Oracle - 2

For a long time the maximum number of groups a user could belong to was 16, albeit there was a way to get 32. In Solaris 11 and recent versions of Solaris 10, the maximum number of groups a user could belong to is 1024 (which is the same limit Windows sets in this regard). It's easy to set the new limit.

set ngroups_max=1024

After a reboot, this change will be active. But why isn't this the default? There are good reasons for it. I will show you one of them in this entry. Like thinking that two digits for the year or using a signed 32-bit integer for storing the system time, the issue has it's root cause in a decision made a long time ago … in this example the moment in the past is at least 25 years ago. And often just changing something, breaks stuff that is really old, but still in use.

Experienced Solaris users, who tuned their Solaris System for up to 32 groups per user, already know the component that will be broken by having more than 16 users, because a message at the next boot of the system after the change in /etc/system that next startup will deliver a warning. It's about the problem that many people encounter when using NFS with one user in more than 16 groups (it's not an NFS problem, but i will explain that).

However, as i already said, there is a a solution for this problem since Solaris 11.1. This blog entry will show the workaround in action.

Interesting (recently updated) whitepaper about using power management on T-class servers:"How to Save Power on SPARC T5 and SPARC M5 Servers".

Oracle VM for SPARC 3.1 has been announced. You will find the documentation here. There is a multitude of new features in this release. Honglin Su writes about the news in the blog article "Announcing Oracle VM Server for SPARC 3.1 Release" and Jeff Savit writes about it as well.

In my personal opinion the extensions to IOV and the massive speed increase when using fully virtualised networking are the most interesting changes in this release.

With the speed increases with virtualised networking you can bandwidths between two logical domains in the range of 16 Gbps as explained by Raghuram Kothakota. On the path domain to external networks the throughput approaches wire-speed at 9 Gbps.

However the real nice trick is described in a blog article Raghuram wrote later on: "Live migration of a Guest with an SR-IOV VF using dynamic SR-IOV feature!". This is a really clever way to live migrate a domain and using SRIOV. This method is leveraging IPMP. Nothing hinders you to have one SRIOV-virtualized interface and a fully virtualised interface in one IPMP group. When you set the the fully virtualised interface in standby mode, the SRIOV virtualized one is the interface that carries your load. When you want to live migrate, you just remove the SRIOV interface, IPMP now switches to the fully virtualised interface, you migrate the domain, and add the SRIOV interface again to the new system and it's put into the IPMP group again.

(As the events are in german language, i will proceed in this blog entry in german language as well. Sorry.)

So ... eine Reihe von Terminen für die Solaris 11.1 Security Vorträge, die ich im Rahmen der "Oracle Business Breakfast"-Serie halten werde stehen nunmehr fest:

• 10.9. Hamburg
• 13.9. Potsdam
• 18.9. Düsseldorf
• 20.9. München

Die Anmeldelinks werde ich rumschicken, sobald diese verfügbar sind.

PS: Der Vortrag "Solaris 11.1 Security - Was gibt es neues?" im Rahmen der DOAG Konferenz in Nürnberg ist eine gekürzte und mit einem etwas anderen Schwerpunkt versehene Version des Businessbreakfast-Vortrages.

As this article announces events in Germany, this entry will continue in german language. Sorry.

Am 23. Mai wird Hartmut Streppel in der Geschäftsstelle Hamburg einen Vortrag im Rahmen der Oracle Business Breakfasts halten. Thema ist hier "Oracle Solaris Cluster entmystifiziert und virtualisiert". Hartmut ist in Deutschland der Experte zum Thema Oracle Solaris Cluster. Anmelden könnt Ihr euch unter diesem Link.

Einen Tag später - am 24. Mai - gibt es in Potsdam ein weiteres Event im Rahmen der Business Breakfasts. Thema ist hier "ZFS und Datenbanken". Vortragen werden hier mein Kollege Dirk Nitschke und ich. Auch hier ist die Anmeldeseite schon verfügbar. Eine Registrierung ist auf dieser Seite. möglich.

Obwohl offensichtlicherweise nicht in Deutschland, möchte ich bei dieser Gelegenheit möchte ich zudem auch noch auf den "Oracle Solaris Day 2013 Vienna" am 23. Mai hinweisen, auf dem auch eine Reihe von ausgewiesenen Experten sowie meine Wenigkeit vortragen werden. Die Agenda auf der Registrierungsseite ist nicht ganz richtig, da ich später rekrutiert wurde Den Vortrag "What's new in Solaris 11.1?" wird von mir gehalten.

Interesting benchmark result: SPECjEnterprise2010 on a virtualised T5-8 (half of the machine for Java, half of the machine for DB).

A few days ago i linked to Karoly Vegh blog entry announcing the Solaris Technical Day on May 23rd. There is now a link to register for this event.
That said, there are some changes in the agenda: I'm in Vienna at that time so I will do the "What's new in Solaris 11.1" presentation as well as the ZFS Hands-On. Looking forward to see you in Vienna.

Interesting read: Oracle Launches T5 and M5 Servers : A New Generation of Oracle's SPARC/Solaris Servers

As explained by Gerry Haskins in "Solaris 11 SRU naming convention change" the naming convention for Solaris 11 has been changed. An example: A SRU that would be called "Oracle Solaris 11.1 SRU 6.4" in the past, will carry the name "Oracle Solaris 11.1.6.4.0" now.

A while ago i wrote in "How to get Solaris 11 VNICs in a Virtualbox VM to work - kind of ..." about a trick to get vNICs to work in Virtualbox. For Oracle VM for SPARC there is now an offical way get a vNIC working on a vNet, something that wasn't possible before. So no need for tricks. My colleague Jeff Savit writes in his blog:

This restriction is eliminated in the latest version of Oracle VM Manager for SPARC, 3.0.0.2. In order to make use of this feature, you must run Solaris 11.1 in both the control domain and guest. The control domain must be running SRU4 or later, since the 3.0.0.2 ldomsmanager package is delivered with that SRU.

However he does not only shared the good news, but also describes how to configure it in his article "vNICs on vNets now available"

Kristina Tripp and Isaac Rozenfeld wrote a nice article about the steps needed to enable an existing Solaris 10 jumpstart server to install Solaris 11 automatically as well: How to Use an Existing Oracle Solaris 10 JumpStart Server to Provision Oracle Solaris 11 11/11"

I would like to add a comment to the SPARC T5 launch. There are some news outlets that are buying into this per core performance thing that was introduced by a certain blogger working at IBM.

In the very same blog i've read the best argument, why this is total nonsense. Insisting that you computer is better or faster because of the per-core performance is like insisting that a 300hp V6 motor in your car is more powerful than a 550hp V12 motor in another car.

With the announcement of SPARC T5 and SPARC M5 a lot of benchmarks were mentioned. I won't repeat all of them here, however i would like to point you to the BestPerf blog, which has a long lists of benchmarks related to the announcement.

T5

• SPARC T5-8 Produces TPC-C Benchmark Single-System World Record Performance
• SPARC T5-8 Delivers SPECjEnterprise2010 Benchmark World Record Performance
• SPARC T5-2 Achieves SPECjbb2013 Benchmark World Record Result
• SPARC T5-8 Realizes SAP SD Two-Tier Benchmark World Record for 8 Chip Systems
• SPARC T5 Systems Deliver SPEC CPU2006 Rate Benchmark Multiple World Records
• SPARC T5-2 Achieves JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Benchmark World Records
• SPARC T5-2 Scores Siebel CRM Benchmark World Record
• SPARC T5 Systems Produce Oracle TimesTen Benchmark World Record
• SPARC T5-8 Delivers Oracle OLAP World Record Performance
• SPARC T5-2 Achieves ZFS File System Encryption Benchmark World Record
• SPARC T5-2 Obtains Oracle Internet Directory Benchmark World Record Performance
• SPARC T5-2 Scores Oracle FLEXCUBE Universal Banking Benchmark World Record Performance
• SPARC T5-2 Performance Running Oracle Fusion Middleware SOA
• SPARC T5-1B Performance Running Oracle Communications ASAP

M5

• SPARC M5-32 Produces SAP SD Two-Tier Benchmark World Record for SAP Enhancement Package 5 for SAP ERP 6.0

The "Oracle Processor Core Factor Table" has been updated in order to include SPARC T5 and M5: It's 0.5 for both.

After my blog entry about the both events in Frankfurt and Munich i was asked "And what's about other cities? in Germany. Thus i would like to point you to similar events in other cities in Germany. As this events are events in Germany, i will proceed in German.

Zu einen findet ein Event mit dem Titel "Ankündigung: Neue SPARC Server". In Berlin am 18. April statt. Ort ist das Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationstechnik Berlin. Anmelden könnt ihr euch hier. Die Agenda kann dort ebenfalls schon eingesehen werden.

Auch interessant ist der Oracle Innovation Truck. Dieser kommt am 15.4. nach Hamburg (hier werde ich mich unter anderem in den LKW stellen), am 17.4. nach Düsseldorf und am 18.4. nach Stuttgart.. Ort ist jeweils eine Lokation in der Innenstadt, genaueres wird da noch bekannt gegeben. Bitte meldet euch vorher über den zum gewünschten Ort gehörigen Ort an, dort findet ihr auch eine genaue beschreibung des Events. Bei diesen geht es auch um die neuen Server, aber nicht ausschliesslich. Es gibt aber auch andere Demohardware zu betrachten: T-Server, Oracle Database Appliance sowie die Storage Library SL150.