unixwiz

Here is how to decode the Sun Fire E25K IO Boat locations. This is useful if you are trying to jumpstart a domain that has multiple ethernet cards in it. (Note even if you only have 1 physical card, there are other “ethernet” devices on the back side for the MAN and I2 networks).

So lets take this example. Here is the out put of show-nets from a domain.

{80} ok show-nets
a) /pci@bd,700000/network@1
b) /pci@bc,700000/network@3,1
c) /pci@bc,700000/pci@1/network@1
d) /pci@bc,700000/pci@1/network@0
e) /pci@9d,700000/network@1
f) /pci@9c,700000/network@3,1
g) /pci@9c,700000/pci@1/network@1
h) /pci@9c,700000/pci@1/network@0

The first step is to convert the hexadecimal agent id into binary. The agent id in the above example (line h for reference) is 9c. So 9c in binary is 00 1001 1100. The last 5 bits identify the IOC chip. A value of 0×1c is IOC0, whereas 0×1d is IOC1. So in the above, the last 5 bits is 11100 = 1c. The remaining first 5 bits of the agent id converted from binary to decimal will tell you the expander board. So 00 100 = 4 in decimal. So from this we can tell that the network card is in Expander 4 and IOC 0.

Next is to identify the bus, that is the part after the , in the above example they are all 700000, which is bus B. Whereas 600000 is bus A.

Bus A is the 33/66-MHz, where as Bus B is the 33MHz.

So as you are looking at an IO expander the B bus is the top 2 slots, and the A bus is the bottom 2 slots. The IO bridge 0 is the right and the IO bridge 1 is the left side.

So in our example this Card is in the Top Right slot of the IO boat in expander board 4. Next since this card has 2 ports, you will see a network@0, and network@1. Which correspond to the port 0 and 1 on the card (which happens to be a dual port ethernet/scsi card).

Now that I have explained how it works, here is a quick cheat sheet:

Recently started looking for some new servers and was going through Sun’s new product line up.. Check out this:

Sun Fire X4150.. I thought I would never see the day where you could get a 1U server with dual quad core chips and 8 hard drives in it and 64 GB of ram.. Talk about a fast little box… Add up that you can have 8 x 146gb drives in it and that gives you over 1.1 TB of raw storage.

And talk about storage, make sure to check out the Sun StorageTek 5800 system.. Looks to be pretty cool.

Another thing that was talked about at the Sun Day today, was Project Indiana. I went and downloaded it tonight and installed it in a vmware image on my MBP. Interestingly the ISO image is only about 630 meg in size. Something interesting to see when it is finally installed and booted up:

If you pay close attention, the / file system is controlled by ZFS!

Some output of other commands:

going to have to play with Indiana some and see how it is…

I went to a presentation today by a hardware vendor. Once again I am trying to understand why people think Blade server technology is such a great think to have. For example the vendor today had a blade system that was 10 RU high, and had slots for 10 blades. So basicly you have 10 1RU servers being mounted vertically in a 10 RU chassis. What does this actually buy you? Not to much of anything, you still have 10 independent servers to manage, you still had all the cables running to the chassis as you would if you had 10 1RU servers. The only thing you save is the number of power cords you need. I will say something about this vendor though, if I were to ever buy a Blade system, it would probably be theirs. So who was this vendor? Sun Microsystems. Some of the features that I think they have that other vendors don’t are the following:

• SPARC, AMD Opteron, and Intel Xeon processor-based server modules. The SPARC modules are based off of the Niagara chip set.
• 4 hot swappable hard drives per blade. This is a MAJOR issue with other vendors as they don’t provide hot-swappable hard drives, which means you have to take the blade out of service to replace the drives.
• Twice the memory support that most other vendors. (up to 64GB)
• Price - Just comparing list prices between the “top 3″ shows that Sun has more bang for the buck.

I am not an advocate on blades, I think they are just a way for vendors to play buzz word bingo with people who don’t know better.

One of the other cool things that was talked about is the Sun StorageTek 5800 aka Honeycomb. When they first started talking about it, it almost sounded like they were talking about WinFS that was supposed to be in Longhorn. But the more they talked about it, the more I saw that it was not WinFS, but a really cool and really fast data storage system. Wish I could win the lottery to buy one ..

Another server I would absolutly love to have at home is the Sun Fire X4500 aka Thumper, especially now that they are offering 1TB drives in it, which means it now holds 48TB of disk space. That is a lot of freaking space to have in a 5U format. If I only had the money, heck I would settle for the 24tb model. Add in Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure to the thumper and you have one hell of a house server. You could put Sun Rays hanging off of the thumper and each Sun Ray could have Solaris or Windows or Linux or what ever desktop you want. And because all the data is stored on the thumper in a ZFS file system it is automatically protected by raidz (assuming you set it up that way), and you could share all your file with the other people in your house.

And the last but not least coolest thing they talked about was the new Niagara 2 chips. Some notable features:

1. up to 64 simultaneous threads at a time - which means you basicly have an E10K/F12K/F15K in a single 2 RU box
2. One floating point unit per core. Whereas the Niagara 1 chips had one floating point for the CPU, the Niagara 2’s have 1 per core, which makes the chip even faster.
3. 10 GB Ethernet on the silicon - if gigabit ethernet was not fast enough for you, then you can have up to 2 10GB ethernet connections that are piped directly in to the CPU.

I can’t wait to get some of the new servers in with the Niagara 2 chips in them, they are going to spank the Niagara one machines.

After reading ThinGuy’s Blog: Are PC’s Killing Health Care? I can’t agree more… It got me to thinking when I was in the emergency room of a local hospital last summer. (Long story, but spent a while there) Anyways, while I was there (I have not been to the ER in ages and the last time I was everything was still done on paper), they popped down a little thing on the wall and he behind it was a “Windows Thin client”. The nurse did nothing but b@#*h about how slow it was. I watched and it looked to be running a Wyse Client and using Windows from some place that was not local. I got to thinking about how a Sun Ray environment would work in this hospital. Here are some ideas I thought of while laying in that short bed (I am over 6′5″) for 5 hours.

1. Instead of having the paper charts, when you arrive, your are “assigned” a smart card and all your information follows you on that card no matter where you go (AKA HCHD, Hospital Chart Hot Desking). For example I had to end up going to X-Ray, and the X-Ray tech did not have the complete orders and started taking Chest X-Ray’s instead of X-Ray’s of my knee. (Later found out that they wanted both, but the doctor forgot to put the knee one on the order sheet, if he had seen my chart he would have known that the original reason I was there was for knee problems).
2. The monitoring devices in the room (BP/Heart Rate/oxygen/etc) could be attached to the Sun Ray and therefore your info logged and displayed on the Sun Ray at a click of the button.
3. Each patient could be given their own card for surfing the web, etc.. (if they are ambulatory enough to do this)
4. By using the smart card to keep track of your stats, there is no paper to accidentally get “lost” or stolen (helps with HIPPA).
5. Be a lot faster than the current Wyse Terminals they were using as they would not have to wait for it to boot.
6. Security, there isn’t a day go by that I don’t read about some one losing some one else’s information. I.E. VA Hospital, (which uses some Sun Rays in areas around where I am), This would eliminate all of these loses, if everyone was forced to use it.
7. All Labs/X-Rays posted directly to the persons “card”

Granted some of the above would be a feat to pull off, but it can be done.

I think that using Sun Ray’s is the coolest thing, especially now that I have it set up for all the people in my group to pull their card out of their Office Sun Ray and plug it in to their Home Sun Ray and everything is still there. (If I can just get the performance problems worked out it would be really killer, but something about the combination of Solaris 10, Sun Ray 4 is causing me some slowness, and I am not sure where it is exactly. )

Now if more people realize the benefits of using Sun Ray’s over other “Chubby Clients” Sun Ray’s would take over the world.