Cistera Enterprise OS 4

Cistera Enterprise Operating System v.4, released in November 2005, provides significant technology enhancements over the previous OS 9 release. Areas of specific development include improvements in security capabilities, increased server performance and scalability, and enhanced database management. Cistera Enterprise OS supports the CCS 1500 and CCS 2500 Convergence Servers.

Linux 2.6 kernel infrastructure

Cistera Enterprise OS v.4 provides the most stable and robust commercial product based on the Linux community's 2.6.9 kernel. Open source projects such as Fedora provided an environment for the Linux 2.6 kernel to mature significantly during 2004. As a result, the Cistera Enterprise OS v.4 kernel offers numerous improvements over earlier kernels, including many enhanced algorithms and features:

• Generic logical CPU scheduler: Handles multi-core and hyperthreaded CPUs.
• Object-based Reverse Mapping VM: Improved performance in memory constrained systems.
• Read Copy Update: SMP algorithm optimization for operating system data structures.
• Multiple I/O schedulers: Selectable based on the application environment.
  * Enhanced SMP & NUMA support: Improved performance and scalability for large servers.
• Network interrupt mitigation (NAPI): Improved performance for heavy network loads.

Improved storage and file system capabilities

Numerous enhancements have been incorporated into Cistera Enterprise OS v.4 that improve the scalability and performance of the data storage subsystems, including:

• Ext3 performance: Block Reservations and Hash Tree Directories improve the performance of read/write I/O and directory scanning operations.
• Ext3 scalability: Dynamic file system expansion and file system sizes up to 8TB are now supported.
• Logical Volume Management: A comprehensive update to the LVM provides new features such as read/write snapshots and transactional metadata updates, along with a flexible new management GUI.
• Scalability: Enhanced storage LUN management makes it possible to configure much larger storage subsystems.
• Automounting: The inclusion of AutoFSv4 provides sophisticated device access control, supporting features such as browsable mounts and replicated servers.
• Cost reduction: Support for Serial ATA disk storage provides increased performance, higher densities, and reduced cost per megabyte over traditional IDE devices.

New security capabilities

Provision of sophisticated security capabilities has been a specific development focus of the Cistera Enterprise OS v.4 release. New features include:

• Mandatory Access Control: Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) provides a MAC infrastructure that complements the existing Discretionary Access Control security features provided by the standard Linux environment. In a MAC-based environment, application capabilities and privileges are set by predefined policies and enforced by the kernel. This prevents errant applications from compromising system security.
• Memory management enhancements: Several features, including Exec Shield and Position Independent Executables, combine to prevent applications from being exploited by attacks such as buffer overflows.
• Compile and runtime consistency checking: New buffer validation techniques in the GCC compiler and Glibc library greatly reduce the risk of faulty applications being compromised.

Enhanced Database Engine

Cistera EOS 4 has provides support for active clusters in a Call Manager Clustered environment for many years. This functionality has been extended to include clustering capability for Application Services for IPT.

When multiple sites need access to the same data, providing replicated copies of the data at each local site reduces network traffic and improves response times. Also, by distributing the users over more than one machine, the load on any single machine is reduced, overcoming system bottlenecks.

If a node in the network becomes unavailable, replicated changes to be sent to that node are queued in order and are sent when the node comes back online. You can also configure Ingres Replicator Option so that if a particular machine fails, users can switch to another machine and continue working. If two databases do become inconsistent, Ingres Replicator Option has procedures for reconciling them that work in conjunction with the normal recovery procedures. Because your data exists in more than one location, loss of data on one machine is not catastrophic.

Based on the award winning Ingres Enterprise r3 database, the Cistera Convergence Server now offers unparallel enterprise scalability for Internet Telephony Environments. From the Multi master replication engine to the Highly Available clusters, no other Convergence Server offers as much for the Small Medium Business, Mid Market and Enterprise IPT user.

Scalable Server Architecture

With Ingres, systems can grow to meet user demands without rewrites or modification. The same application will run smoothly on a single-processor desktop system or multiprocessor enterprise servers.

Intelligent Optimizer

Ingres delivers optimum performance by generating query execution plans based on the statistical characteristics of the data.

Flexible Backup and Recovery

Data integrity is ensured with transaction journaling and the ability to back up data online or offline. Recovery can be to a chosen point in time for all transactions in the defined recovery period or for a more confined subset of transaction activity.

Active Cluster Support

Ingres has provided support for active clusters in an OpenVMS environment for many years. This functionality has been extended to include Linux distributions capable of supporting clusters. It allows a system’s workload to be spread across the nodes of a cluster. If one node fails, the remaining ones continue processing to avoid loss of service. Ingres exploits this capability and automatically balances the load across the various nodes in the cluster.

High-Availability Cluster Support

This is a new capability that is available on Cistera CCS 1500 and CCS2500 platforms. High-availability clusters offer failover support in the event of a node going down. Should Ingres fail on a node, it will be automatically restarted. Should the node running Ingres fail, the database will be started on an alternative node in the cluster.