Hardware

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

dwelp — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:05:24 GMT

I got ESXi running on our Sun server in a test environment. (I won't be using the server in production until next year) I have Solaris and Windows Server 2003 installed. The box came with 8GB of ram and 2 - 160GD disk drives. I thought Solaris was pre loaded but it didn't seem to have any OS on the drive and I had to blow everything away to mirror the two drives. I have ESXi and space for the two OS on the disk giving about 50GB to each. All I've had time to do so far is to get Windows updates on the Windows server My production plan is two windows servers running two public facing web servers pulling their data from a back end data base server.

With the 4 - 1GB Ethernet interfaces you should be able to get a SAN or iSCSI disk available to the server and just use the internal disk for ESXi.

Dave

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

japalm — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:51:27 GMT

So, has anyone successfully installed ESXi on one of these? I am gearing up to do just that. I'd like to install ESXi and then 3 virtual W2K3 guests. I'm thinking I'm going to need to beef up the RAM and HDDs though.

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

shipley.c — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:37:52 GMT

irntech, I think what John means is that he wants the users to have their customized desktop settings in the Mac be available no matter which Mac they log into - not just a simple file sharing.

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

irntech — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:29:28 GMT

Hi Johnt,

If all you want to do is give users access to the same files, netboot/vnc/terminal-ish solutions seem a bit overkill. Why not just a network share mounted at startup?

-a

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

jtangney — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 16:41:31 GMT

I was excited to see the Sun Fire boxes available. I would love to deploy one in our all-Mac environment where an alternative is the hugely expensive Xserve.

What I really want to use it for is to allow users to see exactly the same files, etc. no matter what Mac they log into. There are various ways of achieving that. We could use NetBoot and put the home directories all on the server. Or we could run virtual machines on the server and have users simply VNC to them.

Does anyone have any experience with these kinds of setups?

Thanks!

--johnt

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

shipley.c — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:50:26 GMT

What Dave said :)

I'd go for the VMware hypervisor ESXi 4.0 as the virtal host platform - I've had very good luck and performance with this so far. From what I understand, it will run OpenSolaris fine - just not sure if the VMware Tools are up to date (haven't ever researched it). I know VMware runs windows perfectly.

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

dwelp — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:37:08 GMT

From what I've read so far it looks like it will support the Open Solaris Hypervisor, or VMware ESX Hypervisor. I need to download the backup for the Solaris from Sun and then my plan is to get the unit powered up with just Solaris, then try the ESXi from VMware. I'm hopeful that one of those will let me run Open Solaris and Windows server (and that my bread and butter apps will run on the Solaris) Fortunately I've got some time before I need the unit in production, and hopefully it will be in the Virtual mode when I do

Dave

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

japalm — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:04:00 GMT

I've received my hardware, now I just need to figure out what to do with it. I'd like to virtualize using VMWare. Does anyone know if the OpenSolaris can be used as a host for W2K3 virtual machines?

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

dwelp — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:35:46 GMT

The really sad part is how many rail kits are sitting out there in back closets not being used at all. I remember in the former life having boxes of rails in back rooms where we did an inplace upgrade and never used the new rails and they got put in the back with the other giblets from the new server.

I am seeing SunFire rails any where from $150 to $300 but I think I will try a four post shelf for about $55

Dave

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

shipley.c — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:04:38 GMT

The funny part is the rails might cost as much or more than the donated price of the system.

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

dwelp — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:12:29 GMT

Silly rack systems and silly rack rails. I have a couple of very old ML350 rack servers sitting on their side. One runs Untangle and the other is an Anti Virus admin server.

The 1U server is just too thin to set on it's side.

Also to the poster who suggested using it as a PC. Most likely will not work well as the Sunfires use a service processor and lights out management interface. I think trying to use one as a pc workstation would be challenging.

Dave

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

shipley.c — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 13:23:18 GMT

Yeah, I love the FLOSS Weekly set of podcasts. Hope it works out for you - good luck with the rails! (who needs those sily things anyway?)

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

dwelp — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:46:04 GMT

Great podcasts Chris, I will have to continue to check them out. I hope the open Solaris is qualified for the application I want to put on this box as the file system really sounds fantastic.

The Server arrived today, in a rain soaked box (2" of rain in an hour) but inside was dry and nicely packaged. One note, this is a rack mount server but does not include the rack mounting rails. X8029A so you will need either the rails or a rack shelf to put the server on. Looks like some digging to find rails at a decent price.

Dave

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

shipley.c — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:19:33 GMT

Here is a really interesting podcast on OpenSolaris. Apparently, that is the development platform for the distributed Solaris (there is no longer a distinction between Solaris and SunOS as far as I can tell). So Dave, take a listen to Floss Weekly 75 and it might answer some of your questions and lead you to some places that will answer more. :) I'm partiularly fascinated by the default file system using ZFS (here's another podcast about ZFS)

Re: Here Comes the Sun (Server)

dwelp — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:08:47 GMT

Thanks Kevin,

I'm sure the folks at Sun were shocked that some one actually read the agreement.

I'll Start a new thread about my experiences when I get the hardware.

Currently my plans for the server:

My production need for the server is a few months off, it is intended to become the Web server for our on-line donation and program enrollment software, which I found out had to be on different hardware from our production server due to PCI requirements. The Sun product with its OS versatility and donation status allows me to have the pieces in place even though I didn't budget for two servers.

Prior to the production use, I intend to try VMware ESX server and see if I can incorporate three servers on the one platform, which will meet additional future needs with out the hardware expense. The Sun server is the first non production Iron I've had that was powerful enough to try a Virtual Machine to see what it is like. If things work out like I hope and some more servers become available from Sun I could have a really nice redundant hardware platform to run about 5 or 6 servers including our production server.

So much for the dreaming, now I just need to wait for the box to arrive.

Dave