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Sun Wins Top Tech Innovation Award
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Sun's DTrace trouble-shooting software won top prize in the Wall Street Journal's 2006 Technology Innovation Awards competition. It's the second time in three years that Sun took the top award. From the article, which also names a dozen other winners: 'Where most debugging takes place as software is being developed, DTrace analyzes problems with systems that are in production — running a company's database, say, or executing stock trades. It does this with a process called "dynamic tracing," which enables a developer or systems administrator to run diagnostic tests on a system without causing it to crash. Before DTrace, such tests often took days or weeks to reproduce the problem and identify the cause. With DTrace, performance problems can be tracked to their underlying causes in hours, even minutes.'"
Yea, this is the Wall Street Journal. It's like that old joke about Hollywood Squares: "According to Redbook, what is Plank's constant?" Not really an authoritative source on technical innovation.
Good evening. Five years ago, this date -- September the 11th -- was seared into America/s memory. Nineteen men attacked us with a barbarity unequaled in our history. They murdered people of all colors, creeds, and nationalities -- and made war upon the entire free world. Since that day, America and her allies have taken the offensive in a war unlike any we have fought before. Today, we are safer, but we are not yet safe. On this solemn night, I have asked for some of your time to discuss the nature of the threat still before us, what we are doing to protect our nation ... and the building of a more hopeful Middle East that holds the key to peace for America and the world.
On 9/11, our nation saw the face of evil. Yet on that awful day, we also witnessed something distinctly American: ordinary citizens rising to the occasion, and responding with extraordinary acts of courage. We saw courage in office workers who were trapped on the high floors of burning skyscrapers -- and called home so that their last words to their families would be of comfort and love. We saw courage in passengers aboard Flight 93, who recited the 23rd Psalm -- and then charged the cockpit. And we saw courage in the Pentagon staff who made it out of the flames and smoke -- and ran back in to answer cries for help. On this day, we remember the innocent who lost their lives -- and we pay tribute to those who gave their lives so that others might live.
For many of our citizens, the wounds of that morning are still fresh. I have met firefighters and police officers who choke up at the memory of fallen comrades. I have stood with families gathered on a grassy field in Pennsylvania, who take bittersweet pride in loved ones who refused to be victims -- and gave America our first victory in the war on terror. And I have sat beside young mothers with children who are now five-years-old -- and still long for the daddies who will never cradle them in their arms. Out of this suffering, we resolve to honor every man and woman lost. And we seek their lasting memorial in a safer and more hopeful world.
Since the horror of 9/11, we have learned a great deal about the enemy. We have learned that they are evil and kill without mercy -- but not without purpose. We have learned that they form a global network of extremists who are driven by a perverted vision of Islam -- a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent. And we have learned that their goal is to build a radical Islamic empire where women are prisoners in their homes, men are beaten for missing prayer meetings, and terrorists have a safe haven to plan and launch attacks on America and other civilized nations. The war against this enemy is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation.
Our nation is being tested in a way that we have not been since the start of the Cold War. We saw what a handful of our enemies can do with box-cutters and plane tickets. We hear their threats to launch even more terrible attacks on our people. And we know that if they were able to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, they would use them against us. We face an enemy determined to bring death and suffering into our homes. America did not ask for this war, and every American wishes it were over. So do I. But the war is not over -- and it will not be over until either we or the extremists emerge victorious. If we do not defeat these enemies now, we will leave our children to face a Middle East overrun by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons. We are in a war that will set the course for this new century -- and determine the destiny of millions across the world.
For America, 9/11 was more than a tragedy -- it changed the way we look at the world. On September the 11th, we resolved that we would go on the offense against our enemies -- and we would not distinguish between the terrorists and those who harbor or support them.
Our plan is working -- GET THE FACTS!
If it can, that's great and can Sun kindly port it to Linux. If it can't, then all I can say is that the competition must've sucked this year.
what an ODD way to think of things!
"if it doesn't run on linux then its not worth an award"
such a small universe you live in...
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Careful with the accusations of Wall Street's credibility on the subject. The award was decided by a jury of fairly distinguished members of ye olde programming community. And just to be fair, "None of them voted on any entries in which their companies or organizations may have had an interest."
You need to improve your reading comprehension skills. That is not what he said at all.
It's so reliable you never need to look for problems.
The closest linux equivalent is the Systemtap project, which is based on the kprobes low level hooking API. These aren't yet billed as ready for production systems, but they'll get there soon enough. They look quite slick, also.
That said, the WSJ award seems to me to be maybe a little overstated. While Sun fanboys will shout to the heavens (with some justification, even) that DTrace is an amazing tool with absolutely no counterpart in the linux world, the fact remains that DTrace is at best an incrementally amazing tool. System performance tuning is a hard task, requiring smart developers and lots of work. System performance tuning with DTrace is a hard task requiring smart developers and a little less work.
System performance tuning using DTrace and a typical Solaris IT wonk (a population that tends to correlate highly with the fanboys pushing DTrace the hardest) is a recipe for disaster.
If you find someone telling you that DTrace is a must have tool and indispensable to the systems developer, apply salt. But yeah, it's pretty slick.
and maybe after it is ported to linux/*bsd and ten years have gone by, admins will actually start using it to its full potential.
Porting DTrace involves messing around in the kernel of the OS being instrumented, and since the GPL forbids mixing in non-GPL code, DTrace will never come to Linux.
I believe it has already been ported to BSD and is on the way to Mac.
I saw a demo of DTrace at Javaforum in Stockholm a week ago, it was VERY impressive stuff.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
I think what he meant was the DTrace is a tool that most system admins would have no clue how to use. If they did start digging in code, attempting to "optimize" it, things would probably break...hard. He's not necessarily downing Solaris IT wonks, as much as he is the vast sea of IT wonks that are really bad at their job, but don't realize it. Basically, the majority of the IT industry. Since no one else (expect maybe a few FreeBSD wonks) has DTrace, it's fairly safe to narrow it down to Solaris wonks, and if you would trust a typical admin with DTrace and source code, you're a braver soul that most of us.
"Does this mean I think Sun don't deserve the award? I've not used that tool, so I'm not in a position to say. It would have to do a lot in addition to basic analysis to earn the right to be innovative, never mind the title of "top technical innovation". If it can, that's great and can Sun kindly port it to Linux."
First of all, it does. It's a new system tracing paradigm, and that's not a word I throw around lightly. Download OpenSolaris, install it, and then see what dtrace can do before you comment on it.
Secondly, you want it in Linux? Then why don't YOU port it? Why should Sun be bothered, when not only the design document but the actual source code is already available? Years ago, that was the rallying cry of Linux boosters: "Go write it yourself if you want it." Now I'm increasingly seeing the Linux camp DEMANDING that someone else do all of their work.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Sun definitely deserves an innovation award this year, but I would not have said it was for DTrace. DTrace is an incredibly nice tool, but I would put it well behind ZFS. ZFS is the first filesystem I have looked at in detail and liked everything I've seen. BeFS came close (I only found one thing I disagreed with in the design there), but ZFS does much, much more.
The UltraSPARC T1 is also a very nice chip, and possibly deserves this kind of thing, although I am more interested in the T2 since I tend to do a lot of FPU-intensive things.
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