How close is Solaris Express build 90 to what will be released as the official Solaris 10 update 6? We just bought five x4500 servers, but I don''t really want to deploy in production with U5. There are a number of features in U6 I''d like to have (zfs allow for better integration with our local identity system, refquota support to minimize user confusion, ZFS boot, ...) On the other hand, I don''t really want to let these five servers sit around as insanely expensive and heavy paperweights all summer waiting for U6 to hopefully be released by September. My understanding is that SXCE maintains the same packaging system and jumpstart installation procedure as Solaris 10 (as opposed to OpenSolaris, which is completely different). If SXCE is close enough to what will become Solaris 10U6, I could do my initial development and integration on top of that, and be ready to go into production almost as soon as U6 is released, rather than wait for it to be released and then have to spin my wheels working with it. Would it be feasible to develop a ZFS boot jumpstart configuration with SXCE that would be mostly compatible with U6? Does SXCE have any particular ZFS features above and beyond what will be included in U6 I should be sure to avoid? Any other caveats I would want to take into consideration? Thanks much... -- Paul B. Henson | (909) 979-6361 | http://www.csupomona.edu/~henson/ Operating Systems and Network Analyst | henson at csupomona.edu California State Polytechnic University | Pomona CA 91768
On Thu, 2008-06-12 at 17:52 -0700, Paul B. Henson wrote:> How close is Solaris Express build 90 to what will be released as the > official Solaris 10 update 6? > > We just bought five x4500 servers, but I don''t really want to deploy in > production with U5. There are a number of features in U6 I''d like to have > (zfs allow for better integration with our local identity system, refquota > support to minimize user confusion, ZFS boot, ...) > > On the other hand, I don''t really want to let these five servers sit around > as insanely expensive and heavy paperweights all summer waiting for U6 to > hopefully be released by September. > > My understanding is that SXCE maintains the same packaging system and > jumpstart installation procedure as Solaris 10 (as opposed to OpenSolaris, > which is completely different). If SXCE is close enough to what will become > Solaris 10U6, I could do my initial development and integration on top of > that, and be ready to go into production almost as soon as U6 is released, > rather than wait for it to be released and then have to spin my wheels > working with it.While the S10 updates include features backported from Nevada you can only upgrade from S10 to Solaris Express, not the other way around (which would technically be a downgrade). (As you probably know Solaris 10 and Nevada are completely separate lines of development. Solaris Express is built from Nevada, as are the other OpenSolaris distributions.)> > Would it be feasible to develop a ZFS boot jumpstart configuration with > SXCE that would be mostly compatible with U6? Does SXCE have any particular > ZFS features above and beyond what will be included in U6 I should be sure > to avoid? Any other caveats I would want to take into consideration? >I don''t think there will be any spec changes for S10u6 from the ZFS boot support currently available in SX, but the JumpStart configuration for SX might not be compatible for other reasons (install-discuss may know better). -Albert
They aren''t even close to each other. Things like in-kernel cifs will never be put back. My question is, what is holding you back from just deploying on sxce? Sun now offers support for it. On 6/12/08, Paul B. Henson <henson at acm.org> wrote:> > How close is Solaris Express build 90 to what will be released as the > official Solaris 10 update 6? > > We just bought five x4500 servers, but I don''t really want to deploy in > production with U5. There are a number of features in U6 I''d like to have > (zfs allow for better integration with our local identity system, refquota > support to minimize user confusion, ZFS boot, ...) > > On the other hand, I don''t really want to let these five servers sit around > as insanely expensive and heavy paperweights all summer waiting for U6 to > hopefully be released by September. > > My understanding is that SXCE maintains the same packaging system and > jumpstart installation procedure as Solaris 10 (as opposed to OpenSolaris, > which is completely different). If SXCE is close enough to what will become > Solaris 10U6, I could do my initial development and integration on top of > that, and be ready to go into production almost as soon as U6 is released, > rather than wait for it to be released and then have to spin my wheels > working with it. > > Would it be feasible to develop a ZFS boot jumpstart configuration with > SXCE that would be mostly compatible with U6? Does SXCE have any particular > ZFS features above and beyond what will be included in U6 I should be sure > to avoid? Any other caveats I would want to take into consideration? > > Thanks much... > > > -- > Paul B. Henson | (909) 979-6361 | http://www.csupomona.edu/~henson/ > Operating Systems and Network Analyst | henson at csupomona.edu > California State Polytechnic University | Pomona CA 91768 > _______________________________________________ > zfs-discuss mailing list > zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss >
On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 9:22 PM, Tim <tim at tcsac.net> wrote:> They aren''t even close to each other. ?Things like in-kernel cifs will > never be put back. > > My question is, what is holding you back from just deploying on sxce? > Sun now offers support for it.To the best of my knowledge, Sun has never provided support for sxce. They have provided support for sxde, but that is winding down. http://developers.sun.com/sxde/support.jsp With the release of OpenSolaris 2008.05 we are pleased to announce the availability of OpenSolaris Subscriptions support as well as Sun Developer Expert Assistance for OpenSolaris. This marks the end of the SXDE program. To provide a smooth transition to OpenSolaris support, Sun Developer Expert Assistance for SXDE 1/08 will remain available through July of 2008. Thank you for your support and participation. We look forward to seeing you at opensolaris.com. If you''ve been following the various lists related to OpenSolaris 2008.05, you will likely understand that the plans and mechanisms around its support are not yet fully baked. Currently, the only installation mechanism requires a live CD and GUI console. This doesn''t fit very well with my idea of what I want to run in production in a data center. That, combined with a relatively short supported life (18 months) it doesn''t fit the bill for many data centers. I''m thinking that by the time that it is possible to have a private repository (e.g. mirror of pkg.sun.com) and the current batch of really fresh code from the Installation and Packaging community gets burned in a bit, the 18 month cycle will not be such a big deal in many cases. It''s shaping up that upgrading to the latest bits should be easier and safer than patching is today. -- Mike Gerdts http://mgerdts.blogspot.com/
I guess I find the "difference" between b90 and opensolaris trivial given we''re supposed to be getting constant updates following the sxce builds. On 6/12/08, Mike Gerdts <mgerdts at gmail.com> wrote:> On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 9:22 PM, Tim <tim at tcsac.net> wrote: >> They aren''t even close to each other. ?Things like in-kernel cifs will >> never be put back. >> >> My question is, what is holding you back from just deploying on sxce? >> Sun now offers support for it. > > To the best of my knowledge, Sun has never provided support for sxce. > They have provided support for sxde, but that is winding down. > > http://developers.sun.com/sxde/support.jsp > > With the release of OpenSolaris 2008.05 we are pleased to > announce the availability of OpenSolaris Subscriptions > support as well as Sun Developer Expert Assistance for > OpenSolaris. This marks the end of the SXDE program. To > provide a smooth transition to OpenSolaris support, Sun > Developer Expert Assistance for SXDE 1/08 will remain > available through July of 2008. Thank you for your support > and participation. We look forward to seeing you at > opensolaris.com. > > If you''ve been following the various lists related to OpenSolaris > 2008.05, you will likely understand that the plans and mechanisms > around its support are not yet fully baked. Currently, the only > installation mechanism requires a live CD and GUI console. This > doesn''t fit very well with my idea of what I want to run in production > in a data center. That, combined with a relatively short > supported life (18 months) it doesn''t fit the bill for many data > centers. > > I''m thinking that by the time that it is possible to have a private > repository (e.g. mirror of pkg.sun.com) and the current batch of > really fresh code from the Installation and Packaging community gets > burned in a bit, the 18 month cycle will not be such a big deal in > many cases. It''s shaping up that upgrading to the latest bits should > be easier and safer than patching is today. > > -- > Mike Gerdts > http://mgerdts.blogspot.com/ >
On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 10:12 PM, Tim <tim at tcsac.net> wrote:> I guess I find the "difference" between b90 and opensolaris trivial > given we''re supposed to be getting constant updates following the sxce > builds.But the supported version of OpenSolaris will not be on the same schedule as sxce. Opensolaris 2008.05 is based on snv_86. The supported version will only have bug fixes until 2008.11. That is, it follows much more of fthe same type of schedule that sxde did. Additionally, OpenSolaris has completely redone the installation and packaging bits. When you are running a bunch of servers with aggregate storage capacity of over 100 TB you are probably doing something that is rather important to the company that shelled out well over $100,000 for the hardware. In most (not all) environments that I have worked in this says that you don''t want to be relying too heavily on 1.0 software[1] or external web services[2] that the maintainer has not shown a track record[3] of maintaining in a way that meets typical enterprise-level requirements. 1. The non-live CD installer has not even made it into the unstable Mercurial repository. The pkg and beadm commands and associated libraries have less than a month of existence in anything that any vendor is claiming to support. 2. AFAIK, pkg.sun.com does not serve packages yet. pkg.opensolaris.org serves up packages from snv_90 by default even though snv_86 is the variant that is supposedly supported. 3. There were numerous complaints of repeated timeouts when the snv_90 packages were released resulting in having to restart the upgrade from the start. -- Mike Gerdts http://mgerdts.blogspot.com/
...There was a post just this afternoon stating the opensolaris update track would be back to following sxce with b91 so I haven''t a clue what you''re talking about. As for the features/support they''re looking for, if they wanted enterprise infallible storage, a thumper was the wrong choice day 1. I love the platform, but its nowhere near the league of a filer, or universe of a usp/sym. On 6/12/08, Mike Gerdts <mgerdts at gmail.com> wrote:> On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 10:12 PM, Tim <tim at tcsac.net> wrote: >> I guess I find the "difference" between b90 and opensolaris trivial >> given we''re supposed to be getting constant updates following the sxce >> builds. > > But the supported version of OpenSolaris will not be on the same > schedule as sxce. Opensolaris 2008.05 is based on snv_86. The > supported version will only have bug fixes until 2008.11. That is, it > follows much more of fthe same type of schedule that sxde did. > > Additionally, OpenSolaris has completely redone the installation and > packaging bits. When you are running a bunch of servers with > aggregate storage capacity of over 100 TB you are probably doing > something that is rather important to the company that shelled out > well over $100,000 for the hardware. In most (not all) environments > that I have worked in this says that you don''t want to be relying too > heavily on 1.0 software[1] or external web services[2] that the > maintainer has not shown a track record[3] of maintaining in a way > that meets typical enterprise-level requirements. > > > 1. The non-live CD installer has not even made it into the unstable > Mercurial repository. The pkg and beadm commands and associated > libraries have less than a month of existence in anything that any > vendor is claiming to support. > 2. AFAIK, pkg.sun.com does not serve packages yet. > pkg.opensolaris.org serves up packages from snv_90 by default even > though snv_86 is the variant that is supposedly supported. > 3. There were numerous complaints of repeated timeouts when the snv_90 > packages were released resulting in having to restart the upgrade from > the start. > > -- > Mike Gerdts > http://mgerdts.blogspot.com/ >
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008, Albert Lee wrote:> While the S10 updates include features backported from Nevada you can > only upgrade from S10 to Solaris Express, not the other way around (which > would technically be a downgrade).Understood; I had no intention of installing SXCE and then trying to layer S10U6 on top of it. I''m just hoping that the features I''m waiting for in U6 will be "close enough" in SXCE to get a jumpstart on development and integration. -- Paul B. Henson | (909) 979-6361 | http://www.csupomona.edu/~henson/ Operating Systems and Network Analyst | henson at csupomona.edu California State Polytechnic University | Pomona CA 91768
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008, Tim wrote:> They aren''t even close to each other. Things like in-kernel cifs will > never be put back.Right, so that would be a feature I would not avail of. In terms of ZFS, I think the feature set of SXCE will be closer to S10U6 than S10U5. I want to start testing out ZFS boot and zfs allow to minimize the delay between the release of U6 and my production deployment.> My question is, what is holding you back from just deploying on sxce? Sun > now offers support for it.I don''t think so, unless you mean the new openSolaris distribution. I evaluated that, unfortunately it''s not quite ready for production deployment in our environment. -- Paul B. Henson | (909) 979-6361 | http://www.csupomona.edu/~henson/ Operating Systems and Network Analyst | henson at csupomona.edu California State Polytechnic University | Pomona CA 91768
> I want to > start testing out ZFS boot and zfs allow to minimize the delay between the > release of U6 and my production deployment.Good observation. I mention this in every Solaris briefing that I do. Get some stick time with this capability using SXCE or OpenSolaris so that you can reduce the time it takes to deploy whatever upcoming Solaris update has ZFS root (how''s that for being evasive....). I said the same thing about ZULU before the s10 11/07 timeframe.> I don''t think so, unless you mean the new openSolaris distribution. I > evaluated that, unfortunately it''s not quite ready for production > deployment in our environment.Out of curiosity, where did it miss the mark ? It is still very much work in progress, early adopter stuff, but what were the things that kept you from deploying it. Just curious. Bob
On Fri, 13 Jun 2008, Bob Netherton wrote:> Get some stick time with this capability using SXCE or OpenSolaris so > that you can reduce the time it takes to deploy whatever upcoming Solaris > update has ZFS root (how''s that for being evasive....).I''ve heard from reasonably credible sources that ZFS boot will be released in U6, I will be extremely disappointed if that is not the case :(. Will the jumpstart configuration for ZFS root in an upcoming update (which best be U6 or I might go postal ;) ) be pretty much the same as exists in SXCE?> Out of curiosity, where did it miss the mark ? It is still very much > work in progress, early adopter stuff, but what were the things that kept > you from deploying it. Just curious.We have a customized almost completely hands-off jumpstart installation configuration for Solaris; hand installing from a GUI wasn''t exactly compelling. In addition, there was no package customization available for the install. I spent a couple of days trying to convert an OpenSolaris 2005.08 installation into a configuration suitable for a production server, but I kept breaking stuff trying to prune out extraneous packages.>From various mailing list threads, I got the impression that people werehaving weird problems. Also, I was unable to clarify exactly how support for openSolaris was going to work, which would make me uncomfortable deploying it in a critical production server. Maybe in six months or a year once enterprise-level installers are available and the support model shakes out we can re-evaluate it. I really did like the concept of the new packaging, it''s much better than the existing patch hell. Still quite a few rough edges though... -- Paul B. Henson | (909) 979-6361 | http://www.csupomona.edu/~henson/ Operating Systems and Network Analyst | henson at csupomona.edu California State Polytechnic University | Pomona CA 91768
On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Paul B. Henson <henson at acm.org> wrote:> On Fri, 13 Jun 2008, Bob Netherton wrote: > >> Get some stick time with this capability using SXCE or OpenSolaris so >> that you can reduce the time it takes to deploy whatever upcoming Solaris >> update has ZFS root (how''s that for being evasive....). > > I''ve heard from reasonably credible sources that ZFS boot will be released > in U6, I will be extremely disappointed if that is not the case :(. > > Will the jumpstart configuration for ZFS root in an upcoming update (which > best be U6 or I might go postal ;) ) be pretty much the same as exists in > SXCE? > >> Out of curiosity, where did it miss the mark ? It is still very much >> work in progress, early adopter stuff, but what were the things that kept >> you from deploying it. Just curious. > > We have a customized almost completely hands-off jumpstart installation > configuration for Solaris; hand installing from a GUI wasn''t exactly > compelling. In addition, there was no package customization available for > the install. I spent a couple of days trying to convert an OpenSolaris > 2005.08 installation into a configuration suitable for a production server, > but I kept breaking stuff trying to prune out extraneous packages. > > >From various mailing list threads, I got the impression that people were > having weird problems. Also, I was unable to clarify exactly how support > for openSolaris was going to work, which would make me uncomfortable > deploying it in a critical production server. > > Maybe in six months or a year once enterprise-level installers are > available and the support model shakes out we can re-evaluate it. I really > did like the concept of the new packaging, it''s much better than the > existing patch hell. Still quite a few rough edges though... > > > -- > Paul B. Henson | (909) 979-6361 | http://www.csupomona.edu/~henson/ > Operating Systems and Network Analyst | henson at csupomona.edu > California State Polytechnic University | Pomona CA 91768Hi Paul, A good, thought provoking question/thread on an issue which is being faced by many community members. My personal (Logical (pardon the pun)) solution is to deploy SXDE (based on build 79b [0]) - which I believe is a great compromise between the stability/relibility of a commercial Solaris release, and the not-quite-ready-for-prime-time os200805 release. Used in conjunction with a hands-*on* PXE boot which delivers ZFS based boot filesystems [1] - I''m really pleased with the results. Now I''m sure you realize, that when it''s time to upgrade this setup, it won''t be a simple "push-button" upgrade, but it can be done. And for bleeding edge try-to-fry-it releases - build 90 is the way to go. I''ve given up on the Solaris train - the unreliable patch process is like playing Russian Roulette - except that that odds are even poorer! On the other hand, many Solaris users have been "lucky" many times in a row and don''t entirely understand their risk exposure! :) I''m sure that the next release of os2008 will be a total winner. It''s just not ready for (production) prime time now IMHO. And the "bugs" are still being worked out of the current IPS delivery mechanis - which is a binary only release mechanism, if I understand it correctly. In the meantime we''re running SXDE on several boxes and I''m really pleased with the feature/performance/stability mix. It might well be the last SXDE release - but there is no doubt in my mind, that it''s the finest SXDE that was ever released! :) Kudos to all who worked so hard to make it happen. [0] the "b" indicates that it required two "re-spins". [1] http://sol10frominnerspace.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html Regards, -- Al Hopper Logical Approach Inc,Plano,TX al at logical-approach.com Voice: 972.379.2133 Timezone: US CDT OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) Member - Apr 2005 to Mar 2007 http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/ogb/ogb_2005-2007/