ZFS on root in Ubuntu 19.10

Ubuntu 19.10

Just read about ZFS making it into Ubuntu 19.10 installer as an experimental feature here, sounds pretty cool!

What is ZFS?

ZFS (originally called Zettabyte File System) is a revolutionary filesystem introduced by Sun Microsystems in 2005. ZFS took a few years to crystallise and was eventually shipped with Solaris 10 in 2009. It brought a number of fresh ideas to the world of enterprise storage and ZFS management of filesystems:

  • new parity checking modes, even more reliable than RAID5/RAID6
  • storage pool that can consist of different sized disks (typically you expect all disks to be of the same size and model)
  • self-healing
  • extra focus on the data consistency on disk – meaning ZFS caters for typical software and hardware errors
  • smart implementation and use of filesystem journaling
  • snapshots
  • data deduplication

ZFS in Ubuntu 19.10

To be clear, this is big deal not because ZFS is finally available in Ubuntu – it’s been around for quite some time thanks to the ZFS on Linux project. But this is the first time native support will be available in Ubuntu installer and also allow you to not just ZFS enable data disks but use it for root partition.

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Veritas Infoscale Availability

I have just started my next full time contract with a major integrator here in Dublin in a capacity of Senior Linux and Solaris engineer.

It is quite fun to refresh my Solaris knowledge and to pick it up where I left off:

  • explore Solaris 10 to Solaris 11 migrations
  • catch up on major software package upgrades (like Veritas)
  • revisit zones and LDOM management
  • refresh ZFS commands

I didn’t know, but Veritas has moved away from Symantec in recent years and biggest offerings are now rebranded as Veritas Infoscale. So Veritas Cluster Server is now Veritas Infoscale Availability.

Can’t wait to learn what improvements or new features are there in Infoscale, but also hope most of my VCS and VSF command line knowledge still works!

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