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Man pages and a PDF slide show convering of the more interesting points:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/docs/
(ZFS itself has just two commands btw)

Some basic UFS vs ZFS benchmarks:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/roch?entry=zfs_to _ufs_performance_comparison
(I guess we'll have to wait and see if ZFS can beat UFS on all benchmarks by the time it ships with Solaris proper)

Party trick - silently recovering forced data corruption:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/timc?entry=demons trating_zfs_self_healing

A user example of how ZFS's built-in error detection and correction can find hardware errors:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/elowe?entry=zfs_s aves_the_day_ta

Some background on RAS in file-systems:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/relling?entry=zfs _from_a_ras_point

ZFS vs Veritas for simplicity:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/timf?entry=zfs_is _that_it

You can config ZFS from a browser too if you want:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/talley?entry=mana ge_zfs_from_your_browser

How to trash your OSs with benchmarks:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/bill?entry=zfs_vs _the_benchmark

Can't yet be used as the boot file-system, but it's being worked on:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/tabriz?entry=zfs_ boot

Man pages and a PDF slide show convering of the more interesting points:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/docs/
(ZFS itself has just two commands btw)

Some basic UFS vs ZFS benchmarks:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/roch?entry=zfs_to _ufs_performance_comparison
(I guess we'll have to wait and see if ZFS can beat UFS on all benchmarks by the time it ships with Solaris proper)

Party trick - silently recovering forced data corruption:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/timc?entry=demons trating_zfs_self_healing

A user example of how ZFS's built-in error detection and correction can find hardware errors:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/elowe?entry=zfs_s aves_the_day_ta

Some background on RAS in file-systems:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/relling?entry=zfs _from_a_ras_point

ZFS vs Veritas for simplicity:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/timf?entry=zfs_is _that_it

You can config ZFS from a browser too if you want:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/talley?entry=mana ge_zfs_from_your_browser

How to trash your OSs with benchmarks:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/bill?entry=zfs_vs _the_benchmark

Can't yet be used as the boot file-system, but it's being worked on:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/tabriz?entry=zfs_ boot

Man pages and a PDF slide show convering of the more interesting points:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/docs/
(ZFS itself has just two commands btw)

Some basic UFS vs ZFS benchmarks:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/roch?entry=zfs_to _ufs_performance_comparison
(I guess we'll have to wait and see if ZFS can beat UFS on all benchmarks by the time it ships with Solaris proper)

Party trick - silently recovering forced data corruption:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/timc?entry=demons trating_zfs_self_healing

A user example of how ZFS's built-in error detection and correction can find hardware errors:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/elowe?entry=zfs_s aves_the_day_ta

Some background on RAS in file-systems:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/relling?entry=zfs _from_a_ras_point

ZFS vs Veritas for simplicity:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/timf?entry=zfs_is _that_it

You can config ZFS from a browser too if you want:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/talley?entry=mana ge_zfs_from_your_browser

How to trash your OSs with benchmarks:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/bill?entry=zfs_vs _the_benchmark

Can't yet be used as the boot file-system, but it's being worked on:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/tabriz?entry=zfs_ boot

Man pages and a PDF slide show convering of the more interesting points:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/docs/
(ZFS itself has just two commands btw)

Some basic UFS vs ZFS benchmarks:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/roch?entry=zfs_to _ufs_performance_comparison
(I guess we'll have to wait and see if ZFS can beat UFS on all benchmarks by the time it ships with Solaris proper)

Party trick - silently recovering forced data corruption:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/timc?entry=demons trating_zfs_self_healing

A user example of how ZFS's built-in error detection and correction can find hardware errors:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/elowe?entry=zfs_s aves_the_day_ta

Some background on RAS in file-systems:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/relling?entry=zfs _from_a_ras_point

ZFS vs Veritas for simplicity:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/timf?entry=zfs_is _that_it

You can config ZFS from a browser too if you want:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/talley?entry=mana ge_zfs_from_your_browser

How to trash your OSs with benchmarks:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/bill?entry=zfs_vs _the_benchmark

Can't yet be used as the boot file-system, but it's being worked on:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/tabriz?entry=zfs_ boot

Man pages and a PDF slide show convering of the more interesting points:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/docs/
(ZFS itself has just two commands btw)

Some basic UFS vs ZFS benchmarks:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/roch?entry=zfs_to _ufs_performance_comparison
(I guess we'll have to wait and see if ZFS can beat UFS on all benchmarks by the time it ships with Solaris proper)

Party trick - silently recovering forced data corruption:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/timc?entry=demons trating_zfs_self_healing

A user example of how ZFS's built-in error detection and correction can find hardware errors:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/elowe?entry=zfs_s aves_the_day_ta

Some background on RAS in file-systems:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/relling?entry=zfs _from_a_ras_point

ZFS vs Veritas for simplicity:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/timf?entry=zfs_is _that_it

You can config ZFS from a browser too if you want:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/talley?entry=mana ge_zfs_from_your_browser

How to trash your OSs with benchmarks:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/bill?entry=zfs_vs _the_benchmark

Can't yet be used as the boot file-system, but it's being worked on:
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/tabriz?entry=zfs_ boot

You'll need to use google's cache to get to some of the pages found by the following:
http://www.google.com/search?q=+site%3Awww.sun.com +coolthreads
http://www.google.com/search?q=+site%3Awww.sun.com +t2000

A brief description of some systems here:
http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/government /configure/group/ch_throughput_servers_1.html

And "Pricing for FLORIDA STATE Customers":
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:OvNX6_g9s84J:ww w.sun.com/products-n-solutions/government/florida/ Gov/5.html++site:www.sun.com+t2000&hl=en&client=fi refox-a

So matching the "order number" from the first with the "model" from the second tells us that the cheapest T2000 is "Sun Fire T2000 Server, 4 core 1.0GHz UltraSPARC T1 processor, 8GB DDR2 memory (16 * 512MB DIMMs), 2 * 73GB 2.5" 10K rpm SAS hard disk drives, 1 DVD-RO/CD-RW slimline drive, 2 (N+1) power supplies, 4 10/100/1000 ethernet ports, 1 serial port, 3 PCI-E slots, 2 PCI-X slots, Solaris 10 and Java Enterprise System software pre-installed (Standard Configuration)" and costs $8,295.

You can get the software too: "Solaris 10 3/05 HW2 Operating System - This special release is to install and run on Sun Fire TM T2000 servers. It should be used only on this hardware and will be superseded by the Solaris 10 1/06 Operating System once it becomes available."

From the press release:
http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2005-11/sunf lash.20051114.2.html

"...research shows that UltraSPARC T1 processor performance could eliminate the number of Web servers in the world by half, slashing power requirements and having the same effect in reducing carbon dioxide emissions as planting one million acres of trees.(1)"
(1) Discover Magazine Vol 26 No. 08 August 2005

So, for all the Slashbots out there complaining about this bit of marketing hoo-haa, you'll have to up your rhetoric accordingly.

Sun has been talking about this puppy for a while now, and it's good to seem them deliver it. It does round out their processor strategy pretty nicely: AMD on the low end, and if you want obscene performance per-CPU at the high end you get this guy. I'll be interested to see some performance numbers.

Typical Sun though: crap-tacular marketing. What's the deal with the "eco-friendly" angle? See Sun's front page. Which CTO's actually care about that again? It's just stupid; saving the planet is a great corporate goal, but hopefully Sun is a bit more concerned with their bottom line, where they haven't consistently made a profit in 5 years.

Acording to the register Sun Fire T2000 is going to be unveiled on 6th Dec with the first implementation of UltraSPARC T1 (see here and here)

Writing to file is usually not considered a usable form of interprocess communication. What you are looking for is probably Sockets, or even better Channels.

With this new processor Sun hopes to get a leg up on the competition.

Oh, instead of the previous attempt to get a leg "up" on the competition with the "if you can't beat them, join them" method like: http://www.sun.com/x64/

Before anybody gets weird on me, I am not an AMD fanboy. I am kinda a Sun fanboy, but I have been very critical of them in recent years for a reason. They have been for years watering down their name and reputation. Hopefully this new chip is in the right direction. We will see. UltraSPARC IVs have been on the roadmap for years. Lets see some good stuff here guys. Memory bandwidth would be something nice to have as well.

The only way to read the filechannel is a bytebuffer. Has anyone ever used them? I had to once and it sucked....

I've used them. What did you not like about them?

FileReader (or BufferedInputStream) are still awkward because tehy use byte and string arrays. Those really are hard to work with w/o doing conversions in java, where in C the char arrays are usfule w/o conversion.

Ok, there is also RandomAccessFile which gives you methods for reading all primitives, byte arrays, UTF-8 Strings, whole lines....

Used for instance here to do high performance Linux Cluster Monitoring. Doing a C implementation saved them a whopping one second per day of processor time.

Since the story is devoid of content:
- up to 8 cores, 4 threads per core
- integrated RSA
- 3MB L2 cache
- 90nm process
- 1.2 GHz

Sun always builds their systems to be balanced and avoid bottlenecks, it's the first thing you learn about on the internal training courses so needless to say the I/O is fast enough.

Haydn.

Specs here. Four 144-bit DDR2-533 interfaces. That's more memory bandwidth than a quad-Opteron system.

Niagara systems take the concept of dual core processors (with which most of you are familiar), and goes to an absolute extreme - building 8 cores, each capable of running 4 jobs simultaneously (4 threads), onto a single chip. Doing the math, we'll be delivering a 32-way chip, running 9.6GHz, which sips power (about 70 watts). , JonathanSchwartz BLOG.

This is why I got into Sysadmin 15 years ago.
To play with big honkin fast machines and new technology that makes your head spin.
Just musing about the name. Think of your kitchen sink faucet.
Now think of all the faucets in your house turned on at once.
Now think of all the faucets on your street turned on too.
Add all the faucets in your community.
Keep on thinking of how many faucets in how many communities it would take to equal the raw power behind something so large as Niagra falls.

Am I hooked?
You bet.

Better link here.

Yeah, I mean, for years I've wondered if there was a way to make apps that run locally but can get data remotely, are deliverd over the web with updates being instantly available, and can take up little space.

Yes, I've written apps using AJAX before that was the buzzword (I called it using DHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and XML) and with Java Webstart - and the webstart apps are better in almost every way. Easier to test, easier to make look like local apps, faster, etc. Stick some XML-RPC or SOAP in there and you've even got faster access to remote data. But I guess AJAX is the current buzzword of choice, and people think it's a new thing. Sigh. I guess that some slow java apps back in 1997 runing on a 486 ruined anyones hopes of ever using Java for something significant...

I've recently been researching AJAX for some of my clients, and here are some articles on the topic to help jumpstart diving in if you are new to AJAX. 1) A good place to start is the SUN article on the topic ( http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2 EE/AJAX/ ) - It's rather surface, but a good place to start. 2) The IBM article feels more "state of the art" - they do a GREAT job of breaking down the pros-and-cons of the different AJAX-like architectures. 3) Diving deeper, if you are going the route of XML/XSLT - you must check out Sarissa which is A cross-browser wrapper for Javascript XML manipulation. 4) It's very easy to work with PHP or any other server-side language, lots of great artices on the topic. Yes, I was horrified to be sitting here writing Javascript again - but my clients like it, its easy to secure, and one can do some fancy things with it. Happy coding

I had the same thought. Fortunately this has already been covered by the IPv6 Working Group, apparently as far back as 1999.

That's right. Viva la ASCII! ;-)

So how do YOU check for the free space of a filesystem? http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id =4057701

The kind of things I drool over are the Turing-completness of the C++ template mechanism, but that just goes back to wanting to get the compiler to figure out as much as possible for me.

But none of those are inter process communications.

They're not? Guess I should have my Geek Card revoked then.

IPC is a pretty broad term. :-)

Oh, I almost fotgot. IIRC, Java allows you to snag shared memory blocks in byte buffers via memory mapping. That's probably the type of IPC you're thinking of.

Yes, Azureus uses SWT for its GUI as does Eclipse and RSSOwl. However, from what I've found Swing has made some very strong improvements in performance over the past few years, especially with the 1.5 VM. The next VM release should also really speed up some aspects of Java GUI performance. Personally, as it stands now I would much rather write programs using Swing however that's just a personal preference. From recent experience, I think SWT and Swing are so close now in terms of performance that I think many developers are choosing one or the other based on API preferences.

For some examples of great Java programs written using Swing take a look at Swing Sightings. Especially, IntelliJ IDEA. =)

For instance, there is no Java JVM for a Palm.

There isn't? What will I do?

Dude. Java is everywhere. It's in tiny little cards and in the latest ARM processors. You can't run. You can't hide. Java will find your OS, and you will be assimilated. Submit to the collective!

For instance, there is no Java JVM for a Palm.

There isn't? What will I do?

Dude. Java is everywhere. It's in tiny little cards and in the latest ARM processors. You can't run. You can't hide. Java will find your OS, and you will be assimilated. Submit to the collective!

I really hope you saw this comment.

The "import" declaration has no counterpart in the resulting compiled code. It is just a convenience for the programmer, because typing fully qualified class names is a PITA. But the compiler will generate the same code (classes are always fully qualified) no matter whether class references are fully/simply qualified and no matter how many/what packages you import.

I agree though that Type-Import-on-Demand declarations make it harder for the reader to figure out where the classes being used actually come from.

Indeed... But why have the numeric equivalence in the programming language? 'A' is not equivalent to 65 except in the particular context of a character set that defines that equivalence. Keep characters characters and keep numbers numbers.

1. Input/Output. Since you only have numbers in computers, you have to transmit the characters somehow.

2. Logical operations. Character sets often have bit encodings or numerical spacings that easily allow for things like lower case to upper case.

But Unicode doesn't fit into 16 bits.

When the Java Langauge was created, it did. The Unicode spec has since change. A more complete answer can be found here. FYI, the class files encode strings in UTF-8 format for compactness, so they DO vary. However, the language itself works differently.

But in any case my point is simply that in international character sets the idea of what constitutes a "single character" is somewhat muddled, because what may be a single glyph may be multiple data characters

Java provides a large number of APIs (such as the Reader/Writer classes) that are intended for use rather than rolling your own. That way one can be certain that you are always correctly reading the textual data.

Actually, the Java Language Specification is pretty clear that char is a number. From the spec:

The integral types are byte, short, int, and long, whose values are 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit and 64-bit signed two's-complement integers, respectively, and char, whose values are 16-bit unsigned integers representing Unicode characters.

char, being a number, is subject to integer math operations. Like someone posted, 'A' + 'B' comes up with the result 131 - as an int, at that, because all integer math on types smaller than an int are promoted to ints.

By definition, a char in Java is a 16-bit unsigned value. But, here, check the language spec. A char is just an unsigned short. That's it.

I think you misunderstand the spec. From your link:

For char, from '\u0000' to '\uffff' inclusive, that is, from 0 to 65535

Just because it's a numerical value doesn't mean that it's an actual number.

chars are treated just like numbers in Java. You can do numeric comparisons with them, you can add them, you can subtract them, they're just numbers.

This is incorrect. If you check the Java Virtual Machine Specification you'll find a distinct lack of numerical operations for the 'char' datatype. In order to provide you numerical functions for a char value, the value is treated as if it were an int. (i.e. An implicit cast.) From the spec:

Conditional branches on comparisons between data of types boolean, byte, char, and short are performed using int comparison instructions (3.11.1) Note that no operations exist in the bytecode to do math on chars. Thus to get the results, the char is implicitly casted to an int, processed, then cast back to a char as necessary.

"although the biggest need for low power CPUs is for laptops"

Athough this is indeed a good need for low-power CPUs, they are still only used a fraction of the time and basically only save battery power. However, I believe that lower powered servers, which operate 24/7, would benefit everyone and the environment more even though they are arguably fewer in number.

For example, Sun is marketing some great low-power [watt] servers with outstanding performance. This is where I see the greatest benefit of reduced CPU energy consumption. Not only does CPU cooling requirements reduce, so does cooling, and the multitude of other problems associated from running large & hot compute clusters.

What's the difference between short and char in Java?

One is signed, the other is unsigned.

chars are treated just like numbers in Java. You can do numeric comparisons with them, you can add them, you can subtract them, they're just numbers.

By definition, a char in Java is a 16-bit unsigned value. It happens to represent a single UTF-16 sequence, although arguably you could have done that using a short.

But, here, check the language spec. A char is just an unsigned short. That's it.

It took me forever to find (first documentation which made no mention of the flag, then 'strings' on the client 'jvm.dll' and then google searching which turned up nothing except a single usenet post on the issue which lead me back to, guess what, the docs where it was hidden somewhere other than the tool docs), but anyway, this is partly implemented in Java. 1.5:

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/vm/class -data-sharing.html

Basically the VM slurps up the runtime library, preparses it, and dumps it back in a fashion which it can memory-map much faster on subsequent launches.

I was there, and I found it quite entertaining and informative.

Sun has been talking about shared VMs for a while now -- I can't remember if it's scheduled for version 6 or 7 -- the object space would be partitioned among the running Java "processes", but only one JVM would be necessary. It would improve startup times, memory consumption, etc. They could all share one instance of rt.jar, for example, assuming it was process-safe (it may not be now, but fixing it would be something Sun would have to do for the actual release). I don't see it listed in the Java 6 (Mustang) notes (for example here), so I would guess that it's slated for versin 7 (Dolphin).

There is already a option to run OpenOffice inside Firefox using the npsoplugin.dll

Now if they'd integrate it a bit more, make it possible to save documents to Google servers over WebDAV or such (Base, Gmail or whatever)...

Xeon processor: $299.95 (your buying at least two, even if you used this vendor).
1 GB low-end ECC memory (2 to 4 sticks depending on the load the server will be under): $124 (that vendor doesn't use low-end, I just added a 512 kit to a 350 for > $200, but I'm sure in Candy-Land things are different)
Motherboard? Supermicro's retail for about $279
1U case (your certainly not one of those idiots trying to run production software on a desktop system..): $250

Xeon processor: $299.95 (your buying at least two, even if you used this vendor).
1 GB low-end ECC memory (2 to 4 sticks depending on the load the server will be under): $124 (that vendor doesn't use low-end, I just added a 512 kit to a 350 for > $200, but I'm sure in Candy-Land things are different)
Motherboard? Supermicro's retail for about $279
1U case (your certainly not one of those idiots trying to run production software on a desktop system..): $250

You speak with absolutely NO idea of how, what, or why I do what I do. I'm glad you can afford this and if I had the final say we'd be running enterprise level hardware all around.

But guess fucking what? Thats not the way it works for a lot of us in the *gasp* real world.

As far as you tidbit goes I agree 100%. Frankly I think you're just being an asshole to A) brag about your leet warez B) just another blow-hard who likes to try to cut people down who has neither the attention nor capability to grasp the big picture.

I build some servers. Get fucking over it.

Sincerly.

This is a wrong statement. Data persistence does not have to be bound to the storage technology. Please take time to read about a technology before making so bold statements.

Have a look here.

If you've been using the Opteron, and it sounds like in production, I'd love to hears some details about good/compatable/stable hardware. I really, really, really don't want the next system I purchase to be another hot, slow Xeon.

It's amazing to me how many people on /. claim to be building "servers" for their "companies". Time to wake up and smell the market. It's not all that much cheaper on the front end to build your own server (in small quantities) and it's certianly not as reliable and won't have the same level of support as something like this. I'm currently running several of these.

Saving a little bit of money on the front end just isn't worth it to me. But then again, I have better/more important things to do than babysit hardware.

If you've been using the Opteron, and it sounds like in production, I'd love to hears some details about good/compatable/stable hardware. I really, really, really don't want the next system I purchase to be another hot, slow Xeon.

It's amazing to me how many people on /. claim to be building "servers" for their "companies". Time to wake up and smell the market. It's not all that much cheaper on the front end to build your own server (in small quantities) and it's certianly not as reliable and won't have the same level of support as something like this. I'm currently running several of these.

Saving a little bit of money on the front end just isn't worth it to me. But then again, I have better/more important things to do than babysit hardware.

You said "its slower than the 2.2Ghz dual-core Athlon X2 that's sitting next to it" Apple is not moving to AMD they are moving to Intel. Now compare your 2+ Ghz G5 to a Pentium. The G5 may win. I think the move to Intel was done because of notebooks. G4s are not fast enouh and the G5 would requre the user to cary a backpack full of batteries I really wish Apple had gone to AMD. I want an Apple version of this http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/w2100z/spec s.jsp or maybe even this http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/v40z/specs.jsp Note that Sun calls an eight-core Opteron box an "entry level" system. I'd love to see Apple softwar on AMD based Sun hardware. Sun has actualy gotten it's prices in-line. thier dual Operon box starts at $2,200 not far from Apple's Dual G5. (I'm wrtin this on a dual Xeon box made by HP that runs Solaris 10. Interestingly the motherbord has the TM chip on it although Solaris ignores it. The chip actualy _measures_ the system and then expresses the result with a crytpographic hash. Part of that measuremet is the software. It would be darn hard to defeat

You said "its slower than the 2.2Ghz dual-core Athlon X2 that's sitting next to it" Apple is not moving to AMD they are moving to Intel. Now compare your 2+ Ghz G5 to a Pentium. The G5 may win. I think the move to Intel was done because of notebooks. G4s are not fast enouh and the G5 would requre the user to cary a backpack full of batteries I really wish Apple had gone to AMD. I want an Apple version of this http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/w2100z/spec s.jsp or maybe even this http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/v40z/specs.jsp Note that Sun calls an eight-core Opteron box an "entry level" system. I'd love to see Apple softwar on AMD based Sun hardware. Sun has actualy gotten it's prices in-line. thier dual Operon box starts at $2,200 not far from Apple's Dual G5. (I'm wrtin this on a dual Xeon box made by HP that runs Solaris 10. Interestingly the motherbord has the TM chip on it although Solaris ignores it. The chip actualy _measures_ the system and then expresses the result with a crytpographic hash. Part of that measuremet is the software. It would be darn hard to defeat

This sounds a lot like containers in Solaris 10.

solaris STILL doesnt PROPERLY support x86

Funny, it does on my box. Are you using an old Cyrix chip, or something?

They are going to use Java OS.

I was wondering when Sun's blade server updates were gonna show up.. I definitely didn't expect IBM to be supplying them!

(and no, I don't count the Netra blades.. The USIIi is what, 6+ years old now?)

Sun 'leaked it out' via a blog post on Mr. Schwartz weblog. Official support from IBM as far as being posted on the NOS Cert site will be December.

Update 1 is needed to support the BladeCenter's USB DVD-ROM drive for a local install, however you can PXE boot install it and it works fine. Update 1 is coming out shortly which is why IBM hadn't published anything about their intent to support it as an OS. Software and Utility support (RAID Manager, Systems Management software drivers) will be coming forward over the course of the 1H of 2006. If you have a BladeCenter, or are interested in one, feel free to contact your local IBM person and they should be able to give you more information.

The reason your rep was probably caught by surprise when you called them is that we hadn't told them we were working on it yet as it was under non-disclosure.

You might try talking to your IBM rep again as more information has been given out internally, we're just not advertising it officiall until later this month, with the support posted in December.

Your three concern points, well, i don't know about the EVA portion but I thought HP supported Solaris. However I'd assume if Solaris supports SAN Boot and MP Failover as it is, the hardware in the BladeCenter wouldn't affect it any and allow it to work. The big one though would be EVA support though because if their multipath driver isn't done/working/whatever the rest might be a moot point.

Our intentions deep within the bowels of IBM was not to support Solaris 10 as a 'publicity stunt', but more as we are getting requests to support it on the platform from customers. Our intent is to support both Intel architecture as well as AMD Architecture processors, but not Power.

FWIW, my day job is:

Tom Boucher
IBM Americas xSeries BladeCenter/x3 Architecture Product Manager
tboucher at us dot ibm dot com

As a CYA I'm not posting this for my employer, more because I'm as interested in technology as the rest of us that view this site. Views expressed are my own, etc. etc.