System News for Sun Users

Guidelines for Deployment in a Virtualized Environment

2013-04-22T16:00:00+01:00

Oracle Virtual Networking offers advantages for virtualized server environments. With server virtualization, the bandwidth, network diversity, and storage performance requirements for the physical hosts can be accommodated by using multiple virtual NICs (vNICs) and virtual HBAs (vHBAs), all of which are delivered over a single pair of cables connecting to a purpose-built fabric. These resources can be added or changed on the fly without disrupting service, making it easy to virtualize new applications. The networking resources can also be configured such that they communicate directly across the fabric, allowing for unprecedented server-to-server performance.

In this article, we will examine guidelines and best-practices for deploying Oracle Virtual Networking in a virtualized environment. The recommendations focus on bringing the most simplicity, agility, and performance to the environment. This article is not a replacement for the official documentation; it is a supplement. It is assumed that readers are familiar with the administration of virtualized environments and the basic concepts of Oracle Virtual Networking.

Read on for details.

Solaris 11 Network Virtualization now Possible with Oracle VM Server for SPARC 3.0.0.2

2013-04-22T16:00:00+01:00

Jeff Savit addresses the new capability in Oracle VM Server for SPARC, which is that version 3.0.0.2 now supports the removal of restrictions that in earlier versions prevented vNICs on VNets, further allowing Solaris 11 network virtualization. Now, instead of just consolidating servers, users can consolidate a data center's servers and network topologies into a single Solaris instance, setting up multiple isolated virtual networks, associating zones with the different virtual networks, and establishing rules for isolation, connectivity and quality of service (QoS). Savit goes on to explain the use of this new capability, providing the necessary code.

Oracle Virtual Networking Newly Announced

2013-04-22T16:00:00+01:00

Oracle has just announced Oracle Virtual Networking, an architecture data center fabric that simplifies complex data center deployments with a wire-once solution and simple software-defined network configurations. Oracle Virtual Networking offers the industry�'s fastest data center fabric with up to 80 Gigabytes (Gb)/sec bandwidth to the server and supports Oracle�'s SPARC T5, T4 and M5 servers and Oracle Solaris 11 on SPARC and x86 platforms. Among the benefits users of Oracle Virtual Networking will enjoy are 4X improvements in application performance; a 70% reduction in infrastructure complexity; a 50% reduction in LAN and SAN capital expenditures; and a 19X acceleration of virtual machine migrations.

How to: Build a Private Virtual Network with Zones in Solaris 11

2013-03-02T17:00:00+01:00

Courtesy of User 13333379, readers are alerted to Stefan Schneider"s multi-part how-to on building a private virtual network with Solaris 11 Zones. Among the several tasks Schneider leads readers through are:

Creating a virtual switch (gbswitch0) inside your Solaris 11 servers
Creating virtual network interfaces which will be attached to the virtual switch
Creating zones which will use the virtual switch
Configuring the routing to keep all communication inside your Solaris server
Configuring a network address translation (NAT) which allow your internal zones to access external services like DNS
Configuring a reverse proxy for the public network interface.

Increase Performance and Agility with Oracle's Data Center Fabric Solutions: Oracle Webcast

2012-12-26T17:00:00+01:00

If you missed the December 11, 2012, Oracle Webcast "Increase Performance and Agility with Oracle Data Center Fabric Solutions" with S.K. Vinod, Senior Director of Product Management, Oracle Virtual Networking products, register to receive the on-demand link. Vinod shows viewers how the fast, simple, and agile architecture of Oracle Fabric Interconnect provides dynamic network and storage connectivity to thousands of servers. He demonstrates as well how to use Oracle Software Defined Network (SDN) to connect any resource on the data center fabric quickly�'without incurring downtime or requiring network reconfiguration.

Creating an Active/Active IPMP for Solaris 11

2012-08-30T16:00:00+01:00

User 20121221 blogs on how to create an active/active ipmp configuration with Solaris 11, in which automated network configuration is managed by a Solaris service called "nwam" or "Network Auto Magic". The nawm service is turned on by default, the post explains, and must be disabled before you make changes to the settings for static IP addresses. One must also employ the "default" physical networking service and be aware that this disables the ipv6 on the interfaces, which persists across reboots. The post notes that the ipadm command is the preferred tool to manage the configuration of the interfaces.

Solaris 11 VNICs on SR-IOV Virtual Functions

2012-05-30T16:00:00+01:00

A post on Raghuram Kothakota's blog shows how, in three simple steps, one can configure a Virtual Function (VF) so that VNICs can be created on top of the VF device. This done, it becomes possible for an OVM Server for SPARC (aka LDoms) 2.2 to provide support for an SR-IOV VF that can be assigned to a Logical Domain. This VF will provide bare-metal-like performance, the post asserts, and then goes on to outline the three simple steps.

How to Get Started Configuring Your Network in Oracle Solaris 11

2012-05-23T16:00:00+01:00

With changes in implementation and the names of network interfaces and the commands and methods for administering and configuring them, the Oracle Solaris 11 network architecture is significantly different from previous releases of Oracle Solaris. Andrew Walton's article describes some of the new features for basic Oracle Solaris 11 network configuration and shows how to use them to add a new system to a simple but typical corporate network. His instructions cover both manual and automatic network configuration. Walton recommends that administrators use network configuration profiles to simplify complex configurations and apply them as a single unit of change.

Solaris and IPv6: Is Solaris Compliant?

2012-05-18T16:00:00+01:00

While he concedes the impossibility of knowing the status of all Oracle products, Jim Laurent points out that it is a matter of record that Solaris 10 and 11 have undergone testing by UNH Interoperability IPv6 test facility. The results are posted at theUNH site. UNH has also tested Oracle Linux and found it fully compatible with Red Hat Linux 5 and 6, which have also been tested by UNH, according to Laurent.

Cheatsheet for Configuring the Networking in Solaris 11

2012-03-08T17:00:00+01:00

Joerg Moellenkamp shares a cheatsheet for configuring the networking in Solaris 11 in a recent post. In doing so he remarks that improvements in Solaris 11 have made network configuration easier since one need no longer edit files but instead can use CLI-based tools to change file parameters. Further, he writes, the use of SMF makes determining when changes become active clear. Step by step, then, he shows the code involved in configuring networking in the OS, and he shows how it can be done both manually and automatically.

InfiniBand Building Blocks

2012-02-24T17:00:00+01:00

The InfiniBand technology underlying Oracle's Engineered Systems prompts a post from Neeraj Gupta, who focuses on the configuration inside a rack involving two servers interconnected by InfiniBand leaf switches. He also discusses the IB software, especially Subnet Manager, that the configuration calls for. Gupta illustrates his post with screen shots and code samples.

How to Script Oracle Solaris 11 Zones Creation for a Network-In-a-Box Configuration

2012-02-17T17:00:00+01:00

Oracle Solaris 11 provides new networking features for network virtualization, writes Jeff McMeekin in his post on network virtualization, showing how to take server virtualization to the next level by providing the ability to virtualize entire network topologies of servers, routers, switches, and firewalls all running on a single platform and requiring no additional investment in networking hardware. According to McMeekin network virtualization can be used for a variety of purposes, from prototyping, to developing and testing, to service deployment. The author focuses on scripting the creation of Oracle Solaris Zones with an emphasis on network configuration.

A Look at the Switches Inside Oracle's Engineered Systems

2012-02-17T17:00:00+01:00

The switches typically inside Oracle integrated engineered systems are the subject of a post by Neeraj Gupta, who provides a detailed look at both the InfiniBand switches (Sun Oracle 36-port InfiniBand Switch and Sun Oracle InfiniBand Gateway Switch) and the Cisco Catalyst 4948 Switch. He further discusses the varieties of InfiniBand switches -- spine and leaf switches -- noting the applications each can be put to. Gupta next considers the build out of InfiniBand connectivity and topology and concludes with a brief consideration of overall network design.

A Primer on InfiniBand

2012-02-16T17:00:00+01:00

Neeraj Gupta posts a primer on InfiniBand which he compares with Ethernet, noting how InfiniBand exceeds Ethernet in both bandwidth and latency, allowing InfiniBand to eliminate bottlenecks with its superior ability to enable computers to exchange data. Gupta assures his readers that, despite requiring specialized components such as Host Channel Adapters and InfiniBand Switches and special cables using InfiniBand does not require a re-write of applications since InfiniBand observes the same Open Systems Interconnect as Ethernet, enabling hardware to view InfiniBand in very much the same light as it sees Ethernet. Ergo, no re-writes necessary.

How to Use Oracle Solaris 11 Network Virtualization and Resource Management

2012-01-09T17:00:00+01:00

Users can now monitor, control, guarantee, and reconfigure network infrastructure to provide applications with the required data connections using Oracle Solaris 11 Network Virtualization and Resource Management. Duncan Hardie's post on Oracle tech network showing how to apply bandwidth limits to both data links and user-defined flows to manage network traffic. Hardie also shows how data link bandwidth limits all traffic through that data link, whereas bandwidth limits applied to flows can be based on network packet characteristics. These technologies allow users to create a flexible and controlled environment to meet all their network resource management needs.

Integration of LDoms Networking with Networking Enhancements in Solaris 11

2011-12-12T17:00:00+01:00

The network stack for Oracle Solaris 11 has been substantially re-architected in an effort known as Project Crossbow, a main goal of which is to virtualize the hard NICs into Virtual NICs (VNICs) to provide more effective sharing of networking resources. Raghuram Kothakota blogs on how LDoms networking is integrated with all the networking enhancements in S11, mainly with project Crossbow. His post is a high-level view of how LDoms virtual switch in an S11 service domain and LDoms virtual network device in an S11 Guest domain.

IEEE Task Force Developing Standard for 100GE Backplanes

2011-10-04T16:00:00+01:00

The IEEE has approved an amendment to the 802.3 standard for 100GE networking called P802.3bj, which will enhance the physical layer in 100GE devices and complement the existing work that has been done in the 802.3ba-2010 standard, which was approved as a standard for 40Gb/sec and 100Gb/sec Ethernet devices last June, reports Timothy Prickett Morgan in The Register. A task force of industry vendors working on the P802.3bj extensions for 100GE is focused on the use of Ethernet as a backplane interconnect inside of blade servers and across racks in 1 meter or shorter hops and in copper cables that are 5 meters or shorter for inter-rack and cross-rack connections.

Integrated IP Equals Total Systems for Customers

2011-09-27T16:00:00+01:00

"What you're seeing from Oracle is, we're integrating more of our IP" -- intellectual property -- "into total systems that bring our customers significant performance and cost advantages," said Oracle President Mark Hurd as reported in a story by Brandon Bailey for mercurynews.com. Hurd is becoming increasingly visible as a member of the Oracle executive team to the extent that outsiders are crediting him with adding strength to Oracle's hardware operations which John Fowler heads up, even though Hurd's province at Oracle is sales.

Andy Bechtolsheim Casts His Vote for Merchant Silicon

2011-07-28T16:00:00+01:00

Merchant silicon gets Andy Bechtolsheim's vote as the technology for Ethernet switches. He writes that throughput and cost-performance factors make merchant silicon the winner, hands down. This is reflected in the fact that, according to him, most of the 10 Gigabyte (GB) switches manufactured in the current year are based on merchant silicon. Given the network scalability demands of contemporary datacenters, Bechtolsheim writes, only 10 GB Ethernet will do as the switch. He also comments on the features of Arista's 7050-64S and compares them to those of Cisco's Catalyst 6509, asserting that the features gap between the two is closing.

Do We Really Want 100Gig Ethernet?

2011-07-11T16:00:00+01:00

"Do we really want 100Cig Ethernet?" asks Alan Stevens in "The Register," and he answers his rhetorical question with a resounding yes, citing two principal reasons: The need to support increasingly bandwidth-greedy applications, such as video streaming and private cloud computing, and the growth in server virtualization and the hardware consolidation that goes with it is an even more compelling consideration, he writes. He then goes on to elaborate, writing, " ... the more virtual machines a physical server has to host, the smaller the share of the available network bandwidth each is likely to get, even when it is sliced up and dynamically allocated using sophisticated virtual networking software." So, do we need it, Stevens says, yes, and soon, perhaps as early as 2015.

ipadm: New Solaris 11 Command for Administering IP Interfaces

2011-05-26T16:00:00+01:00

ipadm is a new command in Solaris 11 for administering IP interfaces. It is an upgrade over the venerable ifconfig though, unlike ifconfig, changes made with ipadm persist across reboots, according to Brian Leonard's blog. With this change, he explains, users need no longer contend with configuration files. Even so, he writes, while ipconfig has not gone away, ipadm shows a much cleaner interface that has persuaded him to work increasingly with the new command.

Oracle Solaris 11 Express Networking Virtualization Technology

2011-03-29T16:00:00+01:00

Oracle is featuring the network virtualization technology available in Project Crossbow, a new, powerful network stack architecture. Project Crossbow delivers the ability to perform network virtualization with Virtual NICs and virtual switching, as well as the creation of VNICs on physical NICs and the ability to link aggregations for high availability or the use of "etherstubs" to form hardware-independent virtual switches. Further capabilities in Project Crossbow include the ability to tightly integrate with oracle Solaris Zones and Oracle Solaris 10 Zones. Network resource management is efficient; integrated QoS is easy to manage, given the ability to enforce bandwidth limits on VNICs and traffic flows. Project Crossbow is an optimized network stack that reacts to network load levels and enables users to build a "datacenter in a box." Links to numerous resources including podcasts, videos, training sessions, and white papers are available at the above link.

Surveying the Business of Bandwidth (and the Insatiable Demand for More of It)

2011-03-17T16:00:00+01:00

Among the many changes over recent years involving IT technology, there has been at least one constant, and that is the demand for more and more bandwidth, a demand vendors have been hard at work to satisfy. Alan Stevens, writing in The Register considers the multiple developments around bandwidth and provides some perspective on what to expect in the coming decade. Among the items under discussion 40 GbE; 100 GbE; Terabit networking technologies; iSCSI storage networking; Fibre Channel over Ethernet; and, oh yes, Wi-Fi. Some or all of which can be expected to put in an appearance at a datacenter near you in the not to distant future.

Virtual Network - Part 4

2011-03-08T17:00:00+01:00

Continuing his series on Virtual Network, Jeff Victory blogs on Resource Controls, in which he demonstrates the use of a bandwidth cap on Virtual Network Elements, enabling the imposition of limits on the amount of bandwidth consumed by a particular stream of packets. According to Victor, the bandwidth cap is the simplest resource control among the several network virtualization tools in Solaris 11 Express. He concludes that both physical NICs and virtual NICs may be capped by using this simple method, which can also be applied to workloads that are in Solaris Zones - both default zones and Solaris 10 Zones which mimic Solaris 10 systems.

Virtual Network - Part 3

2011-02-16T17:00:00+01:00

The series on the network virtualization features of Oracle Solaris 11 Express written by Jeff Victor continues with his third post, which deals with the creation of virtual network elements (VNEs). Victor explains that his example employs an old Sun Fire T2000 with a single SPARC CMT (T1) chip and 32GB RAM. He pretends to be implementing a 3-tier architecture in this one system, where each tier is represented by one Solaris zone. This mythical example provides access to an employee database, he continues, and the 3-tier service is named 'emp' and VNEs will use 'emp' in their names to reduce confusion regarding the dozens of VNEs created for the services this system will deliver. Victor remarks on the convenience of the dladm(1M) command in Solaris that one can use to create, destroy and configure datalinks such as VNICs. He illustrates his post with numerous code samples.

Network Virtualization

2011-02-03T17:00:00+01:00

Network virtualization is but one of the several powerful new features in Solaris 11 Express that is the subject of J. Savit's blog post on flow control. Savit's example is an environment with multiple networked hosts on different switches with differing bandwidth requirements. The post shows how, with Solaris 11 Express, it is possible to describe virtual networks to maintain isolation and different network properties, while also establishing flow settings to manage quality of service. It is possible to create virtual network configurations that match the physical one, and control performance properties, Savit asserts. Code samples are included.

Demand for Network Flexibility, Cost Reductions Spotlights Network Virtualization

2011-01-12T17:00:00+01:00

With the imperative to increase network flexibility while minimizing the cost of that initiative, IT staffers are looking to network virtualization (NV), hoping to exploit its potential to reduce cost while increasing network flexibility. Jeff Victor provides some basic information on NV in his blog. He notes that among the benefits of network virtualization are increased architectural flexibility, better bandwidth and latency characteristics, the ability to prioritize network traffic to meet desired performance goals, and lower cost from fewer devices, reduced total power consumption.

Consolidating and Virtualizing Datacenter Networks with Oracles Network Fabric

2010-12-27T17:00:00+01:00

As the Oracle white paper "Consolidating and Virtualizing Datacenter Networks with Oracle's Network Fabric" notes, shifting from traditional datacenter network architectures that call for numerous tiers of networking and parallel networks to support server-to-server, server-to-storage and server-to-LAN traffic, and adopting instead Oracle's converged infrastructures of compute, storage and network components customers can expect substantial reductions in infrastructure and consequent reductions in acquisition, power and cooling, and management costs, along with faster deployment times and greater agility in conforming IT infrastructure to dynamic business needs in the management of their private clouds. The Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud and the Oracle Exadata Database Machine are but two examples of Oracle's ability to produce solutions that tightly integrate network services across application infrastructure. Performance gains are in the order of 5X to 10X compared to those involving multi-vendor architectures.

Sun Network QDR InfiniBand Gateway Switch

2010-11-08T17:00:00+01:00

As he sees it, the Sun Network QDR InfiniBand Gateway Switch enables users to employ Infiniband, with a single cable, as a single fabric on their servers as a gateway to connect to an existing Ethernet network, blogs Joerg Moellenkamp. Citing the FAQs on the Sun Oracle link, he points out that, "The gateway presents itself to the Ethernet fabric as a collection of Ethernet NICs." In other words, no new management issues as a consequence of adopting the gateway.

New Quad Data Rate Infiniband Networking Options for Oracle's Sun Servers

2010-10-20T16:00:00+01:00

Throughput is the operant word in discussions about the new Infiniband networking options for Oracle's Sun servers. Users of the new Oracle Quad Data Rate InfiniBand networking options will find that, "These HCAs provide enterprise datacenters with the high throughput and low latency benefits of InfiniBand, and enable Oracle's Sun servers to run at peak performance by eliminating I/O bottlenecks," in the words of Oracle's release.

System News for Sun Users

Guidelines for Deployment in a Virtualized Environment

Solaris 11 Network Virtualization now Possible with Oracle VM Server for SPARC 3.0.0.2

Oracle Virtual Networking Newly Announced

How to: Build a Private Virtual Network with Zones in Solaris 11

Increase Performance and Agility with Oracle's Data Center Fabric Solutions: Oracle Webcast

Creating an Active/Active IPMP for Solaris 11

Solaris 11 VNICs on SR-IOV Virtual Functions

How to Get Started Configuring Your Network in Oracle Solaris 11

Solaris and IPv6: Is Solaris Compliant?

Cheatsheet for Configuring the Networking in Solaris 11

InfiniBand Building Blocks

How to Script Oracle Solaris 11 Zones Creation for a Network-In-a-Box Configuration

A Look at the Switches Inside Oracle's Engineered Systems

A Primer on InfiniBand

How to Use Oracle Solaris 11 Network Virtualization and Resource Management

Integration of LDoms Networking with Networking Enhancements in Solaris 11

IEEE Task Force Developing Standard for 100GE Backplanes

Integrated IP Equals Total Systems for Customers

Andy Bechtolsheim Casts His Vote for Merchant Silicon

Do We Really Want 100Gig Ethernet?

ipadm: New Solaris 11 Command for Administering IP Interfaces

Oracle Solaris 11 Express Networking Virtualization Technology

Surveying the Business of Bandwidth (and the Insatiable Demand for More of It)

Virtual Network - Part 4

Virtual Network - Part 3

Network Virtualization

Demand for Network Flexibility, Cost Reductions Spotlights Network Virtualization

Consolidating and Virtualizing Datacenter Networks with Oracles Network Fabric

Sun Network QDR InfiniBand Gateway Switch

New Quad Data Rate Infiniband Networking Options for Oracle's Sun Servers

Consolidating and Virtualizing Datacenter Networks with Oracles Network Fabric