Rajesh has put up the EC2 blog where you can check for breaking news about OpenSolaris on EC2. Here are some information which is available for you:
Meet the Sun OpenSolaris on EC2 Team
Information on GlassFish/LifeRay/MySQL AMI
Current beta program status.
Check and leave you comments there if you want to know anything about this.
There are other AMI's are in progress and should be made available as soon as it is ready.
If you run into issues when following my previous blog then you may running into problem with sysevent daemon.
If that happens here is what you need to do:
once done installing all the package and rebooting with the Sun xVM server option in the boot menu from the dom0 issues the following command.
Cut and paste everything in between ---- this line to your terminal and hit return and then you should be able to proceed with domU creation.
The error is like as:
bash-3.2# xm create -c install.py
Using config file "./install.py".
bash-3.2# Error: Device 0 (vif) could not be connected. Hotplug scripts not working.
-------------------------
BASEDIR=${BASEDIR:-/}
/usr/sbin/syseventadm list -R $BASEDIR -c EC_xendev > /dev/null 2>&1
if [ $? -ne 0 ]
then
/usr/sbin/syseventadm add -R $BASEDIR -c EC_xendev \
/usr/lib/xen/scripts/xpvd-event 'action=$subclass' \
'domain=$domain' 'vdev=$vdev' 'device=$device' \
'devclass=$devclass' 'febe=$fob'
fi
/usr/sbin/syseventadm list -R $BASEDIR -c EC_xpvsys > /dev/null 2>&1
if [ $? -ne 0 ]
then
/usr/sbin/syseventadm add -R $BASEDIR -c EC_xpvsys \
/usr/lib/xen/scripts/xpvsys-event 'subclass=$subclass' \
'shutdown=$shutdown'
fi
# restart daemon if the package is being added to the running system
if [ "$BASEDIR" = "/" -a $? -eq 0 ]
then
/usr/sbin/syseventadm restart
fi
---------------------
In this blog I will walk you through the steps of creating a domU within your OpenSolaris 2008.05 installation.
To accomplish this task you must have done your OpenSolaris 2008.05 install and I assume you are familiar with this if not please refer to OpenSolaris web-site.
Once you done installing this you need to use IPS(Image Packaging System) so that your system will have the packages related to xen. Make sure your pkg authority is set right and you are able to download the packages.
If this is set right i.e. if you haven't changed anything then it should look like this:
-bash-3.2# pkg authority
AUTHORITY URL
opensolaris.org (preferred) http://pkg.opensolaris.org:80/
Now you will need to add the following packages(you can cut and paste these commands to your terminal):
pkg install SUNWvirtinst
pkg install SUNWurlgrabber
pkg install SUNWlibvirt
pkg install SUNWxvmhvm
pkg install SUNWxvmdom
pkg install SUNWxvm
pkg install SUNWgccruntime
pkg install SUNWgnutls
pkg install SUNWlibsdl
pkg install FSWxwpft
pkg install FSWxwrtl
Once done doing this now you have all the necessary packages. Now you need to modify you GRUB BOOT Loader so that you have the option to load xVM when you system boots. This can be achieved by doing this:
Open the file "/rpool/boot/grub/menu.lst" in vi and add the following entry:
----
title Solaris xVM
bootfs rpool/ROOT/opensolaris
kernel$ /boot/$ISADIR/xen.gz
module$ /platform/i86xpv/kernel/$ISADIR/unix /platform/i86xpv/kernel/$ISADIR/unix -B $ZFS-BOOTFS
module$ /platform/i86pc/$ISADIR/boot_archive
----
Save your changes and exit out of the editor.
Now reboot your system and when you get to the grub loader select the "Solaris xVM" so that you will have the xVM related modules loaded.
Once the boot is complete you will need to start some of the services to enable you to use the xen management command. The services need to be enabled are as:
svcadm enable svc:/system/xvm/store:default
svcadm enable svc:/system/xvm/xend:default
svcadm enable svc:/system/xvm/console:default
Note: Enabling the console is really necessary otherwise when you run your xm commands you will get into error like following:
/usr/lib/xen/bin/xenconsole: Could not open tty `/dev/pts/7': No such file or directory
Once you have done this follow the instruction listed in MJR's blog.
http://blogs.sun.com/mrj/entry/installing_opensolaris_on
Which will have your domU up and running.
As many of you might have got the news by now about the planet's best Operating System has been made available on one of the most scalable Compute Cloud named Amazon EC2(Elastic Compute Cloud).
This brings you the best of the both worlds which includes the Amazon Web-Services and OpenSolaris code base. If you haven't checked how cool OpenSolaris is I would suggest to get a copy of OpenSolaris and check for your self. Once you get this just get your hand dirty on xVM and try to play with the virtualization it offers. There are may more things that has been included with this OpenSolaris and some of them are as:
. Developed under Open Source community.
. New subscription support.
. Various tools needed for development eg. Sun Studio, Netbeans and the SAMP stack.
. Different virtualization technology
. ZFS and DTRACE.
. Fast and easy installation with a single click and simply add software via the new Image Packaging System (IPS).
Combining Amazon EC2 on demand compute capacity with their integrated storage and running OpenSolaris on top of that gives you unparalleled env to run your application in secure, reliable and easily scalable.
OpenSolaris makes it possible to run your application on EC2 while taking or retaining the differentiating features of the Solaris Operating system and they include:
1. DTrace - You continue to do the same Dynamic Tracing over EC2.
2. Binary and Backward Compatibility - As with Solaris 10 you continue to run your application unmodified on OpenSolaris. So you can run your oldest code unmodified without breaking a thing.
3. Open Source - OpenSolaris is developed under OpenSolaris community with participation from thousands of developer worldwide. It has more predictable life cycle and support service so you can plan and upgrade your system when needed.
4. Easy to use - If you have given a try to install OpenSolaris you would know how easy it is.
So how does the whole thing work ?
Here is the what needed to be done to have your own OpenSolaris running on Amazon EC2:
You must have an account with Amazon WebSerives
Register for OpenSolaris AMI
Sun gets back to you with the details
Use the AMI/API tool to get your env.
Install/Update or simply customize your env by installing software or customizing your system.
For more details don't forget to check here.
We would like to thank all those who stopped by and talked to us during IMPACT. It was a great conference and it was great to talk to you all about your Solaris 10 deployments and how well your deployment is running on Solaris 10.
There were few really great session and I would suggest you get a copy of some of the interesting presentation eg.
1. IBM WebSphere and multicore platforms: Performance, scalability, and best practices
2. Exploring IBM Java 5 and Java 6: New features and enhancements
3. Understanding and tuning the Java Virtual Machine for IBM WebSphere
for you reference. They contain lots of good information which you may found useful later.
Albert has already posted the slides which we used during our presentation. They can be found here:
SIG2730: WebSphere Deployment on Solaris
TSM-2447: WebSphere Performance On Solaris
There was one other session which was on DumpAnalyzer which is not available on Solaris or HP-UX I will put another blog which will list out all the equivalent tools that already available in the Java you have on your system with WebSphere.
Using the jconsole tool
J2SE 5.0 has comprehensive monitoring and management support. Among the tools
included in the JDK download is a Java Management Extensions (JMX)-compliant monitoring
tool called jconsole. The tool uses the built-in JMX instrumentation in the Java Virtual
Machine to provide information on performance and resource consumption of running
applications. Although the tool is included in the JDK download it can also be used to monitor
and manage applications deployed with the Java 2 Platform Standard Edition Runtime
Environment 5.0 (JRE 5.0).
Jconsole can attach to any application that is started with the JMX agent. A system property
defined on the command line enables the JMX agent. Once attached jconsole can be used to
display useful information such as thread usage, memory consumption, and details about
class loading, runtime compilation, and the operating system.
Figure jconsole Memory tab
The Memory tab shown in above Figure provides the following information.
– Current heap size: Number of Kbytes currently occupied by the heap
– Committed memory: Total amount of memory allocated for use by the heap
– Maximum heap size: Maximum number of Kbytes occupied by the heap
– Objects pending for finalization: Number of objects pending for finalization
– Garbage collector information: Information on GC, including the garbage collector
names, number of collections performed, and total time spent performing GC
A view of the memory pictured in above Figure shows two events of interest. At
02:20 a garbage collection was triggered from the Jconsole tool. At 02:50 an
OutOfMemoryError was thrown by an application.
Figure jconsole Threads tab
Figure Thread detail
The Threads tab shown in above Figure provides the following information.
– Live threads: Current number of live daemon threads plus non-daemon threads
– Peak: Highest number of live threads since JVM started
– Daemon threads: Current number of live daemon threads
– Total started: Total number of threads started since the JVM started (including
daemon, nondaemon, and terminated)
The Classes tab provides the following information.
– Current classes loaded: Number of classes currently loaded into memory
– Total classes loaded: Total number of classes loaded into memory since the JVM
started, including those subsequently unloaded
– Total classes unloaded: Number of classes unloaded from memory since the JVM
started
Figure jconsole VM tab
The VM tab shown in above Figure provides the following information.
– JVM type and version
– Uptime
– VM command line arguments
– Class, Library, and Boot Class paths
– JIT Compiler
– Operating System information
In addition to monitoring, jconsole can be used to dynamically change several parameters in
the running system. For example, the setting of the -verbose:gc option can be changed so
that garbage collection trace output can be dynamically enabled or disabled for a running
application. You can also perform a GC by clicking the Perform GC button on the Memory
tab.
Getting started with jconsole
1. Start the application with the -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote option. This option sets
the com.sun.management.jmxremote system property which enabled the JMX agent.
2. Start Jconsole with the jconsole command. Jconsole ships as a binary in the
$JAVA_HOME/bin directory. (JAVA_HOME indicates the home directory of the J2SE
installation. For example, /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/java/bin)
Figure Jconsole Connect to Agent dialog box
3. When Jconsole starts it shows a window with the list of managed VMs on the machine as
shown in Figure 9-12. The process-id (pid) and command line arguments for each VM are
printed. Select a VM, click Connect, and Jconsole will attach to it.
For more information on the monitoring and management features, and details on how to use
Jconsole, read the following document.
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/management/jconsole.html
This year IBM is having IMPACT 2008 event in Las Vegas, NV from 6 April 2008. If you are planning to be there then here are the few sessions which we are presenting you may find interesting. BOF is going to be very very interesting and we are planning to have a open discussion where we can go through whatever is most needed by customers/WAS admins for their WAS deployments on Solaris 10. If you are looking for some collaterals or white-papers which is not available today we can certainly take down your request, prioritize them and then make them available as soon as possible. So don't miss this opportunities to talk to us and let us know what are the information needed for worry free deployment of WAS on Solaris. The details of the sessions are as follows which we will be presenting :
1) Technical Session: Performance Best Practices for WebSphere Application Server Version 6.1 on Solaris 10
Session #: TSM-2447
Session Time: Thu, 10/Apr, 04:45 PM - 06:00 PM
Location: Room 118
2) BOF: Deployment Best Practices for WebSphere Application Server Version 6.1 on Solaris 10
Session #: SIG-2730A
3) IT Executive Session: Sun and IBM WebSphere Message Broker: Configuration, Deployment and tuning on Solaris 10
Session #: ITE-2695
Sometime back we started the early work for ClearCase plugin along with the VCS team and now this has been in BETA. I am sure people is going to like this plugin as it looks really great and it maintains the consistency across the other versioning system. Even if the ClearCase is such a complicated software it will give you really simple, easy and intuitive action menu. If you have used any other versioning plugin from NB then your experience would remain the same. I would invite you to try this plugin and send your feedback to NB Engg so future enhancement can be made available to users.
There are couple of places you can check the details and they are as:
http://versioncontrol.netbeans.org/clearcase/
Roumens's Blog on ClearCase plugin
And if you would like to provide feedback don't forget to visit:
http://blogs.sun.com/roumen/entry/looking_for_feedback_on_new
Together with my colleagues we worked on the plugin for Netbeans IDE for WebSphere. It was initially designed to work for Netbeans 5.x IDE and WebSphere Application Server 6.0. We did some work to make it available with Netbeans 6.0 and it was at update center for some time but it should be part of the main binary. Recently I have been continuing this plugin work with my team member and I am happy to share that it is available as Netbeans 6.1 Milestone 1 release. The current phase of port is done and if you are interested you can download the plugin from here. The details can be found at Milestone 1 report page and WebSphere plugin screen shots are there for your reference.
The next step would be to add more functionality as you would like. Just provide us feedback at the plugin web-site.
Last couple of week we don't had any update over here as I was working with some of the IBM folks(really great ones..) on a Redbook project. The redbook is titled something like "IBM WebSphere on Sun Solaris" and will be available in couple of weeks. Just wanted to let everyone know that this is going to be a onestop information for your Websphere deployment on Solaris. I am sure some of the chapters are really great and will answer may of the questions being asked frequently.
Here is the link to the internet draft:
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg247584.html
Following the release of this new processor and server based on this IBM has updated the PUV(Processor Unit Value) licensing information.
I will not elaborate on the cost benefit analysis but you can make out from the data that this seems to be very cost effective server in terms of licensing cost. The details are here for your reference:
Processor Value Unit table
As Sun continue to provide breakthrough multi-core technology and systems based on that you are going to have your hands on this new cool server very soon. As you already may know that its predecessor(Sun Fire T2000) has established itself as the best J2EE App Server Platform (In fact it dominates the other area too but I will leave that to my colleagues to comments on). The details from SPEC web-site are here for your reference:
BEA WebLogic Server SPECjAppServer2004 result on Sun Fire T2000
IBM WebSphere Application Server SPECjAppServer2004 result on Sun Fire T2000
Oracle Application Server SPECjAppServer2004 result on Sun Fire T2000
Sun Java Application Server SPECjAppServer2004 result on Sun Fire T2000
Now you are going to see the next generation server named Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120/T5220 and this is going to continue to lead this segment and other as well. Don't forget to check this blog.
So coming to the point I got my hands on one of these system and did some performance study of WebSphere Application Server V 6.1 and I found these systems to be very impressive. The results of our tests shows that it can give you double the performance of T2000. Due to limitation of 4GB of address space for 32-bit process and the App Server's own scalability, I think none of the App Server will be able to scale and fully utilize this system. So I used multiple instance to maximize the system usages. As the software remains the same the tuning and tuning recommendations are not going to change.
Here is what I have done with my WebSphere Application Server to get best out of this system:
Thread Pools:
ORB: 39/39
Web Container: 47/47
Default: 20/20
EJB Cache: 60000 (previously recommended setting on my blog would be ok too).
JVM Settings:
Heap : 2300-2600
-server -XX:NewSize/-XX:MaxNewSize 1/3rd of Heap
-Xss128k -XX:LargePageSizeInBytes=256m -XX:+AggressiveOpts
-XX:+UnlockDiagnosticVMOptions -XX:-EliminateZeroing -XX:+UseParallelGC
-XX:ParallelGCThreads=16 -XX:+UseParallelOldGC
Connection Pool:
Min/Max Connection: 160/160
Statement Cache: 120
Then the usual stuff we do with TCP Connection settings, disabling the performance monitoring framework, setting the keep-alive etc.
Here are few of the setting I put in my /etc/system and which helped a lot for network performance and interrupts distribution:
set ip:ip_soft_rings_cnt = 8
set ddi_msix_alloc_limit = 8
Some of the issues I came across and you should also keep an eye on that:
Use intrstat(1M) and mpstat(1M) to find out how the interrupts processing going on. intrstat will give you the interrupts processing for different devices and which core is handling that and then you can look at the mpstat(btw this is very long so redirect to some files to take a look at it later) which will tell you if it is a bottleneck.
DB Connection – They always originates from whatever is returned by gethostbyname(3NSL) API and thus it may become bottleneck. So I used containers so the result of these API call are different i.e that will hostname(1) of your zone.
Full GC – Keep an eye on full GC and set the New Generation appropriately.
Note: If you are looking for more information on UltraSPARC T2 don't forget to check http://blogs.sun.com/.
Disclosure Statement:
SPEC, SPECjAppServer2004 are reg tm of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Links are from www.spec.org.
As you already know that WebSphere Application Server support different version of Sun Java System Web Server.
Sometime back Version 7.0 has been released and it also works fine with different versions of WebSphere Application Server.
When you install the plugin here are the action that take place:
Restart the web-server and now you should be passsing the request to the app server.
During discussion with one of the customer we found that there are interests around SMF for WebSphere. Taking this opportunity my friend Albert Leigh has already posted a head start and important link to get you started.
Basic idea of SMF has been presented and it may need cover the complex scenario which I think wouldn't be a big deal to follow as long as you know what are the activity and its dependencies are to get started.
Specially the thing are much straightforward when you plan to do things with standalone application server. The complexity arises when you go to multiple instance scenarios and you have clustering/distribution enabled. In these cases you have to take care of order in which you start the app eg. Node Manager must be started before you try to start the app server and thing like that.
Same goes for the Web Server which has been configured through the admin interface and eligible to get started or stopped from single point of management.
Let us know what else would you like to be done using SMF which is not just easy enough for yourself to do it. We will try to put the script to help you out.
I was at IMPACT 2007 during last week of May. Could not get to my blog to add anything after that.
Here is my take from the conference:
It is a great conference for WebSphere.
I got to meet lot of customer with whom I have interacted over the phone or eamil. There were lot of good sessions and if missed some of them you can get the presentation material from the impact sessions slide web-site
There are some of the session I like most over the other are:
The performance presentation, 64-Bit performance then all about the data grid, XD and some of the ESB/Process Server related sessions were really good and liked all of them. You should have the copy of presentation material handy because some of them you will need quite often.
Here are some of the additional information I would like to provide:
For 64-bit it is available on Solaris X86-64 is available since V6.0.2 and SPARC became available starting V6.1.
For performance reasons if you like to use just one flag for JVM tuning on your Solaris platform, I would recommend referring to my previous blog
Author: Dileep Kumar