Vijay Tatkar's Blog

Showcasing Sun Studio Blogging Contest winners
In June 2009, Sun Studio announced a blogging contest that ran until September.
The winners of that contest are now being showcased on the Sun Studio landing page.
The first winner to be showcased here, on Sun Studio page, and here, at SDN Program News, is Sandeep Koranne, whose entry describes how Sun Studio 12 compilers are used to engineer a complex, innovative discrete geometry algorithmic application. Sandeep is happy that he gets a 20% boost from Sun Studio compilers over GCC. But more than just performance, using Sun Studio 12 Compilers allowed him to "experiment with data-structures, perform automated performance tuning and overall presented a better environment for complex algorithmic coding, where the scientific researcher uses the programming environment to not only develop the code, but also to document and collaborate about the algorithm and methods used in the application" . The code is written in Standard C++, uses STL and written with portability in mind. Sandeep uses an IDE feature for Automated Task List generation innovatively to collect a list of "TODO" items. Neat!
Good work, Sandeep. And congratulations!
And congratulations to the other winners as well.
Posted by tatkar ( Oct 21 2009, 09:59:05 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [2]

OOW, day2: Sun, Oracle performance showcase
It was heartening to see a lot of Sun Hardware at Oracle OW.  For years, I've tried to persuade Sun TechDays and other folks to showcase Sun hardware at these developer shows, but its never really materialized in any meaningful way. Sure, theres the odd server for virtualization, etc at the shows, but that was mostly it.
By comparison, there was plenty of Sun HW here. I'm going to try and list out some of the big, hunking boxes I saw in the Sun booth and elsewhere. I'm sure my list isnt complete; I expect I will update this blog to make it more so. For now, here goes, what I saw.

1. Top of the list, of course, is the Sun Oracle Exadata Version 2(tagline: Hardware from Sun, Software from Oracle). Basically an OLTP database machine billed as twice as fast as its predecessor. This was the treat of the show, showcased just outside the Keynote location. Impressive piece of iron and it drew a lot of crowds (both onlookers as well as buyers, from what I hear).
2. StorageTek Modular Library system with 200 to 3000 cartridge slots (machine on display had 700). With a robotic arm that was continuously in motion, this machine made an impressive demo. And it was placed right next to our SunStudio booth, which drew curious onlookers.
3. Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage, aka Amber Road. This is an amazing amount of data (those on display were 12TB systems) in a small form-factor and with some amazing ease of administration to go with it.
4. Sun Storage Flash Array system. This is the secret sauce that makes the Exadata database machine tick! Flash speeds are the talk of the town since they have the potential to increase IOPS by an order of magnitude and save $$$ by making disk/Flash tradeoffs for throughput, storage and price.
5. Rackmount Servers: Mostly featured at the Demo stations were rackmounts systems based on UltraSPARC T2 (Enterprise T5240 servers), or Nehalem (Sun Fire X4450 servers) or AMD servers (Sun Fire 4240 servers)

Besides this, there were banners about the Sun branded database machine built out of UltraSPARC T2 5440s that recently claimed #1 status in all 7 key benchmarks (follow this link). The message was clear, from what I could tell: Sun is going to bring performance to the game and Oracle will optimize all Software to work efficiently on Solaris and Sun systems. In view of recent press announcements touting World Record TPC-C performance and a promise to keep Sun customers happy by investing even more in Sun technology than previously, this showcasing of Sun hardware bodes well for Sun customers as well as for Oracle's enterprise partners and customers. Best of all, there seems to be a palpable excitement in both companies about the synergies around this acquisition that was hard to miss both from the Sun booth as well as the Oracle booths.
Posted by tatkar ( Oct 14 2009, 01:58:32 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [2]

First impressions from Oracle OpenWorld
Yesterday was my first day at OOW. Even though there were some scintillating events over the weekend, in particular these keynotes from Sun's Scott McNealy & James Gosling(view here) and Oracle's Larry Ellison (view here), I wasnt at that portion of OOW.
My first impressions, even before I entered Moscone, was Wow! The place was entirely taken over by Oracle. Buses ran billboards advertising Oracle and the event, there was even a huge tent between Moscone North and South, reserved as dining area and essentially closing Howard Street (picture here). There was even the scale model BMW Oracle Racing High-tech Catamaran on display at the Fourth and Howard Streets intersection. Exhibitions were in Moscone South AND Moscone West. Essentially, that 6 block area was nothing but Oracle OpenWorld.
My second impression was suits. Lots and lots of them. Essentially different from IDF, which billed itself as the next, next, next big thing, and JavaOne, which is clearly a hacker's conference (and where James reminded Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz that he was out of place in his suit at the keynote and got huge applause from the audience), this one is a carefully and well-scripted conference. I could not listen to the entire keynote from Phillips and Catz (view here), but what I could hear was very carefully laid out and executed. One astounding fact I gathered (and later could relate to): Oracle has over 3000 products and the portfolio is growing ever faster!
So, I had booth duty on the exhibition floor. Moscone South. Essentially a technology, but even more importantly, a services showcase. All the major partners were there: HP, IBM, Dell, AMD, Intel and of course Sun. And also, networking and wireless partners like Cisco, Brocade, AT&T, Blackberry and Verizon.  But also, Infosys, CSC, NetApp, Deloitte, Wipro, EDS, Accenture, KPMG, PriceWaterhouseCooper, Tata Consulting (TCS). I'm singling out that last list because I havent seen them at any of the developer conferences I usually go to (Sun TechDays, JavaOne, IDF, LinuxWorld, etc). Oracle itself was fairly hidden (or backgrounded), giving their partners essentially all the glory and topspots on the floor.  [Moscone West has a HUGE, HUGE Salesforce.com presence which I intend to check out today].
There was a Cloud booth (for those of you who think Oracle is anti-Cloud) and I engaged in some interesting and long discussions with vendors in that booth (except Amazon, I'll corner them today, because they are more of a known quantity as far as I'm concerned, so unlikely that I'll learn anything new). On-Demand computing seems to have a big presence in what Oracle calls "DemoGrounds" (see this picture, eg).
The Sun booths were very strategic and visible. Right next to the main entrance. We had some foot traffic, but for the Sun Studio booth, mostly non-existent. I probably talked to about a dozen to 15 non-Sun folks and some of them were even Oracle folks, who I knew by email before. Given that the crowd was a suited, mostly business IT type crowd, I am not surprised. A few that came by were disappointed that we didnt run on Windows, but were suitably impressed by the offering and demo when I showed them what we had.
An interesting day. Tiring, since the shift turned out to be a 5+ hour shift without a lot of interesting traffic, but I think I learned a bit from others there. Which makes it entirely worthwhile.
More details tomorrow, I hope.

Posted by tatkar ( Oct 13 2009, 10:58:37 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Sun Studio will be present at Oracle OpenWorld 2009
Oracle OpenWorld (OOW) is coming up Oct 11-15 at Moscone Center, San Francisco and Sun is a major sponsor this  year. Sun will be showcasing Solaris, Java and Glassfish (follow the links here for a list of session in each of these areas. Follow this  link for the complete set of sessions, along with speakers, that Sun will be showcasing there).
Sun Studio will have a session on Porting applications to Solaris and Maximizing Performance (the first part is about the SourceJuicer project in OpenSolaris and the second part is about Sun Studio Compilers and Tools). There is also a  demo station. This should be an interesting experience, trying to understand what OOW attendees are looking for .
For our part, we will be emphasizing Sun Studio's strengths and focus areas:

• Optimized C, C++ & Fortran compilers and highly tuned libraries (SPARC & x86)
• Advanced Development tools particularly for Parallel programming (Thread and Performance Analysis)
• Solaris DTrace-based visualization tools

We have three Demos ready to go; all are based on IDE, Dlight (follow this link for a screencast), Debugging and Analyzer features. I will continue to blog about what I see there  and my impressions/takeaways.

Posted by tatkar ( Oct 08 2009, 10:48:12 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Three new important Sun Developer Tools update releases: Sun Studio, NetBeans and Clustertools
In the past week, Sun has announced availability of new releases and updates to three of the most interesting Developer tools:

• Sun Studio 12 Update 1 is the latest production release of Sun Studio Compilers and Tools. Among the shiny new features are:
• C, C++, Fortran compiler optimizations for the latest UltraSPARC and SPARC64-based architectures and support for latest Intel and AMD chips, including SSE3, SSE4a, SSE4.1 and SSE4.2 instructions
• Compiler, debugger, and profiling support for OpenMP 3.0
• Profiling of distributed MPI-based applications 
• DLight - New tool for unified application and system profiling using Dynamic Tracing (DTrace) technology on Solaris platforms 
• dbxTool - New stand-alone graphical debugger 
• Highly tuned and parallelized scientific libraries, including ScaLAPACK 
• Updated IDE based on NetBeans 6.5.1 software

    Look here for more information: http://developers.sun.com  as well as the Studio website:  http://developers.sun.com/sunstudio

• Sun HPC ClusterTools 8.2 offers an integrated toolkit with a  comprehensive set of capabilities for parallel computing that allows developers to create and tune MPI applications that run on high-performance clusters. You get MPI libraries based on Open MPI 1.3.3 standard and ORTE parallel job launcher. It also includes support for Infiniband, shared memory, 10 GbE and Myrinet MX support along with plug-in for Sun Grid Engine, support for third party parallel debuggers (TotalView and Allinea DDT) and is integrated with Sun Studio Analyzer. You can find more information on this release (including Download, Documentation) for Solaris 10, OpenSolaris (both SPARC and x86), and Linuxes (RHEL5, SLES10 and CentOS 5) here: http://www.sun.com/software/products/clustertools 

• NetBeans 6.7 has shipped.  The primary focus of this release was connectivity: helping developers connect to the latest technologies and to each other. NetBeans 6.7 now offers:
• Integration with Project Kenai 
• Native support for Maven 
• Support for GlassFish (v3) 
• Issue tracker and Hudson integrations 
• Support for JavaScript 1.7 
• Ruby remote debugging 
• Integration of the Java ME SDK 3.0
  

    You can find more information about NetBeans 6.7 here.

Posted by tatkar ( Jun 29 2009, 11:03:44 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [1]

Techtip: Mapping GCC options into Sun Studio Compiler options
A new paper by Diane Meirowitz, Sr Development Compiler engineer in Sun Studio division, talks about mapping GCC options to Sun Studio options.
I know there are users/Sun customers who were looking for such tips, so I thought I'd pass it on here.
Posted by tatkar ( Jan 26 2009, 02:00:15 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Browsable index to Sun Studio Tech Articles
There is now a browsable index to all the Sun Studio technical articles on SDN at:
http://developers.sun.com/sunstudio/documentation/techart/index.jsp

Kudos to the team on getting it there; it will now be easier to find Sun Studio tech articles!

Posted by tatkar ( Dec 18 2008, 09:34:34 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Podcast on Sun Studio Express 11/08
Come by and listen to my podcast with our Marketing Manager(Ikroop Dhillon) at this site:
Sun Studio Express 11/08 Podcast.
I start off a bit clunkily but it gets better as the engine's warmed up!
Thanx, Ikroop, that was a lot of fun!
Posted by tatkar ( Nov 14 2008, 12:13:41 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Sun Studio Express 11/08 is now available
Sun Studio Express 11/08  is now available for  Solaris 10, OpenSolaris and Linux (RHEL and SuSE). We are looking for you to preview the new features and give us feedback. Listening to this feedback is a prime motivation for exposing these features, so please be sure to sign in and use the Sun Studio Forums to give us your comments, suggestions, (gripes?), etc

The new release is loaded with features. Some of the big bullets are:

• C, C++ compiler, assembler features:
• Support for Nehalem (Intel Xeon) and Shanghai (AMD) processors: in particular, SSE4.1 and SSE4.2 features
• World Record numbers on Intel Xeon Penryn as well as new SPARC64-VII based systems that I have already outlined previously here(Intel) and here(SPARC).
• Optimization enhancements for SPARC64 VI, VII, UltraSPARC IV+ and Niagara-2 chips (aka UltraSPARC T2), bringing several World Record Benchmarks on these new machines
• OpenMP3.0 API (finishing off the remaining features) support in C, C++, Fortran compilers
• Enhanced performance analysis/profiling of MPI applications
• Support for  Sun HPC ClusterTools 8, which supports OpenMPI 1.3 and allows creation (and tuning) of MPI applications that run on high performance clusters
• A NEW standalone debugger: dbxtool 
  
• Sun Performance Library: ZGEMM improvements for SPARC64-VI and SPARC64-VII
• Remote Development in IDE and dbxtool
  
• Packaging: supports tar, zip, SVR4, RPM, Debian packages; other packaging systems may be added using pluggable architecture
• NetBeans 6.5 based IDE
  
  • Improved project import: new provider based on build log analysis
  • Static Call Graph
  • Dramatically improved Code Assistance accuracy (97%+ on average project)
  • Syntax Error Highlighting
  • Unused variables highligting
  • Unresolved identifiers highlighting (experimental, turned off by default)
• Project D-light is a plugin for the Sun Studio 12 IDE that offers a variety of instrumentation that takes advantage of the Dynamic Tracing (DTrace) debugging and performance analysis functionality in the Solaris OS.
• DTrace GUI Plugin is a graphical user interface (GUI) for running DTrace scripts
• Platforms:
• Officially supported now on OpenSolaris 2008.05 and OpenSolaris 2008.11
• Available on newer Linuxes: RHEL5, SuSE10^?, Ubuntu 8.10 and Solaris 10 update 5 (or newer)
  

You can find the Express Readme here.
For more detail on these features, see the Express Details wiki pages. I will deepdive into details of the features here in subsequent blogs.
Posted by tatkar ( Nov 13 2008, 11:43:52 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

10 years at NetBeans
NetBeans just closed 10th anniversary celebrations!
Its hard to believe the journey: from a student project at Prague to a prize winning OpenSource project into one of the most popular IDEs and Platforms today! Its a great showcase of a successful OpenSource story that is now changing development, not just for Java, but also for C/C++ (NetBeans is the basis for the Sun Studio IDE), PHP, Ruby and emerging Web platforms.
Congratulations, NetBeans! Heres toasting to the next decade!
Posted by tatkar ( Nov 03 2008, 11:34:19 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [1]

Navigate OpenSolaris sources with Sun Studio/NetBeans IDE
There is now a new project in OpenSolaris to navigate the latest OpenSolaris sources as NetBeans C/C++ (or Sun Studio) IDE projects. All classic browsing actions like hyperlink navigation, class browser, call graphs, etc are available. The projects also enables users to seamlessly integrate third-party software like drivers with the ON sources.
What is not available yet is building and debugging these sources automatically in the IDE. This is a key missing feature; most people learn by trying things out.
OpenSolaris builds 100 and 101 are available; you have to download both the projects created and the sources that correspond to those. Future builds will be tracked in sync. There are over 1000 NetBeans projects created with each build of OpenSolaris . There is an example user scenario of how a driver writer can use this kind of navigation to identify and verify appropriate dependencies on OpenSolaris projects.
From my own personal experience, this is a very interesting scenario to demo; I have done it myself at various customer sites and at Sun TechDays and the reception has uniformly been wonderful. When I bring up the IDE with this, there is an immediate Wow! from the audience.
The IDE is working on making similar projects possible for other communities as well. In the meantime, please take a look at this Navigator Project link , try it out, give the team feedback and help us improve this even further!
Posted by tatkar ( Oct 31 2008, 08:49:39 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [1]

New article and new podcast on SDN posted for Sun Studio
Two new items have been added to the Sun Studio Developers landing page.
"Why Use Sun Studio 12 Compilers and Tools?" is a general introductory paper by Steve Meloan for new or introductory Sun Studio and/or Solaris users and talks in generality about how these compilers and tools help with program development in a multicore world.
The second is a podcast by Ikroop Dhillon and Ruud Van Der Pas' about Sun Studio Express 07/08 that talks about OpenMP 3.0 support and work done to enable MPI profiling and clustertools support.
Posted by tatkar ( Aug 29 2008, 05:42:43 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Getting Sun Studio Express 7/08 on OpenSolaris 2008.05 Live CD (part 2)
This is an addendum to the previous post on running Sun Studio Express 7/08 on top of barebones OpenSolaris 2008.05.
As others have noticed, OpenSolaris 2008.05 LiveCD doesnt come with headers, etc that we need to compile apps.
So, heres a short cookbook of what to execute before tarring the Sun Studio Express 7/08 tarball.

Step 1, "prepare your system" with essential updates:

$ pfexec pkg install SUNWipkg@0.5.11-0.86
$ pfexec pkg install entire@0.5.11-0.86

Next,  make sure the following OS dependencies are installed:

$ pfexec pkg install SUNWhea@0.5.11-0.86
$ pfexec pkg install SUNWarc@0.5.11-0.86
$ pfexec pkg install SUNWj6dev@0.5.11-0.86

That should get most of the stuff needed (unless you need other headers like X11 to get applications compiled.. its unfortunate that there isnt a developer cluster I can recommend. Or maybe, I just dont know)
For more information, refer to this Wiki for up to date details on these issues.
Posted by tatkar ( Aug 17 2008, 06:36:16 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [1]

NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta available for download
The NetBeans IDE 6.5 Beta release provides several new features and enhancements, such as a new IDE-wide QuickSearch shortcut, more user-friendly interface, and automatic Compile on Save. NetBeans is an Open Source IDE and is an ideal platform for developing Java, C/C++, JavaScript, Ruby, Groovy, and PHP applications.
NetBeans supports multiple platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris and is the basis for the SunStudio IDE (which has additional features such as dbx-based debugger, Performance Analyzer, D-light, etc).

NetBeans 6.5 C/C++ new features include:

• Improved code completion, error highlighting, and semantic highlighting
• Call graph, Memory window
• Remote development
• Packaging of application as tar files, zip files, or SVR4 packages

Additionally, the latest DTrace GUI Plugin with Chime Visualization is also available with NB 6.5

Check it out and download a copy here.
Posted by tatkar ( Aug 15 2008, 11:04:03 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Chalk Talk at Intel Developer Forum '08 SF
I'm giving a Chalk Talk at Intel Developer Forum Fall '08 (San Francisco, Moscone Center, August 19-21), titled:
Multi-threaded Development on OpenSolaris* and Linux* using Sun  Studio*

The talk will focus on Sun Studio tools, including compilers that help with MT applications, especially targetted towards multi-core chips. It will focus on four aspects that are basic to Sun Studio's value proposition:

• Performance
• Productivity
• Parallelism (particularly, MT)
• Platforms (OpenSolaris and Linux)

Chalk talks are a fun way to introduce technology, show a demo and deepdive into many interesting areas of upcoming development. I'll talk about Data Race Detection (and the Thread Analyzer tool which helps in this quest), MT debugging, DTrace and profiling tools, and emerging technologies like Transactional Memory .

My session is on Tuesday, August 19th at 9:45AM. Hope you can join me there!

Posted by tatkar ( Aug 14 2008, 09:46:44 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]