Re: Solaris 10 - Containers & OS Virtualisation

From: Nathan Dietsch (usenet_at_ndietsch.com)
Date: 10/08/04

  • Next message: talisman: "Re: Solaris 10 - Containers & OS Virtualisation" 
    Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 12:29:54 +1000

    Hello Rich,

    Rich Teer wrote:
    > On Thu, 7 Oct 2004, Chris Newport wrote:
    >
    >
    >>No.
    >>You only patch the root image, the binaries in the
    >>containers are read-only links to the root system.
    >
    >
    > Correct - and this is one of the advantages of Containers:
    > you only need to maintain one set of OS patches.

    While this is an advantage of Containers it is also a disadvantage in a
    number of cases. Namely trying to reduce the TCO on a production
    environment in which you load patches onto a test instance first.

    I guess you can use domains for this, but we all know that domains
    require a lot of cash. For SPARC machines that are not domain-capable,
    this requires separate machines or at least separate disks to load
    images on (with subsequent downtime).

    For the x86 machines, you could use VMWare to load up different
    instances, but this is not really testing in an environment which is
    similar enough to production. Testing Solaris 10 running in VMWare
    running on Redhat Linux or Windows does not give me the confidence that
    I have tested in a production-like environment.

    Live-upgrade or taking out the mirror disk before patching may help to
    provide a suitable back-out plan, but in my opinion there is nothing
    like mirrored production and test environments for calming the mind of a
    paranoid SA. Remember, Murphy is waiting around every corner.

    Bringing my patch-rambling back to Containers though, I think it looks
    like a great product which is suitable for many situations. I look
    forward to testing it in Solaris 10. I think Containers will also
    provide a suitable place for implementing some of things that I have
    found in your book.

    Kind Regards,

    Nathan Dietsch

  • Next message: talisman: "Re: Solaris 10 - Containers & OS Virtualisation"

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