

With the ability of modern operating systems like Oracle Solaris and Oracle Linux to provide near 100% availability (with security), network management systems will increasingly leverage these two foundational components, so managed services providers will be able to provide better availability to their customers than ever before.

DTrace: Real Visibility

DTrace: Real Visibility

Abstract:
DTrace was developed by engineers from Sun Microsystems, and leveraged in their Fishworks project, to provide instrumentation for their Solaris 11 based storage system. After many of the original developers were cut from the staff, during the acquisition by Oracle, the DTrace community continued to significant diversify. Real visibility, to running applications and operating systems, is now reaching critical mass through the DTrace diaspora.


Oracle Announcement:
Oracle announced in Cotober 2011 that DTrace was being brought to Oracle Enterprise Linux. This announcement generated much discussion, but the history is fairly significant.

Some History:
There will be no attempt to provide an exhaustive history, but it is important to "travel down the roads least traveled" to gain an understanding of DTrace.

June 17, 2004 - Sun's Adam Leventhal starts work with Solaris DTrace
December 13, 2005 - Sun's Adam Leventhal discusses Solaris DTrace in a Linux Branded Zone
March 3, 2007 - Mailing list discussions regarding DTrace port to FreeBSD
August 2, 2007 - Sun's Adam Leventhal discusses knock-off DTrace copy on Linux
August 6, 2007 - Sun's Adam Leventhal discusses DTrace port to Linux
April 3, 2008 - Crisp developer Paul Fox starts DTrace port to Linux
June 30, 2008 - Sun's Adam Leventhal discusses a firestorm regarding DTrace port to Linux
August 10, 2010 - Oracle's Adam Leventhal departs and joins Delphix
September 23, 2010 - Oracle's Brendan Greg discusses upcoming DTrace Book
October 25, 2010 - Oracle's DTrace developer Brendan Greg departs for Joyent
November 19, 2010 - Oracle's Darren Moffat uses DTrace to better understand ZFS encryption
October 4, 2011 - Oracle announces DTrace for Oracle Enterprise Linux
October 5, 2011 - Delphix's Adam Leventhal discusses Oracle Linux DTrace alpha-beta
October 10, 2o11 - Delphix's Adam Leventhal discusses Oracle Linux DTrace Port issues
October 11, 2011 - Oracle's Wim Coekaerts "kicks the tires" on Oracle Linux DTrace
October 14, 2011 - Crisp developer Paul Fox discusses his DTrace Ubunto 11.10 port

Linux: 5 Year Old Root Exploit Finally Patched

Security Focus:
It has been a over half decade, but a Linux kernel root exploit has finally been patched. Yes, Oracle Enterprise Linux, RedHat, and others have been running around with this issue for a long time.


For your Novell fans, the SUSE distribution has been OK since 2004, but it has not trickled down to the other distributions since the fix had not been incorporated into the official kernel until now.

Network Management:
In a world of network management where a central or even distributed systems monitor or manage millions of potential device across many thousands of networks, a root exploit in an operating system kernel dating back over a half decade is extremely high risk.

If it has to run and has to run securely - a generic Linux distribution may not fit the bill.

Look for Operating System vendors who have a strong record with understanding Data Centers and managing networks, not just OS vendors who can do it more cheaply.

Solaris 11: 2011 Confirmed

Solaris 11: 2011 Confirmed


The Concern:
There has been a lot of concern from the OpenSolaris community about the silence from Oracle. Various community members believed that Oracle was just tying up Solaris 11. A new community based upon internal & external developers started the creation of Illumos in response to the silence. Illumos was discussed in the Network Management blog.


The Confirmation:
Jeff Burt at eWeek attended a live web event at Oracle on Tuesday August 06, 2010 with Oracle Executive Vice President of Systems, John Fowler. Jeff reported that Solaris 11 will be coming in 2011.

Oracle will release the next version of the Solaris operating system in 2011, and will double the performance of its SPARC processors every other year.

Sean Michael Kerner from ServerWatch also attended the live event, reporting the silence in the OpenSolaris community was due to the diligent work going on with the pending Solaris 11 release.

"Solaris 11 will be a superset of what is in openSolaris"... "We've been a little quiet on the open source front," Fowler said. "It's not that we're not investing in Solaris, we're just investing to make sure that we have all the major components for the new release."

The Odd Announcement:
Jeff Burt also reported in his eWeek article that Oracle Enterprise Linux is destined for SPARC?

Oracle will continue to support Oracle VM, its virtualization technology that enables businesses to run Windows and Linux environments—including Oracle's own Oracle Enterprise Linux—on SPARC-based systems.

The meaning of this phrase seems uncertain - one might be wise to wait for the real presentation material and transcript to be made available from Oracle.