Consolidation Tool for Sun Fire Servers V1.0, Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 Edition

• Overview
• Features
• Download
• Installing

Overview

The Consolidation Tool for Sun Fire Servers V1.0, Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 Edition, is a software tool designed to simplify the task of consolidating multiple applications onto the Sun Fire T1000 or T2000 platform. In particular, this software allows the easy definition and creation of Solaris Containers. The tool deploys applications into processor sets where appropriate and allocates CPUs into processor sets in a way that optimizes performance. The software also takes full advantage of Solaris Containers (including Solaris Zones partitioning technology, pools, psets, and scheduling classes), making intelligent choices between full-root and sparse zones.

In addition, the tool installs versions of key public domain software on the target Sun Fire T1000 or T2000 system.

The functionality is achieved using a simple, easy-to-use interface with context-sensitive help. Configuration details are saved to allow the configuration to be reused easily on other Sun Fire T1000 or T2000 systems.

The tool is being made available as an open source, unsupported application.

Tool Features

This tool is designed to offer the following features:

• Captures customer's workload consolidation requirements
• 'Virtual servers' are defined, each with one or more apps
• Easy-to-use interface, context-sensitive help
• 'Basic' and 'expert' modes
• No assumed knowledge of the Solaris OS
• Builds resource pools, psets, and Solaris Zones
• Based on user input
• A script is created to be run on the target system
• Human readable, well documented
• Can be used as a simple how-to for pool/pset/zone creation
• Complies with best practices for Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers
• Deploys a short list of public domain applications into Solaris Zones
• Automatically installs nominated apps
• Provides a report summarizing the deployment
• Executive summary in html
• Also in pdf if you have installed the htmldoc binary

Downloads

• Download the tool only, not including public domain packages (20MB tar.gz file).
• Download the full distribution, including the tool and public domain packages (130MB tar.gz file).
• Download a presentation outlining the tool and its features (pdf).

Installing and Running the Tool

Gunzip and untar the downloaded tool tar.gz file into a directory of your choice, and run the start.sh script to start the tool:

cd new_tool_directory
gzip -dc tool_download.tar.gz | tar xvf -
../start.sh

The tool can be run on any of the following operating systems:

• Solaris OS on SPARC platforms
• Solaris OS on x64/x86 platforms
• Linux
• Mac OS X

This flexibility allows you to configure the consolidation environment on a client of your choice. The tool will create a script that should be run on the target Sun Fire T1000 or T2000 system. Note that if you have elected within the tool to install public domain applications, you will need to put the full distribution onto the target system so that the script can find the public domain applications when you run it.