Previewing AIX 6

Delivering new approaches to virtualization, security, manageability and mainframe-inspired continuous availability features to the UNIX® market.

AIX® is an open, standards-based UNIX operating system (OS) that provides the enterprise information technology infrastructure for thousands of clients around the world. IBM intends to take the next step in the evolution of the AIX operating system with the release of the AIX V6.1 OS.

Prior to the general availability of AIX 6, IBM intends to make a pre-release version of AIX 6 available in an open beta¹.

New approaches to virtualization

Workload Partitions AIX 6 introduces a new, software-based, virtualization approach called Workload Partitions (WPAR) that complements the existing IBM System Logical Partitions by reducing the number of operating system images that have to be managed when consolidating workloads. Workload Partitions enable the system administrator to consolidate multiple applications inside of a single running instance of AIX 6. Each Workload Partition can be separately administered from other WPARs in the system, including separate security and root level user. WPARs obtain a regulated portion of the system resources available to the instance of AIX 6 and share the AIX 6 resources such as kernel resource and I/O. Live Application Mobility Workload Partitions can also be moved from one system to another without restarting the application or causing significant disruption to the application end user. This capability, called "Live Application Mobility" will be enabled though a separately offered licensed program product, the Workload Partitions Manager that will generally available at the same time as the AIX 6 OS.

Security

Several significant security enhancements will be delivered in the AIX 6 OS including: Role Based Access Control Provides improved security and manageability by allowing administrators to grant authorization for management of specific AIX resources to users other than root by associating those resources with a role that is then associated with a particular system user. Role Based Access Control can also be used to associate specific management privileges with programs, which can reduce the need for run those programs under the root user or via setuid. Trusted AIX Trusted AIX extends the security capabilities of the AIX 6 by integrating compartmentalized, multi-level security into the base operating system. Trusted AIX is implemented as an installation option that can provide the highest levels of compartmentalized security to meet critical government and private industry security requirements. Encrypting filesystem The IBM Journaled Filesystem Extended (JFS2) adds even greater data security with the capability to encrypt the data in a filesystem. Clients can select from a number of different encryption algorithms. The encrypted data can be backed up in encrypted format, reducing the risk of data being compromised if backup media is lost or stolen. The encrypting filesystem can even prevent the compromise of data even to root level users. AIX Security Expert LDAP integration The AIX Security Expert was introduced with Technology Level 5 update to the AIX V5.3 OS, and provides clients with the capability to manage more than 300 system security settings from a single interface. The AIX Security Expert has been enhanced in AIX 6 with an option to store security templates directly in a Lightweight Directory Protocol (LDAP) directory—simplifying implementation of a consistent security across an entire enterprise. Secure by Default installation option The AIX 6 installation process will offer a new option, Secure by Default that enables only the minimal number of system and network services to provide the maximum amount of security. Secure by Default works best when used in conjunction with the AIX Security Expert to tightly control the security configuration of each system.

Manageability

In addition to the manageability enhancements delivered as part of Workload Partitions, Workload Partitions Manager and the security features of the AIX OS, there are other features that will be delivered to enhance the manageability of the AIX 6 OS including: Graphical Installation This new installation option is intended primarily for use by administrators with limited prior experience with AIX installation. Graphical Installation simplifies the installation process but includes options to navigate to the traditional installation menus if required. Network Installation Manager support for NFSv4 The Network Installation Manager (NIM) has been enhanced to provide additional security and flexibility by enabling the use of NFS version 4. NIM can use NVSv4 to provide stronger, Kerberos based security during the installation of AIX 6 and other software.

Continuous availability features

Over the years, the AIX OS has included many reliability features inspired by IBM's mainframe technology. The release of AIX 6 introduces unprecedented continuous availability features to the UNIX market: Kernel support for POWER6 Storage Key This AIX 6 feature brings a mainframe-inspired reliability capability to the UNIX market for the first time. Enabled by the IBM POWER6™ processor, Storage Keys can reduce the number of intermittent outages associated with undetected memory overlays inside the AIX kernel. Applications can also use the POWER6 storage key feature to increase the reliability of large, complex applications running under the AIX V5.3 or AIX 6 releases. Concurrent AIX kernel update Concurrent AIX updates provides a new capability to deliver some kernel updates as Interim Fixes that will not require a system reboot to put into effect. This can reduce the number of unplanned outages required to maintain a secure, reliable system. Dynamic tracing AIX 6 provides a new dynamic tracing capability that can simplify debugging complex system or application code. This dynamic tracing facility will be introduced via a new tracing command, probevue, that allows a developer or system administrator to dynamically insert trace breakpoints in existing code without having to recompile the code. Enhanced software first failure data capture One of the key innovations used to improve the reliability, availability and serviceability of the AIX OS is the introduction of First Failure Data Capture (FFDC) technology. First Failure Data Capture, a concept borrowed from the mainframe, gathers diagnostic information about problems at the time the problem occurs-dramatically reducing the need to recreate the problem (and impact performance and availability) at a later time just to generate diagnostic information. AIX 6 builds on the FFDC capabilities introduced in previous AIX releases by introducing even more instrumentation to provide real time diagnostic information.

POWER6 processor exploitation

Like the predecessor releases of the AIX OS, Version 6.1 fully exploits the newest POWER™ processors, the IBM POWER6™ processor. Some of the POWER6 processor features that will be exploited by AIX 6 include kernel exploitation of Storage Keys, and automatic page size optimization.

Binary compatibility

AIX 6 is binary compatible with previous releases of AIX Version 5 as documented in the AIX binary compatibility statement. 32-bit and 64-bit AIX V5.1, V5.2, and V5.3 applications can be executed on AIX 6 without recompilation as long as those programs are well behaved and do not utilize programming techniques that are explicitly identified as non-portable. 32-bit applications written for AIX V4.1, 4.2, or 4.3 can be executed on AIX 6 without recompilation as long as those programs meet the same standards for well behaved programs.

Open beta program

For the first time ever, IBM intends to make a pre-release version of AIX 6 widely available prior to the general availability of the release. The open beta program for AIX 6 will allow clients to download, install and run an early version of AIX 6 on suitable IBM systems in a non-production, non-supported mode. This open beta program is planned for the middle of 2007 and is intended to provide clients with an opportunity to gain early experience with AIX 6. Open beta participants will be able to download preconfigured installation images from the open beta Web site and test many of the features of the AIX V6.1 release including Workload Partitions. No formal support will be provided beyond a Web forum where participants can discuss the program with other participants and report problems. More information on the open beta program can be found at open beta Web page.

¹All statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.

using SSD instead of platter disks

I believe in near future there will be a big change on the storage system। SSD will be the current. What would it bring to us DBers? here's a letter from oracle newsletter:

"Donald K.urleson"

Using tiny data buffers with solid-state disks When using SSD instead of platter disks, the Oracle architecture changes radically, and we have two options: Option 1: Large RAM data buffers, solid-state disk files (SSD) In this option we have higher overhead within Oracle, as he tries to manage the heap to reduce I/O, which is now a negligible time expense (RAM-to-RAM data transfer is very fast). Option 2: Small RAM data buffers with solid-state disk files (SSD) In this option we force a read from SSD into a tiny data buffer. The overhead of the repeated loads is negligible, and we have spaced Oracle from having to manage a giant db_cache_size. SSD has the same super-fast access speeds, plus it backs-up to disk without effecting performance (SSD has much higher I/O bandwidth than disk). Bandwidth is very important today, especially with the current plague of super-large disks. Disk bandwith is more important than RAM speed, which has been relatively "flat" for the past 30 years, while everything else (disk, network, CPU) sees radically improved speed every year. Today, many Oracle database have shifted from being I/O bound (a 32-bit RAM constraint) to CPU bound (data buffer gets drive-up CPU consumption. This I/O shift led Oracle to make the great change to the cost-based SQL optimizer. Traditionally, the decision trees were built from estimated I/O costs, and this default change in 10g such that the SQL optimizer (the CBO) build his decision tree values based on estimated CPU costs. (This is why Oracle shops that are not 64-bit (I/O bound) will want to change the costing back to the earlier value of "_optimizer_cost_model"=io. The only reason for having a data buffer cache is to reduce the probability of having to re-read the data block repeatedly from disk. When we have no more disk, the data buffer becomes redundant. It would not surprise me if a future release of Oracle allowed for solid-state disks and removed the data buffer cache, but for now, the SSD block must be transferred into the data buffer to allow Oracle to manage the locks required for integrity and read consistency. If we think of the data buffer as nothing more than a place for Oracle to set locks, then we can understand why a smaller data buffer has faster performance. If we have duplicitous RAM (once on the SSD and yet again in db_cache_size), then we see higher management overhead from Oracle: Large data buffers take more time for standard management tasks (i.e. DBWR), and in many cases, smaller is better. Read more about Oracle SSD tuning as this article continues: http://oracle-tips.c.topica.com/maafS19abwE3mbIGPSxb/

怪文

From新郎

getting cold

Have been getting cold for two days. very uncomfortable.
.........
I just feel unhappy that why cannot she accept so basic a term. I believe what I do is for our best. I can sacrify much but I just cannot afford too further in career. Is it too difficult to understand?
Love is not let you lose everything, is not to just limit you on side.