Slashdot Mirror
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)."
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,
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!
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.
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
Firewire will never die. The reason is simple, the next generation of midi is based around firewire as the physical transport. The origional midi has lasted decades because it was well designed and met most of the needs of those using it, but more modern setups that need to send actual sound data, not just notes were poorly supported with the old standard. Now there is a midi standard that can do everything the old one can and also carry samples!
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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!