Sun Cloud DOA?

Posted on September 10, 2009

Is it just me or is Sun Cloud giving you Solaris/Linux/X86 flashbacks? At JavaOne they sounded entirely committed... but they've missed the deployment projections and the whole subject is very suspiciously quiet. As a Joyent employee I was frankly looking forward to the competition, because I think we could offer a better cloud using Sun resources than Sun can... but perhaps its not to be. I get the distinct feeling that it was all an ...

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Hope

Posted on September 10, 2009

They don't mention X86... but they are sending the message they are serious about Solaris and the enterprise customer. There is hope. As I've said before, while I doubt I'll be happy about every decision Oracle makes regarding Solaris, it probly means good things for the platforms future by putting it (back) on a firm enterprise trajectory.

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SX:CE EOL; or, The Great Mistake

Posted on August 27, 2009

I've been exceedingly slow, despite prodding, to respond to the announcement of Solaris Express Community Edition's (SX:CE) end-of life. I have been largely because I've warned against it many times before, and I shall explain my thoughts on the matter again... The death of SX:CE represents the end of an era. The cornerstone of any distribution is its installer(s) and packaging. Consider Debian or Red Hat or SuSE. Fundamentally they ...

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The “Science” of Motivation

Posted on August 25, 2009

If your interested in motivation and management, this TED talk is really interesting. Interesting primarily because it says what most of us already know. What would you prefer? To get paid $80,000 a year in a supportive and fullfilling environment or get paid $100,000 in a dull one where you feel alone? Brings to mind the IBM Songbook. Keeping employees motivated and esprit de corpse high, while maintaining a balance of order ...

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Coming Soon….

Posted on August 24, 2009

Just came across two books set for release later this year: and... You can find them listed on Amazon already. Should make a good addition to the existing Solaris series of books.

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US DoJ Approves Sun/Oracle Deal

Posted on August 23, 2009

Oracle reported that U.S. Department of Justice Approves Oracle Acquisition of Sun. This leaves the final hurdle to be blessing from the European Commission.

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Know Your Surroundings: SMBIOS

Posted on August 22, 2009

Some time ago I discussed The Joy of IPMI. IPMI is a handy want of interacting with the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) on enterprise class systems to retrieve information such as sensor data, event log, and even Serial over LAN (SoL, poor mans console). IPMI can also help you identify components in the system but isn't the best means of doing so. This is where SMBIOS comes in and can complete the picture. System Management BIOS ...

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SX:CE Build 121 Released

Posted on August 22, 2009

I've gotten out of the habit of posting on each Build release, but snv_121 is a pretty important one. Several good things have converged, such as Crossbow fixes, ZFS improvements and bug fixes, some more COMSTAR goodness and now xVM 3.3 integration. I'm excited and would love to see lots of testing on this release from the community. Check it out! This is, in my mind, a milestone release.

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What do you want to read?

Posted on August 16, 2009

Technical posts have flat lined in this blog and I've prided myself on staying more technically focused than other Solaris/UNIX blogs.... but I admit, I'm running out of ideas! So I'm reaching out to you, my readers.... what do you want me to write about?

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SysAdmin Day: Friday July 31st

Posted on July 30, 2009

That's right folks, the 10th Annual System Administrator Appreciation Day is upon us! Yes, that one glorious day a year we're told we're appreciated without a long laundry list of TODO's following it. To all my fellow SysAdmins, I raise a pint my friends. We may have our complaints about our line of work and its many deficiencies... but hey, its what we love and I for one am glad I still don't have to get a "real job". ;) For those ...

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