Are Solaris Zones Supported?

[peterbruce]

JDEList,

I have searched the new "My Oracle Support" (it will take a bit of getting used to) and have not been able to find an answer. I have searched JDEList and found a comment from 2007 saying that zones were not supported, but I'm not sure how accurate it was or if that is still the case or applicable to our install configuration (see below). I have raised an SR with Oracle to find out.

I am specifically interested in database and enterprise servers. Our DBAs want us to put the JDE database onto a Solaris Zone. I do not want to do this until I have confirmation that this configuration is supported by Oracle. Then I want our test system configured and running this way for a while first, before making any changes to the production system.

Does anyone know if Solaris Zones are Supported by Oracle? Is anyone running JDE on Solaris Zones? If so what are the pros and cons? How is performance?

E1 Applications version 8.11 sp1
EI Tools Release 8.97.2.1
Database: Oracle 10

Enterprise Server: Sun Solaris 10
Database Server: Sun Solaris 9 (the upgrade to 10 failed - firmware problem)

 

[altquark]

This is probably going to be filed under the same answer as other virtualization technologies out there. Obviously, Oracle owns Sun now - so theoretically there is more reason to support Suns' virtualization technologies like Solaris Zones and Java Virtualbox.

There was a recent post that specifically stated that all virtualization technologies need to be at the official minimum technical requirements - and that Oracle doesn't distinguish between physical and virtual servers - but if they cannot reproduce an issue with a physical instance, then they will not be able to support the virtual instance discrepancy.

In effect, test it out, try it, see how it performs, if it works well, then implement it ! If you're implementing architecture that is relatively unknown in the E1 arena, then contact someone who has experience of implementing virtualization (like myself) and plan on stress testing/load testing your test architecture.

 

[eSky]

We are running JDE E1 8.12 on Solaris Zone.

Database Server is on main Zone.

On Secondary Zone Enterprise Server and Web Server are running.

There is no issue on running Enterprise Server on Solaris Zone.

Keeping Database Server on Main Zone is good for the performance wise. We are running 8.12 on this setup from last 18 months and there is no issue.

Make sure your Zones get proper Memory and CPU distribution.

If you need further detail please let me know.

 

[peterbruce]

Jon,

Thanks for your reply and comments. They are valuable.

I suspected that zones would be lumped in with other virtualizations, as you said. The fact that Oracle owns Sun may or may not have any effect, but I believe that it would be too early, at this stage, for any effect to filter through to us customers.

Your comments on that recent post (btw which post was it?) concern me a little as there would be at least some risk of not being able to reproduce a problem, experienced on a zone, on a physical server. Previous experience is what I need to read about now to determine what that risk may be. Have there ever been any problems experienced on zones, what the performance is and how big the customer base is with jde on solaris zones?

 

[peterbruce]

eSky - Vivek Jain,

Your experience with zones is very much appreciated, thanks very much. I may need to get more technical information from you at a later stage.

 

[Alex_Pastuhov]

Peter,

All virtualisations suck - some more and some less, but it would slow everything down quite a bit in any case. If you have any performance issues now on physical hardware, I would not recommend even looking at it...

 

[altquark]

Alex

Solaris Zones aren't really the same as other Virtualization's. Think of Solaris Zones as a similar technology to AS400 LPAR's - and its certainly somewhat close. Not at all like VMWare.

However, my warning still stands concerning JDE Support. Its unlikely really that JDE would absolutely faily to support a functional issue if they couldn't reproduce that issue internally, but its not impossible. Certainly it helps if the customer is on as high a version and tools release as possible - but if you were running, for example on Xe SP18.1 with Oracle 8i on Solaris Zones ? I doubt very much if JDE would spend much time trying to reproduce your zombie kernels !

But, again, Oracle owns Sun. Solaris Zones aren't at all like VMWare virtualization - and there is a precedent of other users out there utilizing Solaris Zones. Best bet is to try and get the hardware provider to "prove out" the performance/ROI gains they're trying to sell you with a test environment - if you can stress test this first before going to production, you'll likely see whether its worth it or not.

On a side note, I did undertake a performance stresstest on Solaris last year with a large company. They were migrating from Microsoft SQL to Oracle 10i on Solaris. We did indeed run into a performance issue - the network architecture of the solaris box we tested couldn't actually sustain high single thread data throughput on its virtual gigabit adapters. This wasn't a solaris zone - but it was a "new" hardware blade technology that Sun was pushing. Without undertaking a 1 month full stress test, the company would not have discovered the issue until they had migrated 1000 users onto the new system. In effect, performance was demonstrated to have had significant issues under load. Go-live was put on hold - but Sun spent several weeks at the customer site - and I believe they fixed the issue in the end.

The point is that you should always invest some time and effort in good stress-testing skills if you are truly unsure about newer technologies. Nothing beats your actual data running under the new system.

 

[Alex_Pastuhov]

All virtualisations are essentially the same. The main problem is fundamentally in sharing the memory bandwidth. Implementation specifics have very little bearing on this issue, except if it's some really sloppy implementation like VirtualPC.

 

[peterbruce]

I got the following response from Oracle for the Service Request I raised on this:

[ QUOTE ]
I asked development about the support for Solaris Zones.
That architecture has not been tested with our EOne product so we cannot recommend or support it.
Let me know if you have additional questions on this
Best Regards,


[/ QUOTE ]

 

[peterbruce]

Update:

Oracle VM with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Minimum Technical Requirements [ID 748349.1]

Says:

[ QUOTE ]

General Information about Using SUN Containers / Zones with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne
<font color="white"> p </font>
All JD Edwards EnterpriseOne products that are otherwise supported on Solaris 10 SPARC (Database Server, Enterprise Server, Web Server, etc) are supported running in SUN Containers / Zones.
<font color="white"> p </font>
All Minimum Technical Requirements for running JD Edwards EnterpriseOne in a non-virtualized environment also apply in a virtualized environment. Refer to all other MTRs for specific requirements such as versions and patch levels of required software.
<font color="white"> p </font>
Customers are encouraged to apply SUN Solaris SPARC Container / Zone technology to address their business needs; however, Oracle has not explicitly tested, nor does it certify, every conceivable use case. Oracle will provide technical support for running JD Edwards EnterpriseOne within SUN Solaris SPARC Containers / Zones according to the requirements in this document. Customers should engage consulting resources and execute sound test plans for specific configurations and use cases.


[/ QUOTE ]

 

[altquark]

well, it only took 2 years for them to come up with that (!)

glad that they're cleaning up the MTR's finally. There has been a lot of movement in the "certification" department as of late !