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Solaris Operating System
Solaris 9 Resource Manager Technical FAQ
Technical QuestionsQ: What is Solaris 9 Resource Manager ?
A:
Solaris 9 Resource Manager is a set of resource management and network quality of service features that enables customers the means to allocate and control resources such as CPU, physical memory, and network I/O bandwidth. Solaris 9 Resource Manager is integrated into the Solaris 9 Operating System (OS) kernel and provides the framework for controlling system and network resources for users, groups, or applications to provide more predictable service levels.
Q: How does Solaris 9 Resource Manager relate to Solaris Containers ?
A:
Sun plans to roll out components of Solaris containers in phases. The release of Solaris 9 Resource Manager marks the first step. It provides the framework for Solaris containers. With Solaris 9 Resource Manager, system administrators can establish resource boundaries (also known as resource pools) for a specific application, eliminating competition of resources with other applications. The first resource boundary which system administrators can establish with Solaris 9 Resource Manager is CPU. In future phases, system administrators will be able to establish boundaries for physical memory, swap space, and network I/ O bandwidth.
Q: What are Solaris Containers ?
A:
Solaris containers are Sun's next advance in server virtualization. Solaris containers isolate software applications or services using flexible, software-defined boundaries. Solaris containers create computing environments within a single instance of the Solaris Operating System and provide full resource containment, fault isolation, and security isolation. The Solaris containers will become the fundamental, ubiquitous management object in the Solaris Operating System, and will be used throughout Sun's entire product line.
Q: How does Solaris 9 Resource Manager relate to Solaris Resource Manager 1.2 and Solaris Bandwidth Manager 1.6 ?
A:
Solaris Resource Manager 1.2 and Solaris Bandwidth Manager 1.6 are unbundled products for controlling system and network resources, respectively, for the the Solaris 2.6, 7 or 8 Operating Environments. Solaris 9 Resource Manager, on the other hand, is integrated into the Solaris 9 kernel. While Solaris 9 Resource Manager contains features similar to what is delivered in Solaris Resource Manager 1.2 and Solaris Bandwidth Manager 1.6, the code base of Solaris 9 Resource Manager is completely different. Moreover, Solaris 9 Resource Manager also contains features which are not part of the existing unbundled products.
Q: Who needs Solaris 9 Resource Manager ?
A:
Solaris 9 Resource Manager is essential for customers who are pursuing a server consolidation strategy to reduce costs through simplifying their environments into fewer servers. This capability provides mainframe like resource management in the networked world. In addition, Solaris 9 Resource Manager allows Service Providers or hosting companies to charge for multiple e-commerce sites on a single server. Customers can gain economies of scale in management and greater efficiency by using larger servers instead of a number of small ones.
Q: What are the highlights for Solaris 9 Resource Manager ?
A:
Integration with Solaris Operating System
The features of Solaris 9 Resource Manager are integrated into the Solaris Operating System. This tight integration enhances the manageability, stability, and accounting capabilities for Solaris 9 Resource Manager. By integrating into the Solaris OS kernel, it also enables Solaris 9 Resource Manager to better support other core Solaris OS features. Moreover, integrating Solaris 9 Resource Manager into the Solaris OS provides the foundation for the continued delivery of powerful resource management features in future releases. For more information review the data sheet.
Q: What are the applications for Solaris 9 Resource Manager ?
A:
Solaris 9 Resource Manager provides effective resource control in the following areas:
Q: What is the performance overhead of Solaris 9 Resource Manager ?
A:
Generally, the performance overhead is very low since Solaris 9 Resource Manager is tightly integrated with the core OS. System administrators can define a policy for a group of processes in contrast to the one-on-one nature of the TS scheduler.
Q: Can I use Solaris 9 Resource Manager to cap the quantity of resources allocated to a workload ?
A:
Yes, you can establish upper bounds for CPU resources. You can dedicate one or more CPUs (CPU set) to a specific application service. Only applications or users that belong to this specific application service are allowed to use this CPU set.
Q: What is the advantage of using the revised Fair Share Scheduler (FSS) over the regular time share (TS) scheduler ?
A:
FSS enables you to control CPU resources to projects based on their relative importance.
Q: Why use 'shares' rather than percentage ?
A:
In addition to being more dynamic, shares give more flexibility than fixed percentages.
Instead of allocating a fixed amount of CPU resources to projects, the scheduler allocate the CPU resources based on a proportion: the amount of the system the project is entitled to (based on shares), compared to the total amount of shares assigned to the currently active projects. It is also easier to change shares, since the sum of shares doesn't need to add up to a fixed percentage. Everything is relative, which makes scripting a lot easier.
Q: How is the revised fair share scheduler in Solaris 9 Resource Manager different from the fair share scheduler in Solaris Resource Manager 1.x ?
A:
Integration with Projects
Previous version of Solaris Resource Manager allocated CPU time on a per-lnode basis, as shares of the processors on the system. In Solaris 9 Resource Manager, the fair share scheduler is integrated into Solaris 9 kernel. Resources will be allocated on a per-project basis and stored in project database, which can be a local file, or a NIA or LDAP database on a central server. Flattening the Share Hierarchy Previous version of Solaris Resource Manager allowed an system administrator to create an lnode hierarchy. The hierarchy structure can be difficult to administer and manage, and adds overhead to the implementation due to the need to continuously recalculating shares in the hierarchy. In Solaris 9 Resource Manager, the hierarchical structure is 'flattened'. Shares will be listed as a proportion of the entire system, making the relative share of each project to be more visible. Moreover, the flat structure makes it easier to manage sites with multiple systems. Integration with CPU Set In the previous version of Solaris Resource Manager, the allocation of CPU shares to users was performed without attention to the CPU sets in which the users' processes were running. The result was often false and confusing. In Solaris 9 Resource Manager, the fair share scheduler was revised so that processes in each CPU set are treated independently - 'shares' are counted locally for individual CPU set. Moreover, the CPU set configuration is now persistent over reboots. Q: What is a project ?
A:
The project is an administrative identifier used to classify related work. The project identifier can be thought of as a workload tag equivalent to the user and group identifiers. The project can be used to represent the workloads in which the user (or group of users) is allowed to participate. A project could represent a single user, a department, or an instance of a database.
Q: Can a user (or group of users) belong to more than one projects ?
A:
Yes, a user (or group of users) can belong to one or more projects. A user will have a default project assigned. However, the processes that the user launches can be associated with any of the projects of which the user is a member. This means that a user can have processes running in different projects simultaneously, depending on the type of work the processes are doing.
Q: What is a task ?
A:
The task is a collection of processes that represents a set of work within a project. A task can also be viewed as a workload component. For instance, a task can represent a query to a specific database instance.
Q: When are tasks created ?
A:
Tasks are crated at login or by using the
newtask(1) command.
Q: What is the relationship between project and task ?
A:
A project is a tag that associates similar work whereas a task is a job that is done within the project. Each task is associated with one project. For instance, a project can represent a specific database instance while a task can represent a query to that specific database instance.
Q: Where is the resource configuration information being stored?
A:
The resource configuration information associated with a project and can be stored in the project name service database which can be a local file, or a NIS or LDAP database on a central server.
Q: What will happen when a resource limit is reached ?
A:
When a resource limit is reached, a handler is called. This might return an error preventing the action causing the resource limit to be exceeded, or send a message to the console or a user process, or simply record the event and continue, depending on how the system administrator configured the system.
Q: Do I have to license and pay for Solaris 9 Resource Manager separately from Solaris 9 Operating System ?
A:
Solaris 9 Resource Manager features which are available in the Solaris 9 OS when it ships will be included at no additional cost. Customers do not need a separate license to use Solaris 9 Resource Manager. However, customers may be required to pay an additional licensing fee for Solaris 9 Resource Manager features which are shipping in subsequent Solaris 9 update releases.
Q: What is the roadmap for Solaris Resource Manager 1.2 and Solaris Bandwidth Manager 1.6 ?
A:
There will not be any new releases of these unbundled products. Rather, much of the functionality available in these products will be integrated into the Solaris 9 Operating System. Solaris Resource Manager 1.2 and Solaris Bandwidth Manager 1.6 will continue to be supported, and patches will be released as necessary to provide bug fixes to the software for the Solaris 2.6, 7 or 8 OE.
Q: Will Solaris Resource Manager 1.2 and Solaris Bandwidth Manager 1.6 be discontinued when Solaris 9 Resource Manager is introduced ?
A:
No. There is no specific date currently planned for discontinuing Solaris Resource Manager 1.2 and Solaris Bandwidth Manager 1.6. Solaris Resource Manager 1.2 and Solaris Bandwidth Manager 1.6 support Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7 and Solaris 8. We will continue to support Solaris Resource Manager 1.2 and Solaris Bandwidth Manager 1.6 for at least as long as Sun is shipping and selling Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7 and Solaris 8.
Q: How will you help customers migrate from Solaris Resource Manager 1.x to Solaris 9 Resource Manager ?
A:
Solaris 9 Resource Manager provides the same basic functionality as Solaris Resource Manager & Solaris Bandwidth Manager, but with some significant enhancements and some entirely new features. Given these new features, and changes in resource administration and control, some customers may see differences in behavior between the products. For instance, though the behavior of the fair share scheduler will remain essentially the same, the lnode hierarchy structure will be replaced with a flat set of projects which do not have any parent-child relationship. A migration script will be available to allow customers to easily upgrade a system with Solaris Resource Manager 1.x installed to one running Solaris 9 Resource Manager without losing the Solaris Resource Manager 1.x configuration information. Documentation will also be made available to assist customers in converting from the hierarchical lnode structure to the flat-based project structure. If the customers do not depend on a multi-level lnode tree, they can deploy Solaris Resource Manager today and adopt Solaris 9 Resource Manager on the Solaris 9 OS in the future with little change in behavior.
Once the lnode configuration is converted to the new project structure, customers can begin to take advantage of the new, powerful features of the Solaris 9 Resource Manager such as resource pools and the statistical and accounting tools. |
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