4 ms·

Disclaimer: I work at Joyent, the company behind SmartOS, an illumos distribution. I would say that you've made the right choice with ZFS (natch). I think Fre

Disclaimer: I work at Joyent, the company behind SmartOS, an illumos distribution. I would say that you've made the right choice with ZFS (natch). I think FreeBSD, OmniOS and other illumos distributions like SmartOS are all good choices for Postgres on ZFS, albeit for different reasons -- and it will depend on things such as comfort level, the need for other technologies like zones, etc. One additional option to be aware of: we in the illumos community are very actively working on a Linux personality for illumos[1], allowing virtualized Linux to be run within an illumos (SmartOS, OmniOS, etc.) zone. This technology is quite far along (e.g., [2]), and we at Joyent intend on deploying it into production this quarter. It might not match your timeframe, but it's something to keep an eye on: it gives you the repo of record for ZFS but with the same comfort level that you have with Linux -- and features like DTrace and mdb as gravy. [1] http://www.slideshare.net/bcantrill/illumos-lx http://www.slideshare.net/bcantrill/illumos-lx [2] https://twitter.com/bcantrill/status/555143487482368000 https://twitter.com/bcantrill/status/555143487482368000

bsg75 12y ago
In my case, a Linux personality is not a terribly interesting feature. All of my existing code and apps run on BSD, and FreeBSD is comfortable enough. What I am looking for is a solid ZFS implementation, a stable OS, and performance (IO and CPU). Jails may not be of too much use in my particular scenario. Data warehousing means aggregation queries running over large sets of on disk data, which is the area I need best of breed support for.
- bcantrill 12y ago
  Then I think you want to look very seriously at illumos: the ARC alone is a huge win, and it remains the repository of record for both ZFS and DTrace (which, if you care about performance, is important to you).
  - bsg75 12y ago
    Any input on which distro? SmartOS is interesting, but seems to be more of a hypervisor / container for multi-tennancy? Looking for a single server implementation with good package support. OmniOS / OpenIndiana / ... ?
    - bcantrill 12y ago
      OmniOS should be perfect for you: designed for traditional server installs and with good package support. Hit me (@bcantrill), @postwait or @danmcd up on twitter or drop into #illumos on Freenode if you run into turbulence!
      - _delirium 12y ago
        > good package support I'll admit my OmniOS experience is quite minimal, but this was one thing I found frustrating about it. IMO the SmartOS packaging situation, with ~13,000 binary packages available via pkgsrc/pkgin, is a lot nicer. OmniOS seems to have <1k packages available via IPS, and be more geared towards the kind of corporate scenario where you install the base OS and then build/deploy your own in-house set of application packages. (That's a perfectly legitimate scenario too, but pretty different from the pkgsrc/ports/apt style.)
        bsg75 12y ago
        Can the Joyent package repo be added to OmniOS? http://pkgsrc.joyent.com/installing.html http://pkgsrc.joyent.com/installing.html
        _delirium 12y ago
        Ah that's a good point, I hadn't thought to try that. It looks like Joyent makes sure to build their binary packages so they're self-contained and will work on any Illumos distribution, which is pretty cool.

bsg75 12y ago

In my case, a Linux personality is not a terribly interesting feature. All of my existing code and apps run on BSD, and FreeBSD is comfortable enough. What I am looking for is a solid ZFS implementation, a stable OS, and performance (IO and CPU). Jails may not be of too much use in my particular scenario. Data warehousing means aggregation queries running over large sets of on disk data, which is the area I need best of breed support for.

bcantrill 12y ago
Then I think you want to look very seriously at illumos: the ARC alone is a huge win, and it remains the repository of record for both ZFS and DTrace (which, if you care about performance, is important to you).
- bsg75 12y ago
  Any input on which distro? SmartOS is interesting, but seems to be more of a hypervisor / container for multi-tennancy? Looking for a single server implementation with good package support. OmniOS / OpenIndiana / ... ?
  - bcantrill 12y ago
    OmniOS should be perfect for you: designed for traditional server installs and with good package support. Hit me (@bcantrill), @postwait or @danmcd up on twitter or drop into #illumos on Freenode if you run into turbulence!
    - _delirium 12y ago
      > good package support I'll admit my OmniOS experience is quite minimal, but this was one thing I found frustrating about it. IMO the SmartOS packaging situation, with ~13,000 binary packages available via pkgsrc/pkgin, is a lot nicer. OmniOS seems to have <1k packages available via IPS, and be more geared towards the kind of corporate scenario where you install the base OS and then build/deploy your own in-house set of application packages. (That's a perfectly legitimate scenario too, but pretty different from the pkgsrc/ports/apt style.)
      - bsg75 12y ago
        Can the Joyent package repo be added to OmniOS? http://pkgsrc.joyent.com/installing.html http://pkgsrc.joyent.com/installing.html
        _delirium 12y ago
        Ah that's a good point, I hadn't thought to try that. It looks like Joyent makes sure to build their binary packages so they're self-contained and will work on any Illumos distribution, which is pretty cool.