System News for Sun Users

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 Oracle�s 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.

Sun Datacenter Infiniband Switch 72

2009-10-05T16:00:00+01:00

The Sun Datacenter InfiniBand Switch 72 joins the Sun Datacenter InfiniBand Switch 648 and Sun Datacenter InfiniBand Switch 36 in Sun's third generation family of InfiniBand (IB) switches. The one rack unit (RU) switch is a complete, ultra-slim, ultra-dense switch fabric solution for Sun server clusters up to 72 Quad Data Rate (QDR) IB nodes. Most importantly, the switch integrates with the Sun Blade 6048 InfiniBand QDR Switched Network Express Module, scaling up to over 576 end nodes.

Sun Datacenter InfiniBand Switch 36

2009-09-29T16:00:00+01:00

The Sun Datacenter InfiniBand Switch 36 is a 36-port Quad Data Rate (QDR) InfiniBand leaf switch enabling users to bind Sun Blade and Sun Fire servers and storage systems into a 36-node cluster. This multi-purpose switch can act as a self-contained fabric solution for smaller InfiniBand clusters or as a building block for hierarchical fabric topologies supporting larger clusters of Sun Blade or Sun Fire servers and storage systems.

Sun's New Network Architecture - VeriScale

2009-08-26T16:00:00+01:00

Sun's Mikael Lofstrand defines the principles of a new Sun network architecture called VeriScale and demonstrates how it meets the requirements of elasticity, scalability and five other detailed conditions making it ideal for a modern, self-provisioning datacenter. In a soon to be released Sun BluePrints that Lofstrand is authoring and sharing on his blog, he defines the VeriScale architecture including its functional components, its nontraditional method of automation, OpenSolaris Dynamic Service Containers, network optimization and Sun's service delivery network architecture.

Brocade 8Gbs Fibre Channel SFPs and 4Gb 30km Extended Longwave SFP

2009-08-04T16:00:00+01:00

Sun is now offering Brocade customers more choices with the addition of Brocade 8Gb/s 10km Fibre Channel SFPs and Brocade 4Gb/s 30km Fibre Channel Extended Long wave SFP for various switches and directors. Brocade 4Gb/s and 8Gb/s SFP's in both long wave and shortwave lengths can be intermixed.

Sun Datacenter InfiniBand Switch 648

2009-07-27T16:00:00+01:00

The Sun Datacenter InfiniBand Switch 648 is a high-density, Quad Data Rate (QDR) IB core switch that offers capacity for up to 648 servers and storage systems. It can replace up to 152 discrete switching elements and thousands of cables in large-scale solutions, Sun reports. It is an ideal solution for cluster sizes that range from 200 servers to 5000+ servers. This full industry standard Infiniband switching platform fits into a standard 19-inch rack. With an 11u height, up to three switches can be mounted in a single rack for 1,944 4x QDR InfiniBand ports in 33 rack units.

Open Network Systems for Internet Infrastructure, MySQL Edition

2009-07-15T16:00:00+01:00

Nick Kloski and Alejandro Medrano have penned a Sun BluePrints Online article covering Sun's new reference architecture, the Open Network Systems for Internet Infrastructure, MySQL Edition. This reference architecture combines Sun Open Storage, high-performance networking and servers, open source software and Sun services into an integrated enterprise portal solution for Web and enterprise environments. This paper describes the hardware and software components of the reference architecture, studies the scalability of the architecture, and includes step-by-step directions for setup and configuration.

Sun InfiniBand Dual Port 4x Quad Data Rate PCIe Host Channel Adapters (HCA)

2009-05-21T16:00:00+01:00

Sun InfiniBand Dual Port 4x Quad Data Rate (QDR) PCIe Low Profile Host Channel Adapter (HCA) and the Sun InfiniBand Dual port 4x QDR PCI-E Express Module HCA are built using Mellanox ConnectX silicon, delivering QDR over four times than copper and optical interconnects, Sun reports. Sun's QDR InfiniBand products enable Sun to offer RDMA-based high-performance, low-latency I/O interconnect technology for its blade and rack mount server platforms.

Introducing the Sun Blade 6048 InfiniBand QDR Switched Network Express Module (NEM)

2009-05-21T16:00:00+01:00

Sun is introducing its Sun Blade 6048 InfiniBand Quad Data Rate (QDR) Switched Network Express Module (NEM) and the Sun InfiniBand Dual port 4x DDR PCIe Fabric Expansion Module (FEM). Expected to be generally available this summer, what these new upcoming Sun products boast are QDR InfiniBand which delivers up to 80 Gb/s bandwidth (full-duplex) per server connection and the ability to enable Sun Blade server modules to be connected to an in-chassis InfiniBand fabric.

Brocade DCX-4S Backbone Director

2009-04-01T16:00:00+01:00

Brocade DCX Backbones are a family of modular network switching platforms. Its most recent release is the 8U Brocade DCX-4S Backbone. Built for midsize networks, this new offering comes with eight modular blade slots. Four horizontal blade slots provide up to 192 Fibre Channel ports, 1.54 Tbit/sec chassis bandwidth (using 1/3rd local switching), 256 Gbit/sec of aggregate Inter Chassis Link (ICL) bandwidth, and 2/4/8/10Gb FC and FICON connectivity. The remaining four slots are reserved for control processor (CP) and core switching blades shipped with the base chassis.

Force10 10 Gigabit Ethernet IP Services Platform for Sun Netra Rack Servers

2009-02-12T17:00:00+01:00

The Force10 P-Series 10 Gigabit Ethernet IP Services Platform and the Sun Netra Server are the ideal combination when considering how to deliver IP Services. Recognized as the first to deliver comprehensive deep packet inspection for line-rate 10 GbE applications, the Force10 P-Series 10 GbE inspection appliance uses an innovative, new processing architecture to simultaneously apply millions of rules to each packet. Through the use of an FPGA-based rule engine, the P-Series can also dynamically reprogram hardware rules to deliver predictable performance and total signature flexibility under all traffic conditions.

Sun Storage FC Switch Model 5802

2009-01-05T17:00:00+01:00

The Sun Storage Fibre Channel (FC) Switch Model 5802 offers 8Gb FC, providing more bandwidth for SAN while also extending the life of existing SAN infrastructure since it is backwards compatible with 4Gb and 2Gb devices and optics. The stacking technology used for this switch allows it to scale from 8 to 120 FC device ports and connect up to 6 FC switches into a single manageable switch stack.

Brocade Data Center Fabric Manager (DCFM)

2009-01-05T17:00:00+01:00

Sun has announced the Brocade Data Center Fabric Manager (DCFM) software, which simplifies infrastructure management with the performance and scalability required for the majority of the world's data centers. With DCFM, all Brocade products, whether based on the Fabric Operating System (FOS) or the M-EOS operating system (McData EFCM), can be managed with less cost and complexity. DCFM is available as two different products: DCFM Professional and DCFM Enterprise.

Cisco MDS 9000 Family 8Gb/s Fibre Channel Switching Modules

2008-12-01T17:00:00+01:00

The Cisco MDS 9000 Family 8-Gbps Fibre Channel switching modules delivers up to 528 8-Gbps port density and twice the bandwidth of previous generation Cisco MDS Fibre Channel switching modules and enable customers to build consolidated SANs with fewer chassis, hence requiring less space, power, and cooling, dramatically reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO).

Sun now offers the Cisco MDS 9000 Family 8Gb/s Fibre Channel Switching Modules