System News for Sun Users - The Blog

One Suggestion: Filesystem Cache Centric Directory Service Architecture

The basics of flash memory are the topic of a blog entry in The Zone Manager. Engineer Brad Diggs attempts to explain why flash through the ZFS secondary cache, or L2ARC, and ZFS Intent Log (ZIL) can improve overall directory performance. He also asserts the use of flash memory and ZFS will enable “radical” new directory services architectures, and explains further in a secondary posting.

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Can Rebalance Systems, Eliminate I/O Bottlenecks, and Improve End User Experience

Sun staff engineer and technical marketing manager Roger Bitar provides an overview of Flash technology, and discusses its introduction into a new tier of storage infrastructure. In a Sun BluePrints article, Bitar explains how companies can utilize Flash technology and the Solaris ZFS file system to take advantage of the high performance of enterprise solid state drives (SSDs) and other Flash storage devices.

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The Challenges of a SAN Between Servers and Storage

Joerg Moellenkamp does the math to demonstrate that latency does indeed matter when there is SAN between your server and your storage. He pits a direct-connected storage-server configuration that uses a 10 meter long cable against a second configuration that uses a director or a switch and two five meter cables.

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Adds ZFS User and Group Quotas, L2ARC Support, Faster Patching, and More

Sun released Solaris 10 10/09 with new and enhanced features, such as up to two Tbytes disk support for installing and booting the OS, ZFS and Flash installation support, updates to setting ZFS user and group quotas, support of L2ARC, power management capabilities to leverage the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series, a “P2V” (Physical to Virtual) method, faster patching and parallel zone patching, etc. There are many more system administration, installation, system resources, device management, system performance, driver, and freeware enhancements included.

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