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DIY Carrier Grade Linux with Debian
An anonymous reader writes "Carrier Grade Linux, once the domain of big-bucks Bells and commercial software vendors, just became more attainable for universities, companies running high-availability web services, and average Linux hackers interested in learning what goes into the world's most reliable, maintainable, and available systems. The Debian project, backed by HP, has launched the Debian-Carrier Grade Linux subproject, and registered Debian-CGL with version 2.02 of the CGL spec. LinuxDevices has created a simplified version of the registration form that lets you see which Debian packages to apt-get, and which packages you'll have to download and compile out side of Debian, in order to get your own Carrier Grade Linux setup."
An excellent example of the clarifying power of hyphens.
Personally I'd rather wait for torpedo grade Linux.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_Grade_Linux
Carrier Grade Linux' is a set of specifications which detail standards of availability, scalability, manageability, and service response characteristics which must be met in order for Linux to be considered "carrier-grade" (i.e. ready for use within the telecommunications industry). The term is particularly applicable as telecom converges technically with data networks and commercial off-the-shelf commoditized components such as blade servers.
"Carrier-grade" means that the server pipes all incoming data directly to the NSA.
Ride the skies
I was lost as hell over this summary and even TFAs. Here's some help, apparently "Carrier-Grade" refers to telecommunications carriers, which can typically accept no more than 30 seconds to 5 minutes of downtime per year from their servers.
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Debian has long been 'the example' IMHO. RedHat got all the fame and glory, but Slackware and Debian really showed what Linux should be like.
I just wish all these projects (i.e. ubuntu) that base off of debian would give them more credit.
do() || do_not();
apt-get install interceptors
And, sure enough: from Google, "carrier grade Linux" - 114000 hits, "carrier grade Windows" - 17 hits (but still, not 0). The top Windows hit is from 1998: "a Microsoft white paper available at SUPERCOMM '98 will discuss carrier-grade Windows NT Server-based systems." Well, at least they talked about it, you gotta give them credit for that. Haven't heard much about it since, though.
Seems like a good idea at first but if you have 5-30 minutes downtime per year
that means one very quick kernel patch per year . If you are really concerned
about uptime applying patches in a timely fashion is just as important as
hardening the system to start with.
Obviously starting with solid proven code should mean less patches are needed
but nobody is perfect and what about new functionality ?
That kind of uptime is IMHO more a function of your hosting environment and the
hardware you choose , this is going to be a waste of time for anyone but the
carriers who can afford it . You would do better to have multiple servers in seperate
locations , a nifty routing/caching setup and a sensible Develoment/Production regieme.
Still its a nice stick to beat microsoft with , even if it is a bit too bendy
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Telecom carrier? I'd doubt it. Internet service provider- fine- but they're not a carrier.
Telecom carriers are Long Distance providers, and Ma-Bell providers around the globe. They are the ones that provide power into your home for your phone service as well as the service itself. They are the ones that do switching entirely on closed circuts.
Carrier grade is usually coined as 5-9's (9.9999%) which is friggin amazing. It's what the systems are designed for, and they usually pull it off.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Thats the dirty little secret, scheduled downtime. As long as you schedule the downtime, its still carrier grade. I've yet to see a service even with maintenance windows stay up for a month. Service in terms of big pile of servers running multiple applications with a big fat database cluster behind it. YMMV.