SC 3.1u4 on VMWARE

> Hi, as I understand from previous postings there is

> no support for SC 3.1u4 on x86 32bit. Thus I wonder

> whether there are any experiences in runing SC 3.1.u4

> on top of Sol 10u1 in a 64bit virtual machine of

> VMWARE. This would be then a perfect environment for

> testing.

The problem with virtual machines is that when you run

real-time processes that expect isochronous response

from the underlying hardware, the virtual machine can

interpose itself -- breaking the assumption that time is

monotonous. To a cluster, this is indistinguishible from

broken hardware and may result in a reconfiguration.

Given the relatively low cost of 64-bit x86 hardware, even

Sun's @ $745, IMHO there isn't enough justification to

warrant using virtual machines and dealing with the fallout.

richard

relling1 at 2007-7-6 15:23:01 >

> richard wrote:

> > Given the relatively low cost of 64-bit x86

> hardware,

> > even

> > Sun's @ $745, IMHO there isn't enough

> justification

>

> $745 Sun is diskless and as far as I know the SC

> cannot run on host with SAN boot disk. Or I missed

> something?

> -- leon

I was wrong, SAN boot disk is ok.

But $745 box has only 2 GBE ports and you need 3: 1 external and 2 for heartbit.

-- leon

napobo3 at 2007-7-6 15:23:01 >

I had limited success in Solaris 9 09/04 x86 based 2-node cluster (with oracle server agent running)

under VMware server 1.0, where SCSI-2 is supported for quorum. But bear in mind, it can never be

used for anything but serious purposes, absolutely not for production, for three reasons,

(1) clock delay is constantly annoyance, and even generates pm_tick delay to bring down the cluster in panic.

(2) pcn0 public interface automatically turns to sc_ipmp0 group, and constantly fails. Has to tweak /etc/default/mpathd to survive.

(3) you have to be patient enough to endure the pain and suffering of numerous reboots to get the cluster running,

and dozen times more efforts to failover Oracle server successfully.

If you can gracefully resolve those three issues, you will be an asset in building Solaris cluster under VMware.

Your experience will be valueable to share.

P.S. I have not tried 5.0 VMware workstation. But 4.0 (likely 4.5.2 ?) ws does not support SCSI disks.

hansq at 2007-7-6 15:23:02 >