Sun's OpenSolaris: now with added cloudiness

It's IT Blogwatch: in which Sun finally releases OpenSolaris, but with a surprising, cloud-computing twist, courtesy of Amazon EC2. Not to mention a joke for Photoshop users...

Heather Harreld Havenstein has, err, this: [Good grief -Ed.]

Sun Microsystems Inc. and the OpenSolaris community today debuted the initial version of the open-source OpenSolaris operating system. The new offering was unveiled three years after Sun announced its open-source plan for the Solaris operating system. At the same time, Sun and Amazon.com Inc. announced that OpenSolaris will be available on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), the latter company's on-demand computing Web service. The OpenSolaris software, which was previously available only in developer preview releases, combines Solaris technologies and tools with modern desktop applications and applications developed by open-source communities such as Gnome and Mozilla ... [and] is the first to include the Zettabyte File System (ZFS) as a default file system, which allows developers to protect their work with its instant rollback and continual check-summing capabilities. more

Mikael Ricknäs ädds:

Sun ... wants to compete with Linux and the LAMP software stack, which combines Linux with the Apache Web server, database server MySQL, which Sun owns, and programming languages Perl, PHP and Python ... In ZFS Sun has added installation support, something regular Solaris lacks. It will speed up the installation process and use less storage. It also offers support for instant rollback. Another important feature is OpenSolaris Image Packaging System, which enables packages to be pulled from a network directory -- the standard way of doing things in Linux. Solaris features to do the same thing are starting to get a little long in the tooth ... OpenSolaris is licensed using Community Development and Distribution License (CDDL), not GPL, which Sun has caught some flack for. But the possibility to mix open- and closed-source code, which GPL doesn't allow, gives it more flexibility. more

Sun's Glynn Foster wipes the Guinness froth from his mouth, to say:

I'm proud to announce that the first release of the OpenSolaris (TM) operating system, OpenSolaris 2008.05 is now available to download ... As you'll notice, we've also launched a new site for users, www.opensolaris.com ... OpenSolaris 2008.05 is a Live CD, allowing users to experience OpenSolaris immediately, without the need to install it to their systems. When ready, installation is a single click away with a new improved easy-to-use installer. This release also introduces IPS, a new network based package management system, allowing users to install additional software from the network. ZFS is also the default root file-system, allowing unique snapshot and rollback features, especially useful during system upgrade. OpenSolaris 2008.05 has a significantly improved user environment, in particular for those familiar with other Linux distributions ... I'd finally like to thank each and everyone who contributed to this release, and the long hours they've put in over several months - you guys rock! more

Om Malik chants:

Sun’s OpenSolaris OS will be available on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) customers for free. It is in beta for now. Sun will provide premium technical support for MySQL database running on Linux and Amazon EC2. These developments are meant to address the needs and complaints of the developer community. OpenSolaris, which comes with tools such as ZFS and Dynamic Tracing (D-Trace), will be offered for free, in contrast to some Linux offerings that cost money. For instance, if you sign up for EC2 and pick RedHat, it costs $19. ZFS allows instant rollback and continual check-summing capabilities, something developers have found lacking in the EC2 platform. This OpenSolaris on Amazon EC2 beta is currently available by invitation only. Some software vendors, including GigaSpaces, Rightscale, Thoughtworks and Zmanda, are already offering their solutions via Amazon Machine. more

Bob Warfield calls it, "fascinating":

At the moment, Amazon is running away with the cloud computing show. Last I heard there are over three hundred thousand developer accounts there. It’s a thriving ecosystem, and if Amazon sold no more new customers, one has to suspect that just the growth centered around those existing customers would be significant. Suddenly, this is a platform that matters for everyone that is trying to establish their own platform ... Ballmer would’ve done better to buy Amazon than Yahoo, so perhaps now he’ll give that a try. If you want your database or application server (hello Larry Ellison) to thrive, you’d better look into Amazon Web Services. If you want your language (hello Python, Ruby is already there with Heroku) to be ubiquitious, you’d better look into Amazon Web Services ... The availability of Amazon Machine Images does another thing. These are freeze dried snapshots of a particular collection of software installed on a machine. This makes them easy to propogate. The best practice combination of various pieces of software can be combined, converted to an image, and made available for broad consumption. This lowers operating costs and helps ensure that the “good” combinations are more prevalent in this ecosystem. Sun’s announcement is a fasciniating indicator of just how important Amazon Web Services has become. more

anilg explains Image Packaging System:

"Image" in the name refers to the ability of the packaging system to install to a chroot-like enviornment. The Distribution constructor (what actually builds the iso) basically creates an "image" area, installs the packages to this are, compresses it, and converts it to an iso. Apart from that, you can also create partial images, which is a space you as a normal user can install packages to. These link back to the libraries already installed. I'm sure some of these features are available in existing linux packaging systems. But these are things the Opensolaris community has wanted for a long time. more

But SuperBanana is worried about ZFS:

The true shame is that ZFS, despite all its goodness, lacks some incredibly basic features compared to 99% of the hardware and software RAID and LVM systems out there. You can't grow (please pay attention here) a ZFS pool except by adding similarly-redundant vdevs, and there is no way to remove a vdev from a pool, unlike LVM2. So. Got a 4-drive RAID-Z2 array, and you want to add more space by buying another drive to add in to your 5-bay hot-swap cage? You're [xxxx] outta luck. If you have a zpool with a vdev that consists of a pair of mirrored drives, you CAN add another vdev of two drives, then another, etc. You also CAN replace the drives in a vdev with larger drives. That's kind of half-okay, but still not on par with RAID cards of a DECADE ago. Even Linux's MD can grow RAID5/6 across more devices! more

And this Anonymous Coward agrees:

ZFS is not ready for production. I'm a working Solaris admin. I can point to several ZFS raidz arrays that have had to be recovered from tape due to ZFS bugs losing & corrupting data. This is clearly a case of ZFS marketing outstripping ZFS reality. They have implemented all the cool features, but have dropped the ball on robustness. Do a sunsolve search for ZFS panics or ZFS corruption. There are a half-dozen major bugs that are still un-resolved. more

And finally...

• Photoshop joke: image only or full post [off-color language]
  

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Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 21 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You can follow him on Twitter, pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• Microsoft gives up: what now for Ballmer?
• SCO in court again: Novell wants its $19,979,561.00
• Happy 15th birthday, World Wide Web. What next?