Short Items of Interest for Solaris Users
Configuring a Development Environment to Practice OpenSolaris, Solaris Cluster Technologies
Learn how to set up a single x86-based system with OpenSolaris, configuring a training and development environment for Solaris 10/Solaris Cluster 3.2 and using VirtualBox to set up a two node cluster. These instructions can be found in the white paper “Practicing Solaris Cluster using VirtualBox” by Thorsten Frueauf. The presented configuration can be used to practice using various technologies such as Crossbow, COMSTAR, ZFS, IPsec, software quorum, and zone clusters.
CommunityOne Presentation by Ben Rockwood
If you didn’t attend or haven’t viewed the CommunityOne presentation by Ben Rockwood on ZFS, then take some time to tune into a replay of his talk. The nearly two-hour webcast is a thorough examination of the ZFS file system. The talk covers the basics, but Rockwood delves into the subject matter more than many other presentations on the topic. It is directed at beginners as well as individuals who are familiar with ZFS but don’t consider themselves quite experts.
What’s New in These Two Features of the Sun Storage 7000 2009.Q3 Release
The Sun Storage 7000 series 2009.Q3 software release officially announced on September 22, provides a new iSCSI software stack via the Common Multiprotocol SCSI Target or COMSTAR framework, a new dataset Synchronous write bias property or logbias, and many other features. Focusing on the aforementioned features, a Sun blog by Roch Bourbonnais explores each of these two, detailing the ins and outs and why they are significant to performance.
Lower Cost, Greater Flexibility than Proprietary Storage Solutions
The Sun white paper “Sun Open Storage: A Lower-cost, Higher Performance Alternative for the Enterprise” argues that the high cost and inherent lack of flexibility of proprietary enterprise storage solutions lends compelling appeal to Sun’s Open Storage offerings. Using industry-standard components and open-source software, open storage enables enterprises to build highly scalable, reliable, and flexible storage systems to fit their growing demands - all at a fraction of the cost of traditional, proprietary storage, the white paper maintains.
White Paper from Open HA Cluster Summit 2009
“Open HA Cluster on OpenSolaris,” a white paper by Thorsten Frueauf, technical lead of Sun’s Project Colorado, was originally presented at the Open HA Cluster Summit 2009, where the author explained how to set up a system with OpenSolaris, serving as a host for at least two VirtualBox OpenSolaris guests, and shows how to setup a two node Open HA Cluster with them by using technologies like Crossbow and COMSTAR.
Short Items of Interest to the OpenSolaris Community
Short Items of Interest to the OpenStorage Community
If you’re interested in learning more about COMSTAR, the OpenSolaris Project COmmon Multiprotocol SCSI TARget, then take 10 minutes of your time to watch a screencast demonstration conducted by Sun expert Sumit Gupta who walks viewers through the basic steps of setting up a Solaris host as a fibre channel storage array using COMSTAR and ZFS.
The OpenSolaris Web site also has a video of Gupta presenting COMSTAR at SNIA SDC and Sun engineers presenting COMSTAR at SNW.
Visit the COMSTAR Videos page for all three.
OpenSolaris Build 90 allows multiple products, protocols and device types to be supported by any Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS)-based server with a common framework - COMSTAR or the COmmon Multiprotocol SCSI TARget.
This OpenSolaris project provides a software framework enabling any OpenSolaris host to be turned into a SCSI target storage device, which can be accessed over the network by initiator hosts. With COMSTAR, a SCSI target subsystem is broken down into independent functional modules that are then integrated by the SCSI Target Mode Framework (STMF).
COMSTAR’s framework allows for all SCSI device types (tape, disk, SES, etc.) connected to any transport (Fibre Channel, iSCSI, iSER, SAS, FCoE, etc.) with concurrent access to all LUNs (Logical Unit Numbers) and a single point of management.
“A key objective of COMSTAR is to provide a simple framework for users to add transport protocols and device types to build new block storage devices,” blogs Sun’s Scott Tracy. “This allows any block storage device to be built from one common framework. No other commercially available operating system allows this type of flexibility or coordination.”
During this past May’s CommunityOne gathering, Sun Engineering Manager Peter Buckingham gave a presentation on COMSTAR that includes instructions on creating a multiprotocol server using ZFS to create a file share, installing COMSTAR and using COMSTAR to create a FC target. Visit the Storage Stop blog to view the video.
