Sun Solaris 10

Novell Updates PlateSpin Migrate, Releases Version 8.1

July 15, 2009 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Novell today announced the addition of physical-to-virtual migration support for Sun’s Solaris 10 Operating System in the latest version of PlateSpin Migrate, the leading workload management product that enables data center managers to move workloads anywhere to anywhere: between physical, image, virtual and cloud environments.

PlateSpin Migrate 8.1 is a leading workload migration product offering support for Solaris Containers, giving customers the ability to migrate workloads from physical to virtual environments. The latest version of PlateSpin Migrate significantly expands the already broad list of platforms supported for physical to virtual migration, by adding support for the recently released SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 from Novell to the existing support for prior versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise. PlateSpin Migrate 8.1 also adds support for Windows2008 and Windows Vista. PlateSpin Migrate now offers the industry’s broadest support for operating systems, hypervisors and hardware platforms in the heterogeneous data center.

PlateSpin Migrate offers support for more configuration options for migrating business-critical workloads than any other solution on the market today. As customers increasingly adopt virtualization for production servers, IT managers need a more powerful and reliable migration tool that minimizes server downtime and maximizes the success of key data center initiatives – such as server consolidation and data center relocation.

PlateSpin Migrate 8.1 makes it easy to migrate workloads between physical servers, image archives and virtual hosts. PlateSpin Migrate also offers performance improvements for business-critical workload migrations, making increased use of block-based transfer technology which transfers only the portion of the file that has changed. This innovation limits the amount of downtime during the migration process, and improves migration performance, especially over slower and expensive WAN connections.

PlateSpin Migrate is an integral component of Novell’s PlateSpin Workload Management solutions, which also includes PlateSpin Recon, PlateSpin Orchestrate,PlateSpin Protect and PlateSpin Forge. PlateSpin Workload Management solutions enable customers to profile, migrate, manage and protect server workloads. Only PlateSpin Workload Management supports the Solaris OS, 32-and 64-bit Windows and Linux servers, as well as all leading hypervisors including VMware ESX and ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, Virtual Iron, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with integrated Xen. With PlateSpin Workload Management solutions, customers can consolidate and migrate servers across multiple data center locations, balance workloads between physical servers and virtual machines, and protect a larger number of servers with faster recovery using virtualization.

PlateSpin Migrate 8.1 is available later this month. The Windows/Linux version is priced at $289 for a workload license. PlateSpin Migrate for UNIX* is priced at $1,495 for a one-time license.

Sun and Fujitsu Introduce SPARC Enterprise T5440 Server, Aims to Redefine Midrange Enterprise Computing

October 13, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu Limited today announced the SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, the first server to deliver the scalability and reliability of traditional midrange systems with the breakthrough performance and radical energy efficiency of the UltraSPARC T2 Plus architecture.

According to the press release, the SPARC Enterprise T5440 server with the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) delivers world record performance and enables customers to consolidate and virtualize midrange applications, including large scale OLTP databases, CRM and ERP. In a compact 4U package, the SPARC Enterprise T5440 server increases server utilization while reducing energy consumption and lowering operating costs. Additionally, the SPARC Enterprise T5440 server is the first chip multi-threaded (CMT) server to scale up to four processors.

The SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, with up to 32 cores (256 threads) and 512 GB of memory, is one of the first systems to incorporate unique power management features including the ability to park idle threads. The server also features Intelligent Fan Control (IFC) which adjusts rotational fan speed according to changes in temperature thereby reducing power consumption. Running fans at lower speeds saves significant amounts of energy, and also reduces noise and vibration which helps extend component life. An additional design element that maximizes power savings is dividing the chassis and fans into cooling zones which allow a response only from those fans needed to compensate for changes in temperature. The SPARC Enterprise T5440 server also features a redesigned power distribution subsystem with highly efficient digital regulators which reduce wasted energy over previous analog designs.

With built-in, open source, no-cost virtualization via Solaris Containers and Logical Domains (LDoms), the SPARC Enterprise T5440 server is an ideal platform for consolidating hundreds of existing enterprise class workloads onto a single system. Additionally, for existing Solaris customers, the Solaris 8 and 9 Containers capability enables customers to run multiple Solaris 8 or 9 environments on a single SPARC-based system. As a result, customers can quickly and easily move existing physical environments to virtual containers on Solaris 10 and take advantage of the performance, scale and cost savings of new SPARC Enterprise CMT-based servers today. Solaris 10 10/08, to be released later in October, also enables improved virtualization performance and includes an enhanced Solaris ZFS file system which offers increased data integrity and a fully integrated disaster recovery capability to help ensure business continuity.

The SPARC Enterprise T5440 proves its mettle with world record performance on seven benchmarks including the best four processor result on two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark, Oracle’s Siebel CRM Release 8.0 Platform Sizing and Performance Program (PSPP), and single node SPECjAppServer2004.

The SPARC Enterprise T5440 server is available today directly from Sun and Fujitsu and their authorized resellers starting at $44,995 (U.S. List). Sun and Fujitsu are also offering a number of promotions on the new SPARC Enterprise T5440 server.

Sun and Fujitsu also provide a full suite of services to help customers maximize their infrastructure investments. Services from both companies include consolidation, virtualization, maximizing data center efficiency and migration to Solaris 10.

Sun Microsystems

Emulex First HBA Vendor to Support Sun’s Solaris Containers

July 22, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Emulex recently announced that its LightPulse Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs) now offer Virtual HBA technology within Solaris 10 Operating System environments. Enhanced capabilities such as virtual port management, available via Emulex’s HBAnyware management suite, are designed to enhance the overall functionality of Solaris Containers.

“Once again, Emulex is demonstrating leadership in the area of virtualization by providing enhanced capabilities for virtualized servers within Solaris environments,” said Scott McIntyre, vice president of customer marketing, Emulex Corp. “Emulex pioneered Virtual HBA technology and is the only HBA vendor to support Sun’s Solaris Containers for virtualized server environments.”

Emulex’s family of 4Gb/s and 8Gb/s HBAs support Virtual HBA technology, which allows users to effectively virtualize the HBA functionality so each virtual machine running on a server can independently access its own protected storage. Coupled with Solaris Containers, Emulex Virtual HBA technology, which leverages the NPIV standard, also allows customers to maintain usage of SAN management tools and best practices, such as fabric zoning and LUN mapping/masking.

“Working with Emulex to support its Virtual HBA technology provides Solaris customers with a robust virtualized server solution that delivers the most enhanced capabilities available today,” said Michael Wojnar, Networking Product Line Marketing Manager, Sun Microsystems.

“This collaboration is critical because of the high correlation between virtualized servers and networked storage, and ensures that our customers deploying Solaris Containers now have a superior solution.”

Server virtualization and blade server deployments continue to be a major driver for increased Fibre Channel SAN adoption. Leveraging Emulex HBAs with its next generation management suite, HBAnyware, provides customers with enhanced virtualization features, such as virtual HBA management across all major operating system platforms including Microsoft, VMware, Linux/Xen and Solaris. Further, customers may now leverage the benefits of NPIV management functionality within a centralized single console. Online boot from SAN and enhanced diagnostics features also enable unmatched scalability and efficient management capabilities.

“We looked at the capability of the Emulex Fibre Channel HBAs and management tools and saw features that were not available from other suppliers,” says Steven Ham, Senior Windows System Administrator at Home Interiors & Gifts, Inc. “With the HBA management tools, we get discovery and dynamic configuration capabilities that would otherwise require additional investment in tools running on other SAN components.”

In an effort to educate customers and channel partners on Emulex’s connectivity solutions and enhanced HBAnyware management suite functionality, Emulex is offering a series of whitepapers and webinars.

For details, visit: http://www.emulex.com/solutions/san/index.jsp.

[Source: VMblog]