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Oracle's GPL Linux Firewire Clustering
Smoking writes "It seems that Oracle just released libraries to allow low cost Linux clustering solutions using firewire...
Aside from the coolness factor (imagine a beowulf cluster of DV cameras...) it's quite new for Oracle to release GPL software. They also seem to include really useful tools for NIC failover, Wizard building framework and integration of the cluster into Gnome (via a gnomevfs plugin)."
I was wondering how I was going to cluster a group of PostgreSQL servers!
Thanks!
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Why do firewire cables cost so much?
The Firewire cards needed to build a cluster can cost as little as 10% as much as the required FiberChannel hardware
Not to mention the FiberChannel switch. The Brocade fiber switch we use to tie our three SGI Origins to our SAN's storage RAID was over CA$12K when we bought it.
Trolling is a art,
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Haha get it?! Because people are always like "imagine a Beowulf cluster..." so I said imagine a CLIC cluster! Haha! Genius!
yep. then we can see matrix type shots on skin-a-max. wh00t! wh00t!
I hoped that they were making strong firewire net connections and ways of channeling the systems together into some sort of hypercube formation.
That would make it appear as a true parallel processing system and giving some API to take advantage of it. I guess something like that is still possible and with firewire being fast and cheap, it is something that may be worth looking in to.
-Tim
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
Since I saw Larry sailing I was beginning to think that it would have a positive effect on him!
This comes very close to sliced bread on the scale of usefulness.
Thanks Larry
realkiwi
This is great news for anyone that is a firewire afficionado. Because millions of people will be doing firewire clustering? No. But it does show the versatility of the standard. Its a shame that Intel has such a hard on to kill it, because firewire really is a great technology.
As firewire begins to scale to higher speeds this looks like an even better method to connect not only things like computers and their peripherals - but things like your television to your PVR to your camera to your computer.
I dont know why every time Firewire is brought up, someone mentions it in relation to DV.. DV is one of the simpler uses for Firewire, the real treasure is in its ability to link ALMOST ANYTHING!
This really is very cool stuff, and although I'm as suprised as everyone else about Oracle releasing open-source software (GPL nonetheless), it's another huge step forward.
Things like this piss off Microsoft to the Nth degree. That rocks!
Actually, this is of no surprise to many that have followed Oracle over the past few years (perhaps 5+).
Oracle has been incoporating many open standards into their products recently which has been necessary to help keep the company in a (relatively) good position in the database server market. In the past all of their technologies were proprietary with their custom SQL extensions and their custom language for stored procedures and triggers (PL/SQL). Oh, and Linux - forget about it.
However much of that has changed and now they support Linux, XML, Java (I believe the first to have Java stored procedures), and a large portion of the J2EE platform with things like OC4J (their java app server based on Orion).
See these links for just a sampling of what I'm talking about.
Java StuffLinux Stuff
Are you bovilexic? Moo!
Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday November 12, @09:20AM
from the not-a-bad-idea dept.
Smoking writes "It seems that Oracle just released libraries to allow low cost Linux clustering solutions using firewire... Aside from the coolness factor (imagine a beowulf cluster of DV cameras...) it's quite new for Oracle to release GPL software. They also seem to include really useful tools for NIC failover, Wizard building framework and integration of the cluster into Gnome (via a gnomevfs plugin)."
Moderated (Score: -1 Beowolf-Use)
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
That's only in Kabul.
In the smaller, less developed cities, they're stuck with Vic-20s, and the 22 column limit associated with that hardware.
whoops ---(firewire).
its not so funny anymore.
im hungry.
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
buy a whole new round of motherboards that are firewire enabled! I wonder if you can create ring configs if you have two roots per PC.
I wonder when Oracle is going to buy a company that produces firewire interface controllers... can you say instant SAN business?!?!
Just kidding, I think...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
That's not fair ! You just removed an opportunity for a +5 Funny comment !
(kidding. I know it would have been -1 Boring)
From article.
: Linux backers are working to strengthen the OS and bring it closer to competing with the proprietary versions of Unix that currently dominate the data center. Adding a clustered file system into Red Hat Linux is another step toward this larger goal.
Help fight continental drift.
After going through the crappy registration process, what do I find: not much at all.
The (code not available) firewire stuff is a fix to allow sharing of firewrire disks. Which has been in the kernel for quite some time (perhaps they submitted it), but it is hardly radical (couple of lines of code, if your hardware happens to support it).
Seems more like a PR announcement to me.
Does anyone know how firewire makes it any easier to share a hard disk between systems, for clustering support? According to the Oracle description of the patch "Firewire allows developers to easily and cheaply build a clustered system on a shared disk, which is useful for testing clustered applications...".
In a normal cluster configuration, SCSI provides an interface for allowing a hard disk to be shared between actual servers, so that if one goes down another can take ownership of the SCSI disk. Fibre is a common carrier, linking the computer systems to a disk array system (SCSI over Fiber), and Firewire could be used to replace it, but is the only benefit its expense?
A cool project like this ought to be interconnected with a Hubzilla.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Really people it's just a high speed interface. Not really that much different that an old serial port, just faster. Do you ohh and ahh over the fact you can hook up "almost anything" to a serial port? Of course not. Firewire is no more, or less, versitle than USB, older serial, or even parallel ports.
Now is firewire had a liquid metal port that accepted any type of interface by morphing the connection, then firewire would be fucktacular! (Copyright 2003).
P.S. Starting throwing Copyright notifications on your posts, the "media" is starting to post OUR comments in their papers without our consent!
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
I'd point out how unfriendly that is to us Mac users, but somehow, I don't think they care.
But they already had in the description...............
:P
Redundancy is good in networks, and bad in Slashdot posts
I do wonder if a firewire cluster of high-end PCs will be any faster than one of it's components if it had an unshared, internal hard drive. Even if you have a bunch of old machines, it might be more tempting to buy a nice dual processor with tons of memory than spend more money buying firewire cards. Is firewire that fast that it's acceptable to use it for hard drive of the server big enough to need clustering?
or should say, complain, about them requiring a registration. I stopped there. Thanks for falling on the sword, as they say, and doing the deed for us and reporting on the vacuous contents inside. So, now all we need is a link to real info and content of firewire + linux(google here I come).
My friend, I am unsure if you are purposely being obtuse, or just don't know about firewire technology.
Firewire is hot-swappable. Try that with a external SCSI Drive. (not a hot swappable disk, the entire drive)
Firewire doesn't need a computer to work. USB 2.0 and 1.1 need a computer for it to work, but you can actually plug a DV camcorder straight into a digital VCR.
There is up to 50MB/s transfer rates (400Mbits/s) and the design is scalable, meaning the next iteration of Firewire will be 800Mbits/s, or possibly even 1.2Gbits/s
Ease of use: FireWire cables are a snap to
connectyou dont need device IDs, jumpers, DIP switches, screws, latches or
terminators.
Data and power: the FireWire cable carries data of course, but also power. I have one cable on my desktop for my iPod. It charges and synchs it to my iTunes with one wire. Serial doesn't do that.
USB 2.0 doesn't have real world speeds at the advertised 480MBs. Firewire does.
It is an industry standard. Bar none. Purchase a new digital 8 or mini DV camcorder. What do you get? A firewire port right on the side.
So basically, I wish all ports were designed with the expandibility of firewire in mind. I can do just about anything with it. Now even if I have a super-duper fast parallel port, there is tons of stuff I wouldn't want to do it with.
Blah Blah Blah.
I have a limitation on my Motherboard of 266 MBps due to the link from the north to south bridge.
Could you connect a firewire card on AGP so that you can make use of the full 400 MBps that Firewire provides?
Anyone heard of it?
-Max
Yeah, but they still don't support LDAP directly. You can only use directory authentication if you have Oracle's own internet directory or Microsoft's active directory.
If they are so serious about open source and standards, why not allow the use of any LDAP v3 directory service with their database?
Inconsistency is the industry's trademark and Oracle is no different. They now say you should use Linux because it's better and cheaper, but that you should continue to pay premium for the Oracle database because you get what you pay for. If that's true (and it isn't) then Linux wouldn't be the best option now would it? Go figure.
I do believe there's a happy middle and Oracle may be closer than many other companies, but it's still somewhat inconsistent.
I've got cluster of DV cameras running setiathome. They complete a work unit in, well... never. WTF?
I was over at mysql.com earlier and I noticed a large pop-up ad for Oracle 9i and I thought, hmm.. something fishy here, since when do companies advertise products for their competitors? I mean that would be like slashdot running microsoft ads.
oh wait..
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
How about some code that lets linux act as a firewire Harddisk for other systems. I think they use the SBP-Protokoll. That would make SAN affordable.
Have an old PII and a couple of IDE-RAID-Cards to build a TB Firewire HD.
But does firewire support multipath io with load balancing? A single point of failure in the hardware is unnaceptable. On a more serious note this is great as it allows for developers to test on cheap gear. That san with fiber channel we just bought for our clusters was one expensive dog.
Got Code?
Oracle has jumped 100% on the Linux bandwagon and is pushing it as the OS of choice for RAC (real application clusters) and claimed to switch all their internal production servers to Linux in the near future.
To see them giving code and "lessons learned" information back to the open source community is awesome. This is the type of business and open source relationship that proiveds a win, win for both the commercial party and the open source parties involved. Oracle benefits from a free and stable platform while contributing back to that community code that can help make the product (Linux is this case) better for everyone else.
Thanks Oracle, nice to see you doing a good thing for open source.
&&&&& here's the link to real ip over firewire for linux: http://www.s.netic.de/gfiala/IP_over_1394.html
I guess this is some strong evidence that all the anti-GPL stuff that MS put out has backfired.
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
here is a description of firewire from the IEEE (http://standards.ieee.org/announcements/1394bapp. html). it is not simply a serial port, and is more like scci or ethernet, and i believe it is based on pieces of each standard. (?--comments) the first clue would be peer connections--up to 63. i can not beleive that people would actually prefer usb 2.0 over, as opposed to in addition to, 1394. it has really great advantages over that technology. the article also diswcusses other cabling methods such as fiber and cat5--very cool!
When I first read the post, I got pretty excited. Dreams of cheap clustering for scientific applications danced in my head. No more need for Myrinet, no Dolphin, just Firewire and Beowulf!
Then, I read some performance metrics on Firewire. High bandwidth. High latency. Doh! The fairies stopped dancing for joy.
The problem is that in scientific computing, the time it takes for one node to say I need that data to another node, and actually get that data determines the performance of many more apps than does the speed of the CPUs.
So, until a cheap, low latency solution for communications comes by, real clusters will be communicating over Dolphin, Myrinet, or some other propietary technology.
Tony
The parent post cannot be redundant since it is the first to crack the pathetic Imagine a Beowulf.... Besides, in this context it actually becomes kinda funny.
Don't mod down because you disagree...
What is Intel's larger strategy? Why does it want to kill firewire? Because it legitimizes Apple's technology choices? Because it reveals how limited USB is? Enquiring minds want to know.
2 Microtel Lindows Boxen 400$
2 Firewire Controllers 100$
1 120GB Firewire Drive 280$
Cables and hubs 200$
Kick Ass Lindows Cluster 980$ PRICELESS
Got Code?
You'd never make an Oracle salesman.
'Mr Customer, you need to spend 100 dollars on a cluster solution. Why spend it on expensive hardware when you can spend it on Oracle licences instead and get real value for your money'.
Mr Customer 'But it doesn't really work and is more expensive to manage'
Oracle salesman 'Sorry, I made my targets, got my commission and left the company'.
Mr Customer 'Can someone call a Big Iron Unix vendor please?'
In reply to this Slashdot story larry ellison was quoted to say, "We did what? GPL? Open sorce? And what the hell is Firewire?" -Geek
Firewire is hot-swappable. Try that with a external SCSI Drive. (not a hot swappable disk, the entire drive)
The above is true for ANY device hooked up to ANY interface. The hotswappability of ANY device has ALWAYS been dependent on the device, not the interface.
Firewire doesn't need a computer to work. USB 2.0 and 1.1 need a computer for it to work, but you can actually plug a DV camcorder straight into a digital VCR.
Provided the DEVICE supports firewire. My home theater system, which is older than firewire has interfaces for serial comms. Your point?
There is up to 50MB/s transfer rates (400Mbits/s) and the design is scalable, meaning the next iteration of Firewire will be 800Mbits/s, or possibly even 1.2Gbits/s
Again what's new? Your telling me that speed somehow changes what a device or interface is? You need to take some technical courses kid, a 9600 baud modem is a modem, a v.90 modem is STILL A MODEM. Just because my serial interface is faster DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT IT'S STILL A SERIAL INTERFACE.
Ease of use: FireWire cables are a snap to
connectyou dont need device IDs, jumpers, DIP switches, screws, latches or
terminators.
You don't NEED them for USB, serial, parallel, or IDE bus interfaces either. Only certain DEVICES require DIPS, JUMPERS, or terminators. Many enterprise level SCSI devices have built in terminators and some even have the ability to auto-assign a SCSI ID. Easy of use is determined by what you plug into the firewire port. Your off topic. Quit talking retail and come back when you actually know something. You sound like a Best Buy sales clerk.
Data and power: the FireWire cable carries data of course, but also power. I have one cable on my desktop for my iPod. It charges and synchs it to my iTunes with one wire. Serial doesn't do that.
Ok now you prove that you also need to take a basic electronics class, ALL THE PINS IN A SERIAL CONNECTION CARRY POWER. WTF do you think transmits data? Little pebbles? Look at a pin-out for your serial port. If there was no power being transfered you wouldn't need ground pins right? I won't even try to explain to you again that bits are electrical impulses. All the firewire does is pass a little more current out than older serial. Nothing has changed. I have an old (obviously older than you) battery charge that charges via my serial port.
USB 2.0 doesn't have real world speeds at the advertised 480MBs. Firewire does.
Bandwidth again doesn't change the fact it's the same old technology. v.90 modems are still v.90 MODEMS. Just because it's faster doesn't change what it is.
It is an industry standard. Bar none. Purchase a new digital 8 or mini DV camcorder. What do you get? A firewire port right on the side.
God do you do all your shopping in a retail store? I also have a 8mm that has an ancient serial interface for doing color calibrations. You still ahve no point.
So how easy is it to install their RDBMS on a modern Linux? I had major trouble getting Oracle 8 onto a Red Hat 7 because of problems with glibc...
Scientific clusters are not the only type of cluster you know. For instance Oracle Real Application Cluster is what Oracle thinks will be the companies future. These clusters may need the bandwidth of firewire et al and can live with the latencies.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Actually SCSI over IP sounds real good, but older SAN implementations used other, simpler, non-routable datagram based protocols to make things faster. The regulur SCSI over IP is TCP based.
Interesting conjunction of features here:
- Apple's XServe 1U rackmount servers have three Firewire ports (two on back, one on front)
- OS-X runs a variant of BSD Unix
- BSD Unix applications are easily port-able from Linux
- Oracle 9i runs on Linux (and probably BSD too)
- Oracle 9i now offers clustering via Firewire
Which raises the possibility of Apple offering server clustering (or "bunching" if you want to be funny) using mostly existing hardware and software technologies.
This would also be the first time (AFAIK) that Apple is able to run an industry-standard database server. Could Apple move into the Enterprise space with this?
"I dont know why every time Firewire is brought up, someone mentions it in relation to DV.. DV is one of the simpler uses for Firewire, the real treasure is in its ability to link ALMOST ANYTHING!" Because it was FIRST adopted "mainstream" to that medium. Now getting high-end broadcast equipment (Betacam,Digi Beta, D5's-Cameras/Decks) to adopt this connection is in the same situation as switching pci scsi/fibre, its politics!
I just thought of this yesterday in the shower, and now it is out.... I tell u the government and all the big corporations have spy satellites reading our mind waves....
You're right. There are different clusters for different applications.
Tony
A thing to note about this nice software from Oracle... from what I found, you have to REGISTER on their website just to get access to it... Registration requires everything... phone, company info, home address, company address, you name it. Kinda intrusive for a GPL thing, no?
--Alron
What exactly are you planning on sticking into this morphing port?
Yes, those things are cool.
I'm not DB expert, so I'm curious:
What about this 10.7 desupport problem?
Is Oracle being reasonable about the cost of supporting old software, or are they doing an MS-style push of their customers into an upgrade many feel they don't need?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
The need to move forward is what will save the world.
Has to be one of the coolest computer peripherals in a while: http://www.charismac.com/Products/firedino/index.h tml
Firewire hub/dinosaur!
Go out and get sailing!
I have read several articles here why people prefer to use because Oracle is so expensive.
Unless you are planning to use it in a commercial setting, Oracle is free as in beer!
The latest version of Oracle for Linux can be downloaded from here
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Scientific clusters are not the only type of cluster you know. For instance Oracle Real Application Cluster is what Oracle thinks will be the companies future. These clusters may need the bandwidth of firewire et al and can live with the latencies.
What RAC uses the cluster interconnect for is cache fusion. If a data block is in the buffer cache of another RAC node, the local node will get it via the interconnect rather than from the disk. So we need many fast small transfers, rather than few large fast transfers. If the latency of the interconnect is greater than the latency of the storage array (which may be a massively cached EMC) then it's not worth it.
Dolpin makes IEEE-standard SCI cards. They're only
"proprietary" in the sense that they have no
meaningful competition.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
> Hey! Nintendo uses firewire for the GameCube controllers and GBA links.
:-)
... wait a 'sec. I'm too lazy for that. One of you other geeks go do that and report back :-D
Really?
So are my two WaveBird's putting out wireless Firewire?
Seriously though, this makes me want to hack together a firewire--gamecube controller plug adapter and see if I can get 'em working on OS X.
The article you linked to was a comparison of FireWire vs. USB for bandwidth and latency. It concluded that FireWire had much lower latency. That makes linking to the article with the words "high latency" pretty misleading.
I'm hard pressed to figure out how you reached your "too low" latency conclusion. What is the latency of the other technologies you mentioned? More facts, please.
With all the shared filesystem, process management, localization features, they don't support the most basic of all: TCP/IP over firewire. Then again, we wouldn't be in a recession if managers were producing something useful.
Geekiest noun ever.
Banaaaana!
Windows XP autodetects the firewire card at installation and it wants to put an IP address on it as though it found an Ethernet card. I haven't tried it because I only have the one card at home and nothing to talk to (other than DV camera).
ln -s
or rotfl or whatever IMers say! That was f*cking funny!
now if only some enterprising storage device manufacturer would make an actual firewire drive, instead of the typical bastardized IDE-with-a-Firewire-bridge crap they've been selling. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
And you believed that? They are NOT going to all linux in production servers anytime soon. "Unbreakable" Linux RAC is very nice. You are not going to run an entire Fortune 100 company on it though. At least not for the "near future".
serial ATA is the next standard for drives.