Data Center Linux (DCL), one of four OSDL initiatives, has the goal to accelerate Linux adoption in corporate data centers. DCL provides a center of gravity for developers, users, vendors, and the open source community to work together to improve Linux capabilities and feature requirements, accelerating the development and adoption of Linux in the data center.

As is the case with the Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) initiative, many OSDL member companies, organizations, and individuals are involved with the DCL initiative with a special focus on services, databases, and DCL mission-critical applications.

To get the best coverage of DCL, I had the opportunity to interview Steve Geary, director of Linux R&D at HP, and the steering committee chairman of the OSDL DCL working group. In this interview, Steve discusses the DCL initiative, how work is being organized, and the relationship of DCL with other initiatives, the DCL technical capabilities document, and much more.

What is the goal of the Data Center Linux Initiative?
The goal of the Data Center Working Group is to accelerate the use of Linux in enterprise-class data centers. The working group captures, discusses, publishes, develops, validates, and monitors the Linux capabilities that are required for its use in enterprise data centers and by enterprise- class applications such as high-end OLTP and decision support.

The DCL Technical Capabilities v1.0 document is the work of current OSDL member companies and interested individuals. Together with industry leaders and end users, the group identifies Linux capabilities and assembles them into a prioritized list. This initial work, and its future updates, is intended to serve as a focusing and accelerating beacon for enterprise-class Linux development efforts. The DCL also works with the OSS development community (among OSDL member companies and nonmembers alike) to facilitate projects and get code written based on the capability needs captured in the document.

How will the DCL initiative improve Linux?
This initiative is unique in its contribution to Linux. It is the center of gravity for vendor and end-user Linux interests and creates an environment where commercial interests can participate collectively as full members of the community; making sure, if you will, that commercial interests and influence isn't "forked." As a full member of the community, DCL is improving Linux for the enterprise just as any community member advances his or her own interests within the community - by respected contributions. Our technical contribution to date has been to collect and unify Linux enterprise needs and map them to existing open source projects or identify the needs as current gaps and publish the results. Within the set of identified needs, we also chose initial projects we are currently contributing to.

 
Steve Geary, Director of Linux R&D at HP

In my opinion, the value of unifying and publishing enterprise needs should not be underestimated as a real contribution to Linux as an industry. This unification facilitates collaboration where competition does not provide higher value or differentiation, supporting accelerated Linux innovation.

Who is contributing to the ongoing work, and how is work being coordinated?
Contributing members come from a cross section of the Linux open source ecosystem: system vendors, distributors, ISVs, and end users. Each has a unique perspective and brings different resources to bear. A list of OSDL membership can be found on OSDL's Web site, www.osdl.org.

The only real measure of success for the DCL Working Group is an increase in deployment of Linux in the data center. While the core definitions and areas of activity within DCL are driven by this cross section of the industry, efforts are focused on the interests of Linux customers. With this customer-needs orientation, DCL member companies are engaging their community-focused engineers and working with the Linux development community to identify the best way to business harden Linux for the data center.

DCL technical work is coordinated by a technical subcommittee. Discussions related to development happen on both DCL-specific mailing lists composed of member companies, and on a number of open mailing lists, several of which are hosted at OSDL. As discussions converge toward a set of viable implementations, the core technical team validates the requirements and encourages development toward those solutions. The validation effort includes a set of actual enterprise system users, the vendors' marketing and ISV relations' teams, the distributions, and the engineering teams of the member companies. The encouragement is directed at the member companies engineering staff (including those of the major Linux distributions), as well as appropriate external open source communities interested in a particular subtopic.

Are there any partnerships or collaborations between DCL and other industry organizations/initiatives?
OSDL is engaged with many OSS/Linux organizations that are collectively focused on the same goal of accelerating the use of Linux. These organizations include The Free Software Group, which manages the Linux Standards Base, AeA, SA Forum, and several others. These ongoing industry relationships help inform all of OSDL's working groups.

What is DCL doing at the enterprise application level?
One of the priority areas for DCL for 2004 was to capture requirements for enterprise class ISVs and determine targeted ways to accelerate Linux application growth in that area. OSDL believes that by better communication and coordination between ISVs, Linux distributions and system vendors will have a very positive effect on Linux adoption. We initiated an ISV forum where ISVs, both members and nonmembers, are invited to discuss with the DCL membership what Linux needs they have and what requirements Linux would need to meet in order for them to provide a Linux-based solution. In addition, OSDL believes that an increasingly robust Linux Standards Base (LSB) against which distributions and applications can be certified will also accelerate Linux adoption. As such, our activity is very much aligned with LSB, and LSB members are part of the DCL membership.

OSDL is also hosting the Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) and Desktop Linux (DTL) initiative. Are there any common areas of interest? How is that being coordinated?
OSDL has identified a number of areas of commonality between its three working group initiatives. In areas where there is significant technical overlap between initiatives, OSDL has created Special Interest Groups (SIGs) where these issues are discussed independent of a specific initiative. Currently there are three SIGs up and running: A Storage Networking SIG, which covers direct attached storage, network attached storage, and nearly all models for accessing storage; a Security SIG covering aspects of security common to all of the Working Groups; and a Hot Plug SIG focused on CPU, memory, I/O bus, and node hot plug capabilities. Additional SIGs have been proposed and are under consideration.

The goal of the SIGs is to provide a mechanism for gathering input from all corners of the OSS community: both members of OSDL and nonmembers/individuals alike. Input from the OSDL-sponsored SIGs help with technical feature/function gap analysis. The SIGs also help ensure that actions to close these gaps are done in a uniform, cross-initiative fashion within OSDL working groups and with the community. The SIGs are not intended to replace existing open community efforts in these areas, but rather to ensure that Linux-based solutions are created that fit the needs of the initiatives. Expect the number of SIGs to grow in the future.

What are some of the more interesting highlights of the DCL Technical Capabilities document that the DCL WG has released?
All of the priority one categories are worth reviewing and understanding. They include scalability, RAS (reliability, availability, and serviceability), performance, manageability, clusters, standards, securing, and usability.

Some key areas where DCL has had some influence include contributions to hardening crash dump utilities that enable first-time failure data capture and analysis. Having crash dump utilities available is a high-availability feature within the large data center environments, where any interruption to the services provided by the servers is unacceptable. These utilities weren't initially developed as high-availability features where problem resolution efficiency is paramount. Another key area where we've seen positive changes is in persistent device naming. As systems grow and interconnect in large SAN environments, this becomes critical to successfully managing a system and application in the data center environment. These are just a few examples of some of the key areas with the DCL technical capabilities that are getting the attention they need via the working group forums provided by the OSDL focus groups.

Are there any source code contributions from the members of the DCL initiative into the Linux kernel?
Definitely. OSDL and many of its member companies employ software engineers who are also active members of the Linux development community. A number of DCL requirements have been and are being addressed by those company/community members. These requirements include a large number of disk drive support, HotPlug support, and NFS V4 development, among others.

How important is it for DCL to have people involved from the kernel community? What kind of feedback would you like to receive?
It's absolutely critical for the various communities to be able to interact and work together on forging solutions that are acceptable to all of the communities. These include the vendor community, the ISV community, and the end user community just as much as the kernel community and many other open source Linux communities beyond the kernel. One of the goals of the OSDL is to build a bridge between these communities, allowing them to share their experiences, needs, solutions, and, in many cases, development, testing, documentation, and performance analysis resources. The DCL Working Group is trying hard to increase communication between these often very distinct communities.

Open Invitation to Participate

Participation in the DCL initiative is open for all. To read more, contribute, or get involved in DCL, please visit www.osdl.org/lab_activities/data_center_linux.

About Steve Geary
Stephen Geary, director, Worldwide Linux R&D, is responsible for overseeing HP's Linux technical strategy, Linux support for HP's Integrity Servers, integrated Linux-based solutions for various markets, and HP's Open Source Program Office. Stephen also has direct responsibility in developing HP's overall Linux and open source strategies. Stephen has active roles with the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) and the Linux Standards Base (LSB). Stephen chairs the Data Center Linux Steering Group and is a member of the Carrier Grade Steering Group for the Carrier Grade Linux effort.