Sun Microsystems 10 manual Flying zones Service-oriented Solaris server infrastructure, DC1 DC2

Version 3.1-enSolaris 10 Container Guide - 3.1 3. Use Cases Effective: 30/11/2009

3.17. "Flying zones" – Service-oriented Solaris server infrastructure

Requirement

[os] A highly available virtualization platform to run business-critical applications should meet the following requirements:

∙Breaking the rigid dependency between services and hardware

∙Application-oriented and workload-optimized utilization of resources

∙No physical separation of production and integration environments

∙Functionality in case of disaster

Solution

[os] Business-critical applications are run in Solaris 10 zones both on SPARC as well as on x64 systems. Functionality in case of disaster and location-spanning shifting of zones occurs within a grid cluster by means of Sun Cluster 3.1. The details:

∙Sparse root zones, that is, the zones inherit everything possible from the global zone

∙Manual relocation of zones.

∙Automatic failover of zones with SC 3.1, container monitoring with SC 3.1 or optional monitoring at the application level by special tools.

∙CPU resource management based on Solaris Fair Share Scheduler.

∙Memory Resource Management.

∙Application administrator with root access.

∙Surveying the workload and the resource requirements on a dedicated staging server of the cluster (figure).

Assessment

[os] This use case has the following characteristics:

∙Up to 24 grid clusters (with up to 8 nodes) based on SPARC or Sun x64-systems. Average CPU workloads of up to 60% can be achieved with up to 8 zones per Solaris instance.

∙Consolidation factor of currently 5 on average, that is, significant savings are achieved for space, power consumption and air conditioning.

∙Distinct increase in efficiency while operating by using a standardized environment (only one type of OS, only two kernel and CPU architectures).

∙Staging server as part of the grid cluster allows accurate measuring of resource requirements and detailed capacity planning for the grid cluster.

∙Production and integration environments are operated in a mixed and location-spanning manner. In a disaster situation, integration environments are shut down and production environments are started on the nodes of the remaining data center.

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Global Zone	Global Zone	Global Zone
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Figure 22: [os] Use case: "Flying zones" - Services-oriented Solaris server infrastructure

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