I begin to look at zoning in Solaris 10. I have not configured zones
yet but need some answers quite quick (tomorrow :-() and hope someone
can help

a. My understanding of zoning is that it allows the SA to create
multiple zones in a single Solaris 10 instance. However, does there
exist any tools to allow the SA to allocate resources to each zone?
Say 1/10 of a CPU to one zone and ½ of 1 CPU to a second zone. I think
I read about resource management center, is it possible?
b. Are there any monitoring tools for each zone? Even if I were to use
vmstat, iostat, will the result shown be for the zone or for the
"real" machine?

I also read containers is also available on Solaris 9, does it mean
that I can configure zone using Solaris 9? Otherwise, how can I
partition a system for different applications in Solaris 9.

Thanks for the help

AC

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004, anna wrote:

Yes.

I'm not entirely sure, as I haven't played with zones much yet.

I dunno9 where you read that. Zones are not (and aren't likely
to be) available for S9, although some of the Resource Management
stuff is.

The best that you can do is run each application in a chrooted
environment, but that won't give you anywhere near the isolation
provided by zones.

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-online.net

| a. My understanding of zoning is that it allows the SA to create
| multiple zones in a single Solaris 10 instance. However, does there
| exist any tools to allow the SA to allocate resources to each zone?
| Say 1/10 of a CPU to one zone and ½ of 1 CPU to a second zone. I think
| I read about resource management center, is it possible?

Yes, you can. There are even several options:

1. use the Fair Share Scheduler to assign weights to zones like
1:3:2 This ratio of CPU is enforced if, and only if, the zones
compete for cycles. If in the example 2 zones are idle the 3rd one
gets everything if necessary. Adjustments are done in the sub second time
frame

2. you can bind zones to dynamic pools. A pool consist of a scheduling
class and a processor set as in 9 but it can be dynamic in 10. This means
that you have the option of specifying the minimum and maximum number of
CPUs assigned to a given pool. Based on load or utilization a daemon than
moves CPUs between pools and therefore between zones. This is done in a
minute timeframe (typical)


| b. Are there any monitoring tools for each zone? Even if I were to use
| vmstat, iostat, will the result shown be for the zone or for the
| "real" machine?

The Sun folks are working on it and a few tools already support -z to
collect data for a single zone like prstat. Be aware that several tools
behave different if run in a zone or the global one.

| I also read containers is also available on Solaris 9, does it mean
| that I can configure zone using Solaris 9? Otherwise, how can I
| partition a system for different applications in Solaris 9.

Yeah, marketing folks messed this up ... (N1 Grid) Containers are resource
management PLUS zones. As the first one is 80% available in s9 (like static
pools, the fair share scheduler, ...) they tend to mix this up. READ THE
FINE PRINT ;-) In clear: not zones in s9 and I doubt there will be any sort
of backport.

If partition means dividing CPU resources than just use the FSS and assign
your applications to different projects (works with 9). If it means
security isolation than chroot is all there is which is much less than
zones.

Hope that helps,
Thomas

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PGP fingerprint: B1 EE D2 39 2C 82 26 DA A5 4D E0 50 35 75 9E ED

Thank you all.
It really helps.

anna

As stated by others, zones can have resource "floors and ceilings". The
current SRM (9) has no ceiling, so if shares are available to be used by other
projects, then they get them.

product plug follows:

TeamQuest Performance Software works with SRM 8, SRM 9 and will
work with zones in Solaris 10. It will run under designated project which
will allow performance data collection from all zones.

end of product plug.

Regards,
Joe Rich - TeamQuest Corporation


In article <40d1feef@news.uni-ulm.de>, Thomas Nau <Thomas.Nau@kiz.uni-ulm.de>
wrote:

In comp.unix.solaris Joseph A. Rich <jar@nospam.teamquest.com> wrote:
And you can create processor sets in S9 and then you have ceiling


--
Robert Milkowski
rmilkowski-NOSP-AM@wp-sa.pl

Absolutely correct.

Joe

In article <cb90dt$rok$1@korweta.task.gda.pl>, Robert Milkowski
<rmilkowski-NO-SPAM@wp-sa.pl> wrote: