Next Article at SearchDataCenter.com
My second article for SearchDataCenter.com is up here: Examining MySQL in real time using DTrace. The interesting back story is that this article was requested after I spoke on DTrace at the MySQL Users Conference, but I've stalled on it... to the point that 3 weeks later I felt embarrassed to even submit it. As much as I love writing, its very different and difficult when its expected. My favorite mantra "You get what you pay for" ...
Giving Thanks
Happy Thanksgiving one and all. Already the year is coming to a close... and what a year. Many unfortunate things have happened this year, if you've checked up on your 401K or IRA's your feeling it. Uncertainty still hangs in the balance and many of us are fearful of the future, and thus all the more important that we stop, reflect on what we've accomplished, what we have, and most importantly who we have around us. For myself, I' have ...
Help with SAPro: Request for Participants
No, the SA Pro podcast isn't dead... but it needs help. I've been surprised how many great interviewees don't want to do a podcast interview. Between work and shy guests its stalled. I want to do 2 separate podcasts next week. I'd like 3-4 SA's per round-table. Here are the topics: Time-Management and Project Management for SysAdmin's on the move. Managing a lot of spinning plates is tough, especially when you have to manage ...
ZYNK: The Zuper Zimple ZFS Sync (Replication) Tool
I've been working on building better and better ZFS replication tools for use at Joyent, but it often gets complex and frustrating because, although replication in ZFS is very simplistic, managing all the snapshots, retentions, and mountains of error checking and handling, on top of reporting and stats collection, is a nightmare. So, just to relax I wrote a fun simple replication tool I call "Zynk". It's pathetically simple (read: ...
Sun’s Tough Choices: Rich Green Books, 6,000 to Loose Job
Today we got a press release no one wanted to see: Sun Microsystems Aligns Business with Global Economic Climate and Amplifies Growth Opportunities Across Open Source Platforms... how much more rosey you can make it sound, I don't know. As a result, the stock traded higher today, by 1% at close, but the stock took a beating in after-hours trading and struggled to stay above $4 in early trading. So lets break it down, for better or ...
Fishworks Launches in Las Vegas
I was honored to be part of the historic FISHworks, now combined with the "Amber Road" hardware to become officially known as Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage Systems. At the last minute on Friday, Sun PR apparently needed an extra customer walk-on and my friend Jason William's from Digitar put in a good word for me... Monday morning I was in Vagas. If you didn't see the launch, have a look here. My walk on is 6 minutes into Chapter ...
Sun Storage Web Event Launch Nov 10th
I always hate it when events sneak up on me, especially interesting storage events... so mark you calender for a live webcast and chat on Monday, November 10 at 3:30 p.m. PT. You'll recall that Jonathan ominously mentioned in his blog recently: "You'll be hearing more about Open Storage at a launch event we're holding on November 10th." So if you read that but weren't sure what it was, this is the event. I'm sure it'll be plastered all over ...
Sun.com Gets a Major Facelift
If you don't make it a habit to hit the Sun.com front page frequently, have a look. I've notice some incremental change over the last couple days and tonight its gotten a major facelift. It now pushes offers in your face more prominently (downloads and try-n-buys), integrates a lot more video (most is rehashed stuff that you may or may not have seen), and most interesting breaks down business sectors. One interesting thing is banners ...
Understanding ZFS: Replication, Archive and Backup
As with other features of ZFS, the traditionally complex is made simple and straight forward. This simplification can coax administrators into a false complacency. In ZFS, backup, archive, migration... any activity that fundamentally involves the movement of data from one system to another, is a replication activity. I propose that the traditional idea of weekly backups is, in fact, just really slow crappy replication. An HA Cluster ...
Understanding ZFS: Compression
One of the most appealing features ZFS offers is built in compression capabilities. The tradeoffs are self evident, consume additional CPU but conserve disk space. If your running an OLTP database then compression probly isn't for you, however if you are doing bulk data archiving this could be a huge win. ZFS is built with the realization that in modern systems we typically have large amounts of memory and CPU available, and we should ...