Solaris Virtualization


 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users Solaris Virtualization
# 1  
Old 08-28-2019
Solaris Virtualization

Hello All,

To start with, I am not an expert of solaris and VMs. Unfortunately, I can't find a direct or understandable (at least to me) answer to my question online. So please, excuse me if my question will sound dumb to you. Smilie

We have 2 remaining solaris 8 servers are on sparc architecture. They cannot be discarded because of some tools that can only run in solaris. Can these solaris 8 servers be virtualized? If not, why?

Really hope to hear from any of you on this.

Thank you very much in advance!

Last edited by forextrafun; 08-28-2019 at 02:50 AM..
# 2  
Old 08-28-2019
I assume by 'virtualize" you mean you want to run Solaris 8 ( now running on SPARC64) in an x86 architecture.

Have you looked at QEMU?


Quote:
QEMU is a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer.
You can read the details about the QEMU Sparc32 emulator here:

Code:
https://qemu.weilnetz.de/doc/qemu-doc.html#Sparc32-System-emulator

You can read the details about the QEMU Sparc64 emulator here:

Code:
https://qemu.weilnetz.de/doc/qemu-doc.html#Sparc64-System-emulator

Wikipedia:

Quote:
QEMU (short for Quick Emulator) is a free and open-source emulator that performs hardware virtualization.

QEMU is a hosted virtual machine monitor: it emulates the machine's processor through dynamic binary translation and provides a set of different hardware and device models for the machine, enabling it to run a variety of guest operating systems. It also can be used with KVM to run virtual machines at near-native speed (by taking advantage of hardware extensions such as Intel VT-x). QEMU can also do emulation for user-level processes, allowing applications compiled for one architecture to run on another.
QEMU Wiki:

Quote:
QEMU is a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer.

When used as a machine emulator, QEMU can run OSes and programs made for one machine (e.g. an ARM board) on a different machine (e.g. your own PC). By using dynamic translation, it achieves very good performance.

When used as a virtualizer, QEMU achieves near native performance by executing the guest code directly on the host CPU. QEMU supports virtualization when executing under the Xen hypervisor or using the KVM kernel module in Linux. When using KVM, QEMU can virtualize x86, server and embedded PowerPC, 64-bit POWER, S390, 32-bit and 64-bit ARM, and MIPS guests.
This User Gave Thanks to Neo For This Post:
# 3  
Old 08-28-2019
Do you have any other Sparc platforms??? You can virtualize Solaris 8 on a Solaris 10 platform. The requirement to move a Solaris 8 system off creaking hardware that might fail is quite common and this is well catered for. However, you need to know the Sun/Oracle terminology for all this stuff in order to find the necessary information on the web. I can detail all this in a following post if you have other more modern Sparc hardware that you want to move to. If you don't, then I'd be wasting me time in doing that.

Yes, QEMU as suggested by Neo is an option but, in my experience, using emulation (to translate the Sparc instruction set into x86 instructions) is very slow and a bit of a nightmare to configure. In many situations it's not practical.

So question is, what more modern Sparc hardware do you have?
This User Gave Thanks to hicksd8 For This Post:
# 4  
Old 08-28-2019
--- Post updated at 03:36 AM ---

Quote:
Originally Posted by hicksd8
Do you have any other Sparc platforms??? You can virtualize Solaris 8 on a Solaris 10 platform. The requirement to move a Solaris 8 system off creaking hardware that might fail is quite common and this is well catered for. However, you need to know the Sun/Oracle terminology for all this stuff in order to find the necessary information on the web. I can detail all this in a following post if you have other more modern Sparc hardware that you want to move to. If you don't, then I'd be wasting me time in doing that.

Yes, QEMU as suggested by Neo is an option but, in my experience, using emulation (to translate the Sparc instruction set into x86 instructions) is very slow and a bit of a nightmare to configure. In many situations it's not practical.

So question is, what more modern Sparc hardware do you have?
Unfortunately, we don't have Solaris 10 platform. Smilie Currently, our server is working fine but because this is an old server, I am already looking into the possibility of this server breaking up soon. I have to talk to the engineers on alternatives for their tools so they can also start looking. Also, as Neo suggested, we will take a look also on this emulator.

Again, thank you for the suggestion and help. Smilie

Last edited by forextrafun; 08-29-2019 at 03:36 AM..
# 5  
Old 08-29-2019
If you get a high end x86 machine (which are not expensive) running a modern era emulator, they will more-than-likely out perform a very old Sparc machine.

In addition, it depends on the application and what the application is designed to do. I would not worry too much about performance before you actually build and test. You might find your application on a modern X86 machine running an emulator out performs your old Sparc machine Smilie

You can easily build one and test it yourself before you deploy it.
This User Gave Thanks to Neo For This Post:
# 6  
Old 08-29-2019
Or, if you have to acquire hardware anyway, you could get a cheap Sparc box capable of running Solaris 10 (Solaris 8 virtualization is not support under Solaris 11) and virtualize both your Solaris 8 systems on the same box.
# 7  
Old 08-29-2019
Quote:
Originally Posted by hicksd8
Or, if you have to acquire hardware anyway, you could get a cheap Sparc box capable of running Solaris 10 (Solaris 8 virtualization is not support under Solaris 11) and virtualize both your Solaris 8 systems on the same box.
That's a creative thought, but I don't think that accomplishes what forextrafun wants to do.

He already has two Sparc boxes (EOS 2012) he wants to get rid of as part of his consolidation efforts, because he says, "2 remaining solaris 8 servers are on sparc architecture".

Replacing two obsolete Sparc boxes (EOS 2012) with two Sparc boxes may not help him if his goal (in the first post) to get rid of his "last two remaining Sparc boxes.".

I think he wants to get completely off Sparc architecture completely and consolidate on X86 (assumed in my first reply), based on this first post and follow up replies. That is why he wants to "virtualize", I think; but since he did not state that clearly, it's hard to tell his ultimate motivation.

However, if they continue to run and support other Sparc servers, then virtualizing Solaris 8 on Solaris 10 might be a great idea, for sure, since Solaris 10 is EOS 2024.
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

9 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Virtualization and Cloud Computing

Virtualization on vmware

Got tired of messing around with real hardware old and others.. Decided to spend some $$ for a QUAD-core dual cpu laptop with 8 gig of ram and 1 TB disk space.. running VMware workstation 10 on windows 8.0 , with a pair of solx86 vcs 5.1 cluster and a pair of rhel 6.4 vcs 6.x cluster.. ... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: ppchu99
0 Replies

2. Solaris

solaris virtualization

Hi everyone, I have ten servers with solaris (diffrent versions). there is solaris 10, solaris 6 and solaris 8. some are SPARC and some are x86 I would like to move them to one server so they all will be virtual. Is it possible? how? (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: bregtux
4 Replies

3. Virtualization and Cloud Computing

Virtualization problems

Hi everyone. Last week we have some hardware problems in our Unixware 7 server, and i decided to change this physical machine into a virtual machine. The scenario is: architecture=IA32 bus_types=PCI2.10,ISA,PnP1.0 hostname=tecsup2uw.tecsupaqp.edu hw_provider=Generic AT... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: danilosevilla
1 Replies

4. Red Hat

Redhat Virtualization 2.2

Hi Friends, Is there any one who is working on Redhat Virtualization (RHEV -- KVM)? Regards, Arumon (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: arumon
4 Replies

5. HP-UX

Virtualization Software

Hello peopel I am interesting in implement a virtualization system on HP-UX v3. I have some Integrity servers with this OS installed but I want to virtualize one of them because I have a problem that has no solution in HP-UX and I have to install RedHat for this reason. Then I don't know what... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: Lekram
1 Replies

6. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Virtualization Related Help!!

Hi, My script needs to find out if it is running on a virtual machine. If it is then it needs to find out. 1 . The number of virtual processors. 2 . Actual physical box onto which the virtual machine is hosted. 3 .Processors on the physical machine. Actually there are some commands like... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: prasi_in
1 Replies

7. Virtualization and Cloud Computing

Hardware virtualization

Hello to all In my organization we want to pass to move the systems to an virtualized environment, nevertheless, considering the absence of resources, the idea is to acquire the versers and that the department (I) do the facilities, tests, etc. Wearing out the possible minimal cost in... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: aalvarez77
1 Replies

8. Virtualization and Cloud Computing

Virtualization problem

Hi, I am having a virtualization problem with a machine that runs on Fedora Core 4. I created a IDE virtual machine running FEDORA CORE 4. Then I restored the original servers partition one by one. Everything works until I restore root. Then When I load up I get mount: error 6 mounting ext3... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: mojoman
1 Replies

9. Solaris

Virtualization with Solaris 10

Hello all, For my internship assignment I have a Sunfire 880 at my disposal for comparing virtualization with the normal mostly Windows based servers in the company. Are there any applications like VirtualBox or Vmware that can be used on a Sparc-system equipped with Solaris 10? I tried... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: regi86
1 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question