February 2011

Systems Community Newsletter

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

We have a new forum where you can post questions about Solaris security, a few gigs (more or less) of background info about our storage products, a deep backgrounder on our new T3-series servers, and a very cool way to evaluate and become familiar with Oracle software: pre-built software images of software combos that you can install and run together on VirtualBox.

— The Oracle Technology Network Team (See Team Blog)

After a generous dolop of marketing (we are proud of stuff, after all), this paper explains the evolution of massively multi-threaded multi-core server development at Oracle, and then dives deeply into the technical features that make the new line of SPARC T-3 Servers so capable.

Ramesh Nagappan details the high performance security strategies for Oracle WebLogic server based applications and XML Web services using the on-chip cryptographic acceleration capabilities of Oracle SPARC Enterprise T-Series Servers.

An overview of Oracle'ss 10 Gigabit Ethernet-enabled Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA) platforms and the spectrum of available Oracle Sun blades. Also discusses considerations for power planning.

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It's not just about interface speed. It's about application speed, tape drive throughput, and more. How to evaluate the actual performance of a tape drive.

How Oracle uses both Error Correction Code (ECC) when data is written to tape to make sure it can be recovered accurately, and Cyclic Redundancy COde (CRC) to make sure data is not corrupted when moved between internal memories.

How Oracle Key Manager Version 2.x (OKM 2.x), formerly known as StorageTek Crypto Key Management System 2.x (KMS), handles security and authentication.

The Reclaim Accelerator is a new tape storage format that lets your randomly access, add, or delete physical partitions to tape, which can save significant amounts of storage space. This white paper explains how.

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Understand the general security concerns in virtualized environments as well as the specific additional threats that arise out of them.

Thorough description of the inner workings of the virtual networks in Oracle Solaris 11 Express (known as project crossbow in OpenSolaris) and how to use them to simplify hardware management and upgrades. Originally presented at LISA 09 by Solaris networking kernel engineers. The real deal.

Brian Leonard, author of the Observatory blog, has just finished creating a new hands-on lab. This lab installs a Solaris 10 10/09 appliance image on Oracle VM VirtualBox on your system. Instructions and prerequisites are provided for Windows, MacOS, Solaris, and Linux. Use this and future hands-on lab to evaluate and become familiar with the operation of several Oracle Solaris technologies.

How to profile Message Passing Interface (MPI) applications with the Oracle Solaris Studio performance tools. Includes examples from the analysis of performance data and a discussion of supported MPI implementations.

Are you that kind of developer? What kind? You know what kind. You have your choice bits of code and you're simply not going to give them up, inexorable advance of technology or no. Well, Stephen Clamage is your buddy. In this article he describes how to solve common problems that arise when people like you mix C and C++ code. And he is kind enough to highlight portability issues. Rescued from the stacks of SDN.

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All codes and details for the below can be found on the OTN Member Discounts page.

• Oracle Press: 40% off selected titles
• Manning Publications: 40% off selected e-book titles
• Packt: 20% off selected book titles, 45% off selected e-book titles

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On Sunday 6 February 2011, Oracle Linux 6 was released on the Unbreakable Linux Network for customers with an Oracle Linux support subscription. Shortly after that, the Oracle Linux 6 RPMs were made available on our public yum server. Today we published the installation DVD images on edelivery.oracle.com/linux.

On Jan. 20, Oracle Linux 5.6 was released on the Unbreakable Linux Network for customers with an Oracle Linux support subscription. This blog posts highlights some of the new features. (As always, Oracle Linux 5.6 is free to download, install and use.)

Pre-tested, validated architectures, including software, hardware, storage, and network components plus documented best practices.

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New forum to discuss Solaris security for sysadmins or developers. Moderated by Alex Barclay. Be the first to stump Alex. No prizes, but excellent bragging rights. And since these days nobody has money, anyway, honor might just make a comeback.

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Oracle is working on tighter integration between VirtualBox and VM Server. Wim Coekaerts explains how to move an image from VirtualBox to VM Server.

Richard Friedman describes how the Discover tool detects memory leaks in an application, and how the Uncover tool measures code coverage.

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As you know, the old Sun documentation has moved from docs.sun.com to OTN. Here's where to find some specific docs:

• DTrace User's Guide - Solaris 10
• ZFS Administration Guide - Solaris 10
• Hardware Platform Guide - Solaris 10
• Installation Planning Guide - Solaris 10 10/09
• All Solaris 10 Documentation

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