Colin Charles Agenda

Presented by Ronan McBrien and Sourath Roy, both from Sun Microsystems. The highlight of the show for me? Seeing the Sun Media Receiver. Not much information about it, except from the Sun Labs Open Day.

• Sun Media Receiver (developed at Sun Labs, now maintained by ISV Engineering). Sun make a PVR? Cool.
• RISC Processor (150-300MHz, predominantly MIPS, some ARM), memory, HDD optional, Ethernet port, USB, IR (remote control), Video output (SD, S-Video, composite, or HD, via HDMI connectors), hardware codecs (MPEG2, MPEG4-2, H.264)
• Makes use of the Java Media Framework API
• Can also expose talking to a SIM/smart card through the Java APIs, for security in your IPTV hardware

Presented by Jonathan Haslam, Simon Ritter, Sun Microsystems

In what I thought was completely great showmanship between Jonathan Haslam and Simon ritter, it was simply, pure comedy, having the two of them on stage. No reason to go deeply into notes (as the verbose slides are available), but the actual demonstration, the writing the code on stage, and the dynamics between the two - that made this session pure gold to attend.

You can ask a system to panic with DTrace if you want!

Some terminology:

• Probe: place of interest in the system where we can make observations
• Provider: instruments a particular area of a system, and makes probes available. Transfers control into DTrace framework when an enabled probe is hit
• Aggregation: patterns are more interesting than individual datum, so aggregate data together to look for arrays. Generally an associative array

DTrace has a PID provider, to look at applications based on PID

dvm provider is a java.net project to add DTrace support in. Install a new shared library, and make sure its in the path.

DTrace in JDK6 exists as a hotspot provider. No need to download a shared library. Its also more feature-rich.

Project DAVE (DTrace Advanced Visualisation Environment) was demoed. Also note that there’s chime.

VirtualBox 1.6 is out. Note that now you can use Mac OS X and Solaris as a host platform. Naturally, having Mac OS X support excites me.

I tried installing a Ubuntu 8.04 server guest. Found a tiny issue - 64-bit guests aren’t supported yet :( So I pulled in the 32-bit ISO, and that installed just fine. Note that PAE support for guests exist now, and this is a good step in the right direction.

Sun’s building an OpenxVM community, which currently focus on xVM and xVM VirtualBox. It also harnesses technologies like Open Service Tag. All in all, I think a lot of MySQL users should be interested in virtualization, as there is a growing amount of hardware out there with many, many cores available for use.

Installing Ubuntu 8.04 server and getting past the kernel not booting
This is more of an Ubuntu problem, than a VirtualBox problem, but I faced an issue:

The kernel requires the following features not present on the CPU
0:6
Unable to boot - please use a kernel appropriate for your CPU

Turns out, the problem was the wrong kernel was installed. Rescue Ubuntu, and install linux-generic. For reference, look at Unable to boot 8.04 Alpha 3 Server install on laptop and also the fix.

I couldn’t resist downloading NetBeans 6.1, with GlassFish and the MySQL bundle, the moment I found out it was released. Pulling it down while at the Star Alliance Gold lounge in Singapore was easy enough, and it only took me an hour (its a pretty big bundle - 164MB, as opposed to 6.0.1 where it only weighed in at 143MB for the OS X bundle).

Instead of the 4 packages in 6.0.1, I now only see 2 files - MySQL.prefPane (because we only fixed this in 5.0.51b, which probably didn’t make the release cut-off - the included version is 5.0.51a-community), and NetBeans IDE with MySQL.mpkg. The install is slated to take 526MB and takes a good two minutes.

I noticed that it doesn’t uninstall NetBeans 6.0.1, so my Applications folder now has two versions, including two versions of Glassfish (UR1 from 6.0.1 versus UR2 in 6.1). Upon starting 6.1, it does ask if I’d like to import settings from a previous version of NetBeans; of course I would.

You are then asked to register. I never looked at registering software as important, but I’m starting to think a lot more about it. One has to provide value, for a user to register - and we’ll explore this in another blog post. I’m writing this while on a plane, so it doesn’t make sense to register, anyway.

The first thing I do? Jump to the Services tab, make a connection to MySQL (look under Drivers -> MySQL (Connector/J driver)), and play with the sakila sample database.

Design a query, using a GUI

Drill down into tables, find a table name (say, store if using the sakila sample database), drill down into a row, like store_id, right-click, and select Design Query. Now, feel free to drag tables and drop them, only to find that it now helps you create an ER diagram of your tables, while helping you design an appropriate query!

ER diagrams for free

Play with the database tool a lot more. It looks like its got plenty of potential. It also looks like NetBeans is a great IDE for all your web development needs (PHP included). I’m certainly going to use it a lot more, even though I’m notably a vim guy.

I’m headed to the OpenSolaris Developers Summit right now.

After that, I’ll be at CommunityOne, with the rest of the MySQL team. Just check out the schedule (its in PDF format though). Its truly packed, so if you’ve not signed up to come, do so, immediately. I’m also particularly interested in participating in the RedMonk Unconference. All in all, I think CommunityOne looks like it would be well suited for a week-long event, rather than a day-long event - so many places to be, so little time!

And after that, JavaOne! Its going to be packed all week long, but the good news is that I’ll be in downtown San Francisco for most of it.

Expect plenty of notes soon.

Technorati Tags: opensolaris, communityone, javaone, opensolaris summit, developers

I wish I had better notes, but I was enthralled by Jonathan Schwartz’s (CEO, President, Sun Microsystems) keynote. It was truly, very amazing an influential. He’s a great speaker, and very motivated (and I think he’s motivated a lot of the audience).

What is Sun’s Agenda?
Similar values, cultures, and similar dysfunction’s like any family.

The Texas Advanced Computing Center - 500 teraflop “open” super-comptuing facility.

“Computational science is the third mode of discovery, complementing physical experimentation and theory” — Daniel Atkins III, Director, Office of Cyberinfrastruture, National Science Foundation

The industry has valid, legitimate scientific purpose.

Improving society as a result of that understanding. What does it take to fuel developing economies? Or to make new scientific discoveries?

In Africa, a bank is giving mobile phones, to allow folk to increase wealth! The wealth is in the network, it can’t be stolen anymore.

An open source phone? Stay tuned, Sun thinks that industry needs to be disrupted.

What does it take to connect with your friends? MySQL :)

Like electricity, like clean water… “The Network has become a Social Utility”

I want Sun to be a Great Company, and a good company. You can’t buy the community. The greater you are, the “gooder” you are. Work with communities, drive innovation, and more opportunity is created for all.

Jonathan shows a map of places where all the blue dots are where people download MySQL. Take the map away, and you’ll see a beautiful picture. Its already the majority of the planet for instance. These folk, have decided that there is a demand for open source software.

Free software is taking over the world.

Today ZFS is under a CDDL license, but rumour has it, that this will change in the future.

“The Future Will Be Defined by Free… and Freedom”

“We want to be in control of our own destiny” - all those places downloading software… Freedom matters to me, because I want access to my own stuff.

The Amazon. Comprises of 10,000 rivers. They all fuel the Amazon River. Open source, is an ecosystem of many rivers… Sun is saying we’re pro-opensource, pro-free software. Put commitment behind many communities.

Individuals are making choices… MySQL might be used even without CIOs knowing!

Secret plot? Let people download, try it, use it, and they’ll change their view of how good it is. And there’s economic benefit (for Sun).

Technorati Tags: mysql, sun, mysqluc08, mysqluc2008, jonathan schwartz, keynote

In-between Marten’s keynote, Rich Green, EVP Software, Sun Microsystems, comes up on stage, and here’s my live-blog.

He talked about the famous dinner last year, for buying MySQL. Autonomy reigns supreme in MySQL. MySQL continue at their same course and speed. The plan is the plan, until there is a new plan - and there is no new plan.

Sun has a heterogeneous platform. Many partners, including Dell, IBM, Intel, and so on. Lots of open source in terms of software. The cultures, discourse, intellectual arguments, its an excellent mash up, this Sun and MySQL. Don’t Panic! There is no change for what has been an incredibly successful thing.

Sun’s Continued MySQL Commitment:

• profitable business on the principles of FOSS
• GPL - consider GPLv3 as it involves, and we understand the interest and evolution of the community. Its GPLv2 still, naturally
• Tuning for the most popular operating systems and hardware platforms
• Integrating with the most popular development environments and other related technologies

Technorati Tags: mysql, mysqluc08, mysqluc2008, sun, rich green

I paid great attention to Ian Murdock’s talk at LugRadio Live USA 2008, as he’s an important person at Sun in terms of the open source community, and I’m community facing as well. It was also the first time I got to meet Ian (after his talk), and we hit off a conversation really quickly. I look forward to working alongside Ian more… Now to the talk notes.

A Bit About Ian
- Linux user, developer, and advocate since 1993
- Founder of Debian, co-founder of Progeny
- Joined Sun in March 2007, Chief OS strategist (launched Project Indiana), and now since February 2008 is VP Developer and Community Marketing

What’s a Linux guy doing at Sun?
- When people say they want Linux… they don’t actually mean that they want Linux. You don’t only want the kernel, but you want the userspace as well. You really want a distribution, not Linux itself. Ian is more of an open source guy. So create a business model behind OpenSolaris?
- Solaris ships all userland utilities you’d expect from Linux. GNU Utilities vs. UNIX Utilities. Where the real differentiation is, is Linux Kernel vs. Solaris Kernel.
- Its the kernel where you drive change for the OS. Look at ZFS, Dtrace, containers, etc.
- Linux has multiple configurable platforms with expanding ecosystems. OpenSolaris, is an integrated operating system, with binary compatibility.
- Where Sun wants to go with OpenSolaris? Have binary compatibility in the core platform, and have the expanding ecosystem in it.
- Project Indiana has Solaris innovation with the “distribution” model of the Linux world, i.e. have package repositories. Also, to close the “familiarity gap” so that there is a GNU userland, a package management system, etc. And of course, focus on the unique Solaris capabilities - upgrade rollback via ZFS snapshots, AMP stack with integrated DTrace probes (MySQL in OpenSolaris Developer Preview 2 already has this capability), binary compatibility, etc.
- Remember, people deploy what’s accessible to them. This is a whole new deployment model. This is how Linux got into the Enterprise. This is the reasoning behind OpenSolaris… Solaris itself is great in the Enterprise, but lacks a user community. Follow the Linux (and largely, Microsoft) model…
- One Solaris Platform, two delivery mechanisms - Solaris: enterprise class, support, long release cycle (3-5 years); OpenSolaris: latest Solaris innovations, short release cycle (6 months), much easier to use, network economy, support from Sun also
- Adoption-Led Market is what its at now. Users become customers. Give users something of value. That’s the basic business model at Sun, around open source.
- Volume drives value! New consumers/communities on the network will drive infrastructure demand. Reach the developer community through massive volume, get it in use as many places as possible, then sell software/storage/servers/services/etc.
- Just spent $1 billion on MySQL. Databases are often deployed on other middleware, say identity management. Sun sells identity management software.
- Developer platforms of choice are moving up the stack. Traditional Sun platforms are increasingly invisible infrastructure. New platforms remove barriers to entry and hide complexity so developers can focus on getting to market quickly.
- Remember, no one “owns” the web. The Web 2.0 world is like open source in the 90s.
- Hot new platforms are silos - you write your application to Google APIs or Amazon APIs and there’s only one place to deploy it. Sun is a leader in open standards for 25 years, how do you take this leadership into the new platform world? One needs the ability to deploy on a number of different platforms, and take your application from one to another. Sun strategy?
- Where do down the stack technologies, like operating systems, fit? Do they still matter? Yes.
- Solaris 10 is free today (you just have to register to get it)

On the packaging system
- OpenSolaris package system is new. Needed to build own for a few reasons, despite studying apt/yum/conary.
1) platform is very different from Linux; use ZFS and you get rollback, and this is Solaris specific
2) zones/containers, single shared kernel, multiple application environments, which is intelligent for resource sharing, and the package system is fundamentally aware of zones
3) an opportunity to innovate; Sun’s all about innovation. Package managers haven’t changed much in over 10 years (apt, yum)
4) the notion of customisation, i.e. have a version control like facility for patches, etc. so that changes can be reconciled when you rebase with upstream, is something the new package management system can use. This is kind of like Conary?
5) All customers tend to customise, even (especially) in Enterprises. IPS helps them (refer to 4)

Questions & Answers
- OpenSolaris and Solaris, how is it in sync? Codebase is in sync, generally. Solaris 10 is one codebase, and there’s a development version (i.e. the next release). There is a Solaris “train” and an OpenSolaris train now. How will these two trains come together? Solaris Next based on OpenSolaris? OpenSolaris with Enterprise support? Questions that are being asked now, and there’s no real decision yet. Wait till 2-3 OpenSolaris releases first, before finding out more.
- What is Sun doing to make OpenSolaris work better in a virtualized environment? I.e. working better in Xen, QEMU, VMWare, etc. Linux naturally has better device support than OpenSolaris, so virtualization is very important. Mentions the innoTek purchase, so that VirtualBox could be used for bundle delivery.
- Is Linux and OpenSolaris in par, security wise? Solaris has a slight edge at this point… They’re fairly comparable, but there’s more maturity in the Solaris product.
- OpenSolaris on PowerPC - unknown status, there’s been some work at Sun Labs to port it to PPC, you can boot it and do some basic things, but unsure if its ready for users or not.

Technorati Tags: lugradio, lugradio live usa, ian murdock, sun, opensolaris, linux, distributions, IPS, packaging system