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Oracle's GPL Linux Firewire Clustering

Posted by CmdrTaco on 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)."

15 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Thanks Oracle! by zulux · · Score: 5, Funny

    I was wondering how I was going to cluster a group of PostgreSQL servers!

    Thanks!

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  2. Cheap! by grub · · Score: 5, Informative


    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.

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    1. Re:Cheap! by DuBois · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Not to mention the fact that FireWire is mostly self-configuring. I've not seen a self-configuring Fibre Channel anything.

      My office-mate just spent a week attempting to configure a Brocade-switched Fibre Channel setup for HACMP. In his defense, it was his first attempt at such.

      Everything I've ever heard about Fibre Channel reminds me of something Rube Goldberg threw together.

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    2. Re:Cheap! by JabberWokky · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Yes, but for some applications dropping $12k into the budget is not possible, and yet something similar at a lower cost would be ideal. Heck, this is cheaper than shared SCSI using brand name equipment. Not a bad compromise between speed and cost.

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  3. This comment officially sanctioned... by netsharc · · Score: 5, Funny
    Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of DV Cameras..
    • in a Girl's College Changing Room.
    • taping Natalie Portman?
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  4. Firewire's future by runenfool · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Firewire's future by afidel · · Score: 5, Informative

      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!

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  5. Firewire isn't just for DV! by coene · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!

  6. Survival Tactics by bovilexics · · Score: 5, Informative

    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 Stuff
    Linux Stuff

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  7. Red Hat to use Oracle's cluster software by bstadil · · Score: 5, Interesting
    There is more Oracle news announced. This was just posted over at InfoWorld. Me thinks its as much a blocking move towards .NET, see below.

    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.

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  8. hmm, not much there by jpc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  9. Firewire technology is important. by phoenix_orb · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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  10. Oracle is being a GOOD Open Source Participant by d3xt3r · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It's nice to see Oracle contributing patches, reference implementations, and useful sample code back to the open source community.

    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.

  11. Firewire for real clusters? I don't think so. by tonyhill · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  12. The cost of Oracle.... ummmm nothing really! by IdleTime · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

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