NFS over RDMA screencast
The NFS over RDMA project is coming in for landing. This project updates the Solaris NFS/RDMA implementation to match the relevant IETF specifications, and to realize the level of performance expected from using NFS over this transport mechanism. Just WHAT level of performance is expected, you ask?? Check out the screencast developed by one of our external Open Solaris developers from Ohio State University:
http://frsun.downloads.edgesuite.net/sun/08C01476/index.html
Not only does this screencast show off the expected capabilities of the new NFS/RDMA implementation, but the fact that most of the work for the project and the screencast was done by community developers is WAY COOL!
Posted at 11:13AM Mar 05, 2008 by Don Traub in General | Comments[1]
Connectathon 08 is now open for business
Registrations are now being taken for Connectathon 08. Please see:
For details. This year, we expect there to be a lot of buzz around pNFS testing. The NFSv4.1 spec is moving forward, and we hope to see all the vendors bring their implementations to test against. We also expect CIFS testing to continue, and look for participants in iSCSI, NDMP, and even SSH. We look forward to seeing you there!
Oh yea, and we'll have cool t-shirts too! 
Posted at 03:24PM Feb 04, 2008 by Don Traub in General |
The Solaris NFS Team is Hiring!
The Solaris NFS Team is hiring!
We're looking for an intern to join our development team in Austin, TX. The ideal candidate can start part-time prior to working full-time throughout the summer. Please refer to:
For details on the position.
We also just posted a newgrad (or junior engineer) postion, which is posted at: http://www.sun.com/corp_emp/search.cgi?req=557932&p=
Please share with anyone you know who may be interested and qualified!
Posted at 01:54PM Jan 28, 2008 by Don Traub in General |
NFSv4 Mirror Mounts and a CEO who cares
First, let me congratulate the NFS team on delivering Mirror Mounts! This greatly simplifies how NFS clients view and manage a server's namespace. From Tom Haynes' blog:
Mirror Mounts enhances the NFSv4 clients to automatically mount filesystems when they are encountered at the NFSv4 server; this enhancement does not require the use of the automounter and therefore does not rely on the content or propagation of automounter maps. An example of the utility of this feature is in the presence of ZFS at the NFS server. With the ease of creation and management of numerous ZFS filesystems, the enhanced NFSv4 client will immediately provide access to the newly created and shared ZFS filesystems.
Gotta love it. I guess this project is reflective of the geographically distributed nature of the team - one team, many locations.
Now, for fear of being accused of copious brown-nosing...
With all of Sun's recent announcements about innovation in storage software within Solaris, getting an email from one's CEO congratulating and encouraging our team on the progress made goes a long way to keeping morale high. Such an email from a CEO could easily be content and emotion-free (eg: "Thanks."
. Well whoopdeedoo for us. But that's not Jonathan. Even if his emails are brief, they're sincere and specific. He really does care about what his staff is up to. Thank you, Jonathan, it is appreciated!
Go Rockies! Red Sox fans, meet Matt Holliday. For those at Fenway Park siting in the outfield, be sure to bring your gloves. You're gonna need them.
Posted at 03:43PM Oct 23, 2007 by Don Traub in General |
Japanese version of pNFS screencast now available
We are pleased to announce that a Japanese translation of the pNFS screencast is now available at:
http://opensolaris.org/os/project/nfsv41/pnfsdemos/japanese_basics/
This screencast provides an overview of pNFS, along with a demonstration of our pNFS prototype. We encourage you to view the demo, and visit our OpenSolaris project page at:
http://opensolaris.org/os/project/nfsv41
Also, we just posted new source code and BFU archives at:
http://opensolaris.org/os/project/nfsv41/downloads/The release notes for this post can be found at:
http://opensolaris.org/os/project/nfsv41/downloads/082007releasenotes/Let us know if you're downloading the code, as we'd love to get your feedback!
Posted at 04:01PM Aug 10, 2007 by Don Traub in General |
CIFS Client Alpha Now Available!
Our CIFS Client project team just reached a great milestone yesterday evening, delivering our Alpha code drop to Open Solaris! You can download the packages from:
http://opensolaris.org/os/project/smbfs/
There's assiciated release notes that you should check out when downloading this code.
The CIFS Client allows Solaris to natively mount a CIFS share from Windows, Samba, or any other server exporting CIFS shares. Once mounted on Solaris, the files and directores are accessed through standard Solaris I/O interfaces just like any other file system. The Alpha drop provides read-only access to the data, but writes and other capabilities are coming very soon.
We encourage you to download it, and send feedback to smbfs-discuss@opensolaris.org.
Posted at 11:02AM Jul 20, 2007 by Don Traub in General | Comments[1]
pNFS Open Solaris code drop now posted!
I'm pleased to announce that we have posted the most recent NFSv4.1 pNFS source and BFU archives, along with Release Notes and a pNFS "How-To" guide, to our pNFS Open Solaris project page.
Downloads:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/nfsv41/downloads/
Release Notes:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/nfsv41/downloads/062007releasenotes/
pNFS "How-To" guide:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/nfsv41/downloads/pnfs-how-to/
This code drop follows a successful Bakeathon the week of June 11th, at our engineering site in Austin, Texas. Beyond enjoying the best BBQ in the land, we gathered of community participants to perform NFSv4.1 interoperability testing, much like we do at Connectathon. We flushed out some bugs both in implementations and the spec, and continued to demonstrate leadership both in implementation and the community.
If you have any questions, please send an email to:
Posted at 10:51AM Jun 26, 2007 by Don Traub in Personal | Comments[1]
3 years of Blogging@Sun, what's changed since then?
Happy Birthday bloggers! 3 years, wow, how time has flown. Since we've starting bloging at Sun, what's changed? What impact has it had on Sun and the community? Does anyone actually read these? Am I just talking to myself? Will I get spammed by putting my name out there? Will I get fired if I talk about what I'm doing? What do I write about, anyway?
So many questions like this I've heard, and guess what: It has made a difference, people do read these, yes, I sometimes talk to myself, no, I don't get spammed by blogging, and I haven't gotten fired yet. Better yet, there is TONS to talk about at Sun! The greatest revelation is that we are all in marketing. Of course, there's company confidential information that we need to keep under wraps, but doing Solaris development in the open now translates to a level of transparency many of us are unaccustomed to. In fact, that expected level of transparency makes many people very nervous about sharing. However, once someone does their first blog (following guidelines, of course), they quickly get a sense of how much they have to contribute by sharing via blogs. Better yet, seeing people read one's blog, and getting affirming remarks back, boosts morale and one's sense of purpose. I'm never more amped at work than after talking with a customer. Blogging provides a similar adrenaline high, but more importantly, it's a critical venue to get information out to those who need it. So, if you're reading this, THANK YOU! We appreciate the opportunity to share what's going on!
Posted at 02:21PM Apr 27, 2007 by Don Traub in General | Comments[1]
NFSv4 Namespace Extensions requirements documents are now posted
Rob Thurlow just posted requirements docs for our NFS Mirror Mount and Referrals projects on our OpenSolaris NFS Namespace Extensions page:
http://opensolaris.org/os/project/nfs-namespace/We invite the community to have a look at these, provide feedback, and consider contributing to the effort.
Posted at 12:39PM Apr 27, 2007 by Don Traub in General |
pNFS screencast now available
Hopefully by now you've heard about pNFS (Parallel NFS). Well, now you can see what we're talking about! Our team just created a screencast for pNFS, that includes several slides covering an overview of pNFS, design goals, and a demonstration of our pNFS prototype. The screencast can be accessed from the page pNFS Demo link. pNFS is still in the early stages of planning and development, so command syntax and such will evolve over time, but this should give you a good feel of what's coming.
Posted at 08:49AM Apr 24, 2007 by Don Traub in General |
Dude, where's my data?
Apparently, it's out in the parking lot! Project blackbox just rolled up, and was so dominating that even the snowstorm predicted for Denver cowared away in fear of the great and powerful box. We're all lined up to tour the Blackbox today, and we look forward to the public and press coming by to check it out. We'll have a FROSUG booth there as well. Come on buy (by)! More information on Project Blackbox can be found here.
Posted at 07:26AM Apr 13, 2007 by Don Traub in General |
Life's a Beach, Countdown to Mexico!
Where we're going on our summer vacation. It's the Barcelo Colonial & Tropical Beach Resort in Rivera Maya.
Posted at 02:26PM Apr 12, 2007 by Don Traub in Personal |
Hello World! Announcing Storage at OpenSolaris.org
Rise and shine. Today, we launched the Open Solaris Storage site. Check it out!
http://opensolaris.org/os/community/storage/
It has links to the Open Solaris project pages, along with pointers to related communities. The one project I neglected to mention in one of my last blogs was the opensourcing of WebNFS, now referred to as Yet-Another-NFS (YANFS). WebNFS has been around for years, but never gained much attention. Recently, though, several major customers have shown interest in this technology, so we've made it available via java.net. Within the community, we plan to expand YANFS beyond it's current implementation.
Posted at 08:56AM Apr 10, 2007 by Don Traub in General |
A Programmer's Frustration
A coworker sent this to me a while back. Ever have one of those days?
Posted at 01:19PM Apr 09, 2007 by Don Traub in Humor |
Coffee, the 5th major food group
Riddle me this, Batman:
Q: What do you get when you mix a manager with a Peet's 4-shot latte right after a brisk morning run at the gym?A: 2 blogs in one day!!
Actually, guilt took over, as it's been way too long since I've posted. SoOOOOOOooooo, what's new in NFS and CIFS land? Lots! Pour yourself a hot cup of joe, and read on...
We've fired up several new OpenSolaris projects:
- NFS Server in non-Global Zones - We just fired up this project, with the intent of seeking input on what the use-cases are for supporting this. This work is not staffed, but if there's engineering resources within the community that would like to pick this up, let us know!
- NFSv4 Namespace Extensions - This project delivers Mirror Mounts and Referrals. We have working prototypes, that we tested at Connectathon '07. We'll be posting a requirements doc shortly to prompt discussion and communicate progress.
- NFS RDMA transport update and performance analysis - This project will update the OpenSolaris implementation of RPC for infiniband transports. The work is being done primiarily by students at Ohio State University. This is an excellent example of the community contributing to OpenSolaris. OSU has made great progress, and we're working with them to get this work delivered this Spring. Watch the project page for further developments.
- Sharemgr - This wasn't an OpenSolaris project, but we recently delivered into build 53 of Nevada. It delivers a much-improved and greatly simplified administrative model for managing NFS shares. Check out Doug McCallum's blog for details.
- In-kernel Sharetab - While also not an OpenSolaris project, Tom Haynes's blog discusses the details of this work, which just went into Nevada. This is one more step in simplifying Solaris administration.
- NFSv4.1 pNFS - This project delivers an implementation of pNFS, which is coming out of the NFSv4 IETF Working Group The specification is nearing completion. We have a prototype implementation today, which we recently tested at Connectathon. Watch the OpenSolaris project page, as we'll be updating it shortly with documentation and prototype code.
- CIFS Client - This project will create a virtual filesystem for Solaris to provide a CIFS/SMB client which can connect to machines exporting CIFS/SMB shares. We have many operations working, and expect to deliver this into Nevada this summer, with hopes to backport to a Solaris 10 Update shortly thereafter. We'll be posting the latest bits on the project page shortly, so grab them, kick the tires, and let us know what you think.
- Dtrace Provider for NFS - This project introduces a new DTrace provider that instruments NFSv4 clients and servers. The probes and their arguments represent the NFSv4 protocol. Not much progress on this over the last few months, but we're getting some engineering resources back onto this to crank this out.
That's all for now. Tune in next time for my next caffeine rush. C'ya.
Posted at 10:56AM Apr 05, 2007 by Don Traub in General |