ZFS: random thoughts & questions

[awedio]

For one trying to get his feet wet in the ZFS world, here are some random thoughts.
Feel free to correct me as I may be totally off base

1) ZFS + Oracle: this option is a "no-go" unless you're prepared to be "locked-in" w Mr Ellison

2) ZFS + illumos: players are Nexenta/OmniOS etc:
Who will write drivers for all the new & upcoming network devices???
This option still has no ConnectX-3 drivers.
Not sure how "mainstream" this is or will ever be.

3) ZFS + Linux: players are OSNexus/ZetaVault etc
Because of Linux, there is widespread driver support for existing devices.
1st class citizen in Hyper-V, can be run as a VSA
Definitely mainstream

4) ZFS + ZoL: not considered mainstream, since it's "technically" not a 1.0 product yet.

5) ZFS + FreeBSD: players are FreeNAS/TrueNAS etc
Because of FreeBSD, there is widespread driver support for existing devices.
1st class citizen in Hyper-V, can be run as a VSA
Definitely mainstream

 

[MiniKnight]

Because of FreeBSD, there is widespread driver support for existing devices.

FreeNAS = FreeBSD 9.x not 10.x

 

[gea]

Oracle Solaris or its free fork Illumos is not mainstream and will never be.
Mainstream is Windows and Linux, not BSD, OSX or Solaris.

Beside that Solaris and Illumos have advantages. ZFS development was done there and many ZFS developers from Sun can be found now in the Illumos world and in the enterprise area Oracle is always a major player.

Solaris CIFS, Comstar, Crossbow and service management are premium and top class features.
Support for server class hardware mainly Intel chipsets, nics and LSI HBAs is excellent.

Support for newer IB devices is not as good but this is more a question to Mellanox.
On Solaris, FC and iSCSI are well supported even with newest hardware.

 

[awedio]

I agree with almost everything you wrote.
The last section is one of the main questions I have.

Will companies like Mellanox care enough to write or develop drivers for Oracle Solaris/illumos?
They have drivers for Windows, Linux & FreeBSD!

 

[PigLover]

Companies like Mellanox will support what their major customers ask them to support. And by 'major customers' I mean people who by thousands of their cards at a time (Facebook, Google, others you'll probably never hear about in more esoteric fields). For the most part all of them have 'left' the Solaris camp - so no, it's not likely that support for drivers in Solaris and it's derivatives will get better any time soon.

@gea is spot on - mainstream these days means Linux and Microsoft and not much else.

 

[awedio]

FreeBSD seems to "finding" it's way into the mainstream camp.
FreeBSD 10.x is now a 1st class citizen on Hyper-V.
Mellanox has drivers for FreeBSD.

How will Solaris/illumos take advantage of all the new & neat toys that keep coming if no one cares to write drivers or develop firmware?

 

[T_Minus]

Well shit, I guess my ConnectX-3 aren't going to work for my Napp-IT OmniOS ZFS build Guess I'll have to use them in some other OS for something else, argh.

 

[CreoleLakerFan]

Well shit, I guess my ConnectX-3 aren't going to work for my Napp-IT OmniOS ZFS build Guess I'll have to use them in some other OS for something else, argh.

Run it on top of ESX.

Set up a virtual switch using the ConnectX-3 card(s) as the physical interface. Pass-through an HBA to your OmniOS VM using VT-d and add a vmxnet3 adapter to the VM. Assign the vmxnet3 adapter of your OmniOS VM into your high-speed virtual switch. Don't forget to install VMware tools ... the vmxnet3 adapter will not work without them.

 

[T_Minus]

THANKS!

 

[brutalizer]

For one trying to get his feet wet in the ZFS world, here are some random thoughts.
Feel free to correct me as I may be totally off base

1) ZFS + Oracle: this option is a "no-go" unless you're prepared to be "locked-in" w Mr Ellison

Oracle closed Solaris when ZFS was at version 28. This means that all open ZFS versions can read v28, and also Oracle Solaris can read v28. As long as you stay on ZFS version 28, you can use any operating system and you can not be locked in.

OpenZFS has diverged and is using another version than 28, they are using v5000 I think. Oracle Solaris is now at... v35 or so. But all ZFS implementations can use v28 of ZFS. I am using Oracle Solaris 11.2, but I keep all my ZFS storage at v28, so I can change to any OS I want. Next to Solaris, FreeBSD has the most stable ZFS version.

 

[EluRex]

#4
I am using ZFS + ZoL for my production environment.

I am using mellanox Connect-3X vpi IB Card on my Ubuntu 14.04 (SAN) and also VMWare vSphere ESXi 6.0 Host. The mellanox driver support is great on both ubuntu and also vmware.

With SCST version 3.1, I am running SRPT between my SAN and vSphere Host. I am doubtful #2, #3 & #5 combination can do it. As #1, I hate lock in with Mr. Ellison too.