From: mike 


http://www.sun.com/featured-articles/2007-0410/feature/index.jsp?intcmp=hp2007a
pr10_opensolaris_read

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April 10, 2007 - Today Sun extends its position as the top contributor of
code to the free and open source software community[1] by donating its
storage software code to the OpenSolaris Project. This will enable
community members to combine OpenSolaris with hardware from any source to
create new storage solutions at a fraction of the price of traditional
proprietary storage vendors.

"Thanks to ZFS and other features, Solaris is the best operating
system for storage solutions," says Nigel Dessau, Sun senior vice
president, Storage Marketing and Business Operations. "By contributing
storage related code to the OpenSolaris community, Sun makes it easier than
ever for customers to develop storage solutions that meet their
needs." Open Source Stack

Today, Sun is the only company that offers an open source stack--from the
processor to the operating system to the application layer.

By open sourcing its software stack, Sun gives control to developers and
customers, who can mix and match alternative operating systems, middleware,
and applications on industry standard hardware. Sun's approach keeps
customers from being locked into proprietary systems. There's no risk or
long-term commitment required when using open source software, and
customers can participate at the level that suits them best.

"Sun helps customers 'shrink the stack' if they so choose," says
Bob Porras, Sun vice president, Solaris Storage Software. "Some
companies want to develop products around core open technologies; others
want to put the entire open stack to use. Sun's approach makes both
strategies viable."

Best for Storage

The Solaris OS includes numerous features that make it the best choice for
storage related solutions. By open sourcing this code, Sun delivers several
advantages. Developers can now create secure, scalable, and reliable
applications faster and more easily.



Key open source storage related software includes:

Solaris ZFS
The world's most advanced file system delivers data integrity, tremendous
performance, and integration of file system and volume management
capabilities.

NFS
OpenSolaris contains both client and server implementations of the IETF NFS
protocols from version 2 through version 4. New OpenSolaris projects are
also underway for NFS v4.1 (also known as parallel NFS) which provides
scalable parallel access to files distributed among multiple servers.

YANFS
Formerly known as WebNFS, YANFS is a simple, platform- and OS-independent
file access protocol that offers reliable, high-performance file access and
distribution.

Point-in-Time Copy and Remote Mirror data services These services--the
first commercial replication software to be open sourced--create and manage
data snapshots, and provide data mirroring for disaster recovery and
migration.

iSCSI
OpenSolaris contains both the initiator and target support for the IETF
iSCSI protocol which allows the use of the SCSI protocol over TCP/IP
networks.

OSD
OpenSolaris SCSA compliant device drivers and related software provide both
initiator and target support for storage devices that adhere to the SCSI
Object Based Storage Device (OSD) command protocol.

Fibre Channel support
OpenSolaris is arguably one of the best SAN-enabled operating systems with
a full Fibre Channel stack including Fibre Channel Transport, interfaces
for Fibre Channel HBA Drivers and hardware, Storage Management APIs, and
Storage Management Utilities.

Common Internet File System (CIFS) client which provides access to files
and directories on CIFS servers. CIFS is the natural file sharing protocol
on Microsoft Windows systems.





Sun also plans to open source additional storage code over the next several
months, including:

Sun StorageTek 5800 storage system client interfaces along with the
associated software developer kit (SDK) and emulator/server. The Sun
StorageTek 5800 storage system is a third-generation digital repository
solution for data capture and management.

SAM-FS (Storage Archive Manager) provides data classification, policy based
data placement, protection, migration, long-term retention, and recovery
capabilities for organizations to effectively manage and utilize data
according to their business requirements. SAM-FS is used extensively in
security/surveillance, digital video archiving, and medical imaging data
environments.

QFS Sun's shared file system software delivers significant scalability,
data management, and throughput for the most data-intensive applications.
Well known today in the traditional high performance computing (HPC) arena,
QFS is increasingly being used in commercial environments that require
multiple host, high speed access to large data repositories.




In addition, today QLogic is contributing their Fibre Channel HBA driver
code to the OpenSolaris storage community. For the first time, developers
have access to an I/O stack from the application through to the operating
system.
Community Counts

Since its launch nearly two years ago, OpenSolaris.org has grown into one
of the most exciting and thriving communities in the open source world. As
of early April, there were:

 40,890 registered community members
 100,000 postings to OpenSolaris discussion groups
 42 registered OpenSolaris user groups
 937 bugs reported by the community
 478 fixed/closed/in-progress bugs reported by the community
 151 community code contributions integrated into OpenSolaris (putbacks)

Now the OpenSolaris ecosystem grows even larger with the launch of a
community portal around the open source storage software stack. Developers
can use the portal to download code, dive into particular open source
storage projects, review design documents, and leverage developer expertise
via discussions, including email forums.

"The new portal builds a strong, vibrant community around open
storage," says Porras. "It enables storage application developers
to put open storage to work today, as well as evolve the overall Solaris
platform moving forward." ...
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  /m

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