We are pleased to announce the availability of the latest Solaris Cluster Express (SCX)!  You can download the software  here.

What's new?

*This release runs on SXCE build 101a.  The version of the shared components are upgraded to be compatible with the Solaris Express Community Edition (SXCE) version.

*A lot of bug fixes have gone into this release for the new features that were available with SCX 9/08 and SXCE 97. 

Meanwhile, we have made considerable progress on Project Colorado.  Do take time to visit the site and familiarize yourself with the objectives and the progress.

Enjoy clustering your systems till the next announcement!

Ajax-based in-page editing is fast becoming a standard feature in various web applications nowadays. It is a very useful feature when one wants to quickly edit data that is displayed on a web page.

We have pages in Sun Cluster Manager (SCM) that list all the properties corresponding to related resource groups and resources. To edit any of these properties, the latest performance-enhanced SCM version for Solaris Cluster 3.2 2/08 provides the option of using in-page editing. The idea is to just click on the data and you are ready to edit!
Compared with the earlier, tedious way of invoking the Edit Properties Wizard for the same task, in-page editing is surely a quick way to get around things.

As with the Edit Properties Wizard, the benefits of using in-page Editing include not having to remember the exact command you need to change a property. But for the ever-curious ones, this feature also displays the command executed and errors (ifany) while editing a property.

Care is taken to permit users to edit only editable properties; properties like Resource Group Name cannot be modified. Properties that can be edited are differentiated by the use of a rectangular “sweet spot” around the property value. On clicking this space, a popup appears that prompts the user to provide a modified value. Lastly, the modification is done by clicking the OK button on the popup, which then executes the corresponding command on the cluster.

To edit more than one property at once, which is not allowed through this feature, the best way is to use the Edit Properties wizard, which is invoked by clicking the Edit Properties button near the top of the Properties page. This wizard would also perform some extra validation checks before the command execution.

Perhaps you've noticed the usual stream of Solaris Cluster blogs has slowed a bit in recent weeks. In case you're wondering, we're not blogged out, and we haven't "shot our blog" and run out of things to tell you about. In fact we've been very busy with lots of big things -- so watch for an upcoming "flog" (flood of blogs) as we release several new Agents and tools over the next several weeks.

And be sure to MARK YOUR CALENDARS for September 22 - 25 -- this is your chance to come to Oracle Open World in San Francisco's Moscone Center and head straight to Sun's booth where you'll be able to see a great magic show and -- better yet -- a live demo of Solaris Cluster Geographic Edition managing several Oracle 11g databases in disaster-tolerant configurations. And one of those configurations will be a joint demo with one of Sun's key storage partners .. this is the good stuff!

But wait -- there's more! -- besides the demo you'll have a chance to meet some of Solaris Cluster's lead developers and architects, and learn about the benefits of using the Solaris Cluster product suite with applications such as Oracle RAC. See you there!

Burt Clouse
Solaris Engineering Manager

In a data-center environment, everybody's goal is to minimize system downtime and maximize the features available in the products they use. That is why every organization is striving to get a high-availability (HA) solution for their applications that are running in a production environment. As every technology evolves day by day, as every product is getting better day by day, every customer-centric organization will strive to create more value to their customers by looking for more innovative features in the software they choose to run their data center, along with better performance and competitive pricing. As such high-value products become available on the market, organizations choose these new and improved products to replace the software products or versions that the data center is currently running on. At the same time, it is a challenging task to upgrade or migrate an existing setup or environment to the latest one with minimal downtime. This is particularly true with the HA solutions that are available in the market.

Be assured that, by having Sun Cluster software as an HA solution for your data center, there is no need to worry about getting the latest version of Sun Cluster in your data center, no matter whether the setup is new or old. The beauty of Sun Cluster software is that it includes multiple methods for upgrading the cluster software, along with the Solaris Operating System and other software in the cluster stack.

The process of upgrading Sun Cluster to the latest version is less complex than one might expect. Some Sun Cluster upgrade methods involve just a single switchover time, the only system downtime the upgrade will require. Without losing any data, without significant downtime, you will be up and running the latest HA solution from Sun Cluster. If you are wondering, is a hassle-free process possible with a minimum downtime, the answer is yes; definitely count on us. We are going to tell you how it is possible.

This article will describe the different upgrade solutions that are available with Sun Cluster 3.2. The individual can choose which particular upgrade method to use, per one's requirements and comfort.

Rolling Upgrade 
In a rolling upgrade, you upgrade the cluster software to an update release on one or more nodes at a time, depending on the number of nodes and your cluster topology. The cluster services continue on the other nodes except for the time it takes to switch services from the node(s) to be upgraded to the upgraded node(s). The rolling upgrade method is supported only for upgrading minor updates of Sun Cluster software and the Solaris Operating System.

Cluster downtime is limited to the time needed for the cluster to switch services over to an upgraded node.

Dual Partition Upgrade 
In a dual-partition upgrade, you divide the cluster into two groups of nodes. You bring down one group of nodes and upgrade those nodes, while the other group of nodes continues to provide services. After you complete the upgrade of the first group of nodes, you switch services to those upgraded nodes. You then upgrade the remaining nodes and boot them back into the cluster to join the rest of the upgraded nodes.

Cluster downtime is limited to the time needed for the cluster to switch services over to the upgraded partition.

Live Upgrade Method 
The Live Upgrade method uses the normal Solaris Live Upgrade method. It requires one additional hard disk, which is called the "alternate root" disk. The current root disk continues to host the cluster services until the upgrade operations are successfully completed and committed in the alternate root disk.

A live upgrade maintains your previous cluster configuration until you have upgraded all the nodes and you commit to the upgrade. If the upgraded configuration causes a problem, you can revert to your previous cluster configuration until you can rectify the problem.

Cluster downtime is the single reboot time of the systems.

Standard Upgrade Method 
In a standard upgrade method, you shut down the entire cluster before you upgrade the cluster nodes. You return the cluster to the production environment after all nodes are fully upgraded successfully. The cluster will be out of operation until upgrade of Solaris Cluster software, along with the Solaris Operating system if necessary, is completed.

If downtime is not a significant concern, this can be the most efficient method to upgrade a cluster. Use a Cluster Control Panel tool, such as cconsole or cssh, to access all nodes at once and perform the upgrade on all nodes simultaneously from the master console window.

Arun Kurse/Venugopal Ns
Solaris Cluster Engineering

The IEEE Cluster 2007 conference was held in Austin, Texas this year. There were plenty of hands-on tutorials, paper presentations, poster sessions and panel discussions all related to cluster computing which encompasses both high-performance cluster computing and high-availability clustering.

I had the privilege to co-author and present a poster paper  named CHAF - An Object Oriented Framework for Configuring Applications in a Clustered Environment which was implemented in Sun Cluster 3.2.  The live demonstration of this implementation was performed on a laptop with a lab cluster at the back end. My session and demo were well received that it was referenced in an email by one of  Sun customers to Sun later.

Notable topics that were the focus of several research papers and panel discussions at the conference included multi-core and virtualization.  Our very own Andy Bechtolsheim gave the opening keynote on "Scaling to Petaflops" discussing the challenges and opportunities associated with peta-scale,  and the work Sun has done and continue to do in this area.  More details/links on these topics can be found at my personal blog.

I also got an opportunity to visit the impressive Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Austin where a new supercomputer (using Sun machines and the new Sun Magnum switch) is being built.  It will be the largest supercomputer in the world including 4000 nodes when it becomes operational.

The closing keynote on "the Challenges and Rewards of Petascale Clusters" by Mark Seager from Lawrence Livermore National Labs reminded the attendees that today mainstream technologies (e.g. virtual machines and object oriented design) came from the research community some 20 years ago, and projected that parallel programming in research mode today will be a mainstream technology in the near future.  I have no doubt none whatsoever that Sun will play a key role in it!

Augustus Diraviam
Solaris Cluster Engineering