"The OpenSolaris Grid"

  A proposal by Dennis Clarke

  Thursday 14 April 2005



Abstract :

The opportunity exists to easily foster an OpenSolaris  Community
which  is  based on the Blastwave model.  This open participation
model has a low barrier to entry and would allow  any  interested
developer  to readily join an existing Solaris Community and have
instant  access  to  the  OpenSolaris  source   in   its   native
environment  as  well  as  allow  for the creation and support of
OpenSolaris user groups at the same  time.   Each  user  will  be
granted  an  account  on a server with the name of a nearby large
city.  That city server  will  have  users  on  it  with  similar
language  and  cultural history.  The objective here is to easily
allow any user worldwide to  join  a  grid  of  OpenSolaris  Grid
servers and have access to everything and everybody that can help
him or her.  This  geographic  user  model  would  ensure  a  low
barrier  to  entry  into OpenSolaris and ensure that training and
support was available via local people. The side benefit is  that
any  OpenSolaris users group formed could be given resources from
one centrally managed community resource regardless of country of
origin or language barriers.

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Introduction :

    The  release  of   OpenSolaris   will   require   significant
marketing and open source community  involvement in order to be a
success.  The real measurement of success will be in the  ability
of  open  source developers to readily use the source and to make
contributions back to Sun for inclusion in Solaris. While no  one
expects  this success to happen overnight we may take a few steps
that will  ensure  early  adoption  by  open  source  developers.
Firstly  we  need  to  ensure that there is a very low barrier to
entry for any interested user. Secondly we  need  to  foster  and
support   a  sense  of  community  with  both  local  and  global
participation at the same time.  Any user that  wants  access  to
the  OpenSolaris code base need not buy equipment nor development
tools. They only need to join a local OpenSolaris group  via  the
"OpenSolaris Grid" described in this proposal.

The OpenSolaris Grid :

    The OpenSolaris Grid ( OSG )  will  consist  of  twenty  five
servers.   Each  will  have  the  name  of  a  major  city.   The
architecture of the servers can be either  x86  or  Sparc.   This
means  that we will have servers named Houston, New York, Dallas,
Toronto, and Paris for example.  Each server will run the  latest
shipping build of Solaris 10.  Storage for all of the servers may
be provided via a single network attached  storage  device.   The
OpenSolaris  source code will be available via a single read only
NFS share to all servers.  Each server will have the  latest  Sun
ONE  Studio 10 tools installed.  Clearly there will be a need for
code control and other details but the obvious idea  here  is  to
provide  a  network  of resources for any user that wants access.

    Any user may get an account on  the  "city  server"  that  is
geographically  nearest  to  them.  A user may choose a different
server in the beginning as some users may want to be  part  of  a
project in another city.  The OSG will be "open" in that any user
with an account on any server may also login to any other  server
but only as a visitor.  The user will be given all the tools that
they need to get started with development as well  as  access  to
other  users  of  the  OSG.  The users names and projects will be
listed in a single OSG web interface sorted  by  city  and  name.
Each  user  will  have a web presence on the OSG web server via a
blog or similar tool.  All of the documentation for the site will
be available also.

    Firstly I need to point out that The OpenSolaris Grid ( OSG )
will  not  be  a  software  repository  although it will have the
OpenSolaris source within it.  The OSG is not a web site although
there  will  be  a  website  involved.   The  OSG offers the same
service that Blastwave does only on a larger scale.  That  is  to
say,  a full development environment and desktop to the end user.
A user may login to the authentication and security portal of the
OSG  (  same  as  with  Blastwave  )  and then use SSH to allow X
session forwarding.  This means that the user  may  open  up  the
fully  graphical desktop and development applications remotely on
their home workstation as if they were "within" the  OSG.   Their
home  desktop  becomes  inside the OSG and they see and work with
the tools available there but without  the  ability  to  download
them.  ( This is much like a SunRay experience. )

    We are talking about "The Network is the Computer" on a grand
scale  and  with  the  internet  being  the  conduit for a unique
service that we could open up to the developer  community.   This
service  needs  to  be  managed and directed by the community and
needs to be outside of Sun in order for it to be taken  seriously
as an open source project. Nothing like it exists in the world of
open source.

    Personally, I take these things for granted.  I have  between
twelve  to  thirty users logged into the Blastwave build stack at
any moment.  Some of these developers do their work via  exported
xterms.   Some  will outright export the entire sunstudio session
to their home system.  In either case I  have  built  a  "service
grid"  that offers more than a software repository and a software
build environment  for  developers.  At  this  moment  there  are
developers logged into the build servers at Blastwave and moments
ago  we  released  rev  4.2.1  of  xfce  (  lightweight   Desktop
Environment http://www.xfce.org/ ) for testing at :

    http://www.blastwave.org/testing

    We also released the 13 packages for GCC rev  4.0.0  on  both
x86  and  Sparc  and right at this moment I am working with a few
people to create Unison version 2.10.2 which has a dependency  on
the  Objective CamL programming language.  Myself and a developer
in the jungles of Cameroon created the ocaml  package  yesterday.
I  have  a  request from a Sun engineer to create unison and I am
working on that as we speak.

    I should like to point out that the  programmer  in  Cameroon
has nothing more than a 56K modem ( at times ) and yet he is able
to work with the Blastwave build stack.  Not very fast but he  is
able  to use the tools offered there.  The OpenSolaris Grid would
be similar in function but with  a  vastly  upgraded  and  modern
infrastructure.

    The end result of this sort of grid is that each user will be
a  member  of  a  city  server  with  other members from the same
geographic area.  This  easily  extends  towards  support  of  an
OpenSolaris  Users  Group  in that area.  There should not be any
major language barriers on any given server and it seems  obvious
that  each city server will have a locale that is reasonable.  If
one simply uses low cost commodity  server  hardware  then  there
should  be  no  real  problem with creating a city server that is
near most large population centers of the world.

    The fee structure for access to the OSG should be designed to
recover  all  costs within a reasonable period of time.  A figure
of $100 USD is very much in line with the cost of access  to  the
Solaris  Express  program.   Thus we can expect that one thousand
users would cover the costs of all hardware.  The  service  level
agreement  must  be structured so that the OSG runs without undue
technical support burdens.  In an ideal circumstance the user  is
paying  for no more than a setup admin fee as well as development
tool license charge. The initial curiosity for  OpenSolaris  will
make  the  OSG  an  attractive idea to users that do not have the
necessary resources available to them.  This model has been  very
successful  for  the  open  source  project at Blastwave with the
obvious exception that no fees have ever been charged.   The  OSG
would  need  to offset its initial costs via the user access fee.
The only other fee would be for the possible creation of  a  Zone
for  a  user.   Again  this would need to be a very low figure in
order for it to be attractive to all users.

    The OSG would need to be created outside of Sun in order  for
it  to be seen as a community project that is truely "open".  The
OSG could be created as a non-profit partner corporation  and  it
would  return  revenue to in order to pay for setup costs. Also a
management fee would be collected by the OSG for its director and
minimal operational costs such as power, cooling and bandwidth.

Summary :

    The OSG would create a build server  stack  for  anyone  that
wants  access to the OpenSolaris source.  The barrier to entry is
quite low.  A simple one time fee grants the user access  to  the
source  code,  the  tools,  the  local  users  as  well as global
community.  Training  documentation  may  be  provided  and  most
obviously  the  computer  resources are provided.  This model has
been a great success for Blastwave.org.



                               Dennis Clarke
                               Director and Admin Blastwave.org
                               dclarke@blastwave.org