Using Sun Storage VirtualBox as a real production server

Hi,

Sun Storage VirtualBox simulator is a virtual machine which gives you a practical hands on how to use the real Sun open storage solution. you can download it direct from www.sun.com

In contrast, it's Solaris OS with new shell to focus on storage services only.

Therefore, you can play a little with it.

I did something good with Sun Storage VirtualBox simulator. In fact, i put it in production environment.
You can use any machine with 4GB RAM, two nerwork ports, and SATA or SCSI interfaces.

The first limitation on the storage virtualbox; it's only 28GB total storage as it comes with around 15x2GB virtual disks.

Second, it comes with only one network interface and 1GB memory allocated.

Thanks to sun virtual box product, you can modify all of these specs to allow more disks and memory.

What I did, I removed all the virtusl disks except the first one (SATA port0) which is the OS
itself on 10GB disk.

Then, i used attached sun SCSI enclosure which holds 6x36GB SCSI disks.

With VBoxManage command, i linked each disk to a virtual vmdk disk.

At the end, I had 6x36GB virtual disks with vmdk extension.

The remainig procedures are as easy as attaching the disks to SATA ports in sequence after SATA port0.

Also modify the total memory to 2GB will increase the performance.

Then add new network interface to be bridged directly to any unused real interface in order to gain the full throughput from it.

After starting your virtual machine, the Box may generate error regarding the old pool, you can igore it and reconfigure your pool in order to scan the new disks.

In my case , i made striped volume with 200GB data storage. the performance it really fast and amazing.
Another thing , you can turn the http web server on the storage which used for browsing files to real web server if you just add index.html on any folder :-)