Device Support - Comparing Sun Solaris 8 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Technologies

Device Support
The support and management of devices within any server environment is a vital component of the operating system’s feature set. In addition to supporting multiple CPU and node clustering facilities, a modern OS should also provide support for enterprise-class storage devices and system health and performance monitoring technology.
For storage, support should include online storage facilities such as RAID hardware, near-line storage facilities offered by high-capacity removable media and the off-line storage supported by tape backup systems. Monitoring facilities should include the ability to track the physical environment—to ensure it is within working limits—and to monitor the power environment to avoid potentially disastrous effects of an imminent power failure.
In the modern data center, related system hardware such as networking equipment and peripherals, and the associated drivers and support software, need to be as resilient and reliable as the server hardware with which it is used. This means, for example, that a tape backup product should have software that is capable of being used in a time critical environment without risk of data loss.
Solaris 8 includes the ability to monitor the core components of any UltraSPARC-based system. This relies on special hardware solutions and the expensive Ultra server line. Individual failures are monitored, and where possible the OS takes appropriate action automatically. For example, if the temperature of a CPU module exceeds the defined range, Solaris can power it down and allocate the processing to another CPU.
The Enterprise Server 10000 (Starfire) goes one stage further by allowing an SMP server to be configured as one or more logical machines. The configuration, established via the Solaris Domain Manager, is dynamic and CPUs are allocated to individual pools as necessary. Although normally used to provide multiple services from a single fault-tolerant hardware platform, the system can also be used to provide redundancy to all the components within the system including processors, RAM and I/O cards, and devices.
Support for such technologies using Solaris on Intel hardware is limited. Disk storage solutions can be supported in software using the supplied Solaris DiskSuite. Solaris 8 provides built-in support for hardware RAID devices from Compaq, Digital, Dell, HP, and others. However, many of these systems require not only a separate configuration tool but also additional settings to be made in other parts of the OS for the RAID device to be usable. As a result, support is limited to products coming from the major suppliers, and many common and inexpensive RAID solutions are not supported.
In addition, there is no built-in support within Solaris for the advanced storage solutions such as removable storage or near-line storage libraries. Nor is there support for anything but the most basic of tape systems for backups. Although there are basic tools for monitoring the network and network performance, these tools are designed for monitoring the local system rather than monitoring the entire network.
Windows 2000 has one of the widest ranges of device support of any operating system. The Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) exist so that hardware and software makers can ensure that their products work with all versions of the Windows 2000 software. Products that pass the Hardware Compatibility Test (HCT) are placed onto the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). This ensures that users can immediately verify whether a product is approved for use with Windows 2000.
Furthermore, in the case of Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, there is a more stringent Datacenter HCL of products that have been thoroughly tested and proven to be compatible and highly reliable. By agreement, hardware components that are not on the Datacenter HCL can’t be sold with a Datacenter system. The partners that sell Windows 2000 Datacenter systems also have to ensure that all hardware drivers, kernel software, virus software, disk, tape and backup management software also be rigorously tested for Datacenter Server, helping to maintain highly dependable Datacenter systems.
Windows 2000 includes extensive support for many RAID systems from those incorporated into server systems from companies like Compaq and Hewlett-Packard, as well as RAID systems built into off-the-shelf motherboards and many RAID PCI card solutions. You can also use the Windows 2000 Disk Manager to create software-based RAID solutions.
Removable storage—ranging from Zip and Jaz drives to and Magneto-Optical libraries—are controlled using the same management console as other storage
facilities and become a part of the standard storage facilities. You can monitor and track the storage on multiple removable devices and share these devices remotely over the network.
Using the Distributed File System (DFS), all storage on the Windows 2000-based servers within a network can be made available under a single structure. The system is available irrespective of whether the servers are configured as a cluster. Also, the system enables a variety of storage mediums, from single disk drives to RAID arrays and removable storage to be made available across the entire network.
You can use the Windows 2000 Backup software to backup a machine without requiring any additional software, and support for a wide range of tape devices, including multi-tape libraries is built into the OS. You can also use the Windows 2000 Backup system with removable storage for archiving and hot-backups to reduce the downtime when backing up active databases and other services.
Windows 2000 includes technology for monitoring the internal systems of many standard hardware configurations. This allows Windows 2000-based systems to be monitored from a central console and problems such as overheating and device failures to be identified.
For power management, Windows 2000 can monitor the power supply on suitably configured systems and integrate Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) solutions. A Windows 2000-based system can be configured to lower the power usage of systems running on backup battery power. In the event of imminent power failure, the system can be put to sleep, ready to awake when power is restored or shutdown. A summary of device support is shown in Table 2 below.
Table 2: Device Support
|
Feature
|
Solaris 8
|
Windows 2000
|
Platform
|
SPARC
|
Intel
|
Intel
|
RAID Storage (Software)
|
Y
|
Y
|
Y
|
RAID Storage (Hardware)
|
N
|
Limited
|
Y
|
Removable Storage
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
Near-line Library Storage
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
Distributed Storage
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
Backup Device Support
|
Limited
|
Limited
|
Y
|
Tape Library Support
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
Environmental Monitoring
|
Y
|
N
|
Y
|
Power Management
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
UPS Monitoring
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|