Joyent's value proposition was killed (for the most part) by the experience of using their public interface. It would've taken a great deal of bravery to try that and decide a local install would be better. The node thing also did a lot of damage - Joyent wrote a lot of the SmartOS/Triton command line tools in node so they were slow as hell. Triton itself is a very non-trivial install although quite probably less so than a complete k8s rig.
There are also some really subtle Linux compatibility problems. For instance: IIRC a SmartOS malloc will not fail. Ever. But it might not return either. There's a really complicated mark/sweep type virtual memory thing and the documentation is good, for the nasty node stuff, and kinda terrible otherwise.
Finally, and with no lack of irony, you just can't run SmartOS on the cloud. For a start it needs to do its first boot off a CD and subsequent boots off a USB drive-type-arrangement. The hard part is that most cloud providers run a butchered Linux kernel and not a fully generalised VM - and on vultr at least, while they run a proper VM, for some reason the processors don't "come up".
I've not looked at all this stuff for at least a year so it may have changed. Either which way I believe the majority of the community is now on OmniOS - which I always got on better with anyway.
Actually I'd say the Triton install is not only trivial, but should be a model for other similar systems. During my testing with Intel NUCs, I had a usable system deploying containers in under 20 minutes. Most managed Kubernetes systems cannot even provision in that time frame.
> you just can't run SmartOS on the cloud.
The installer may lead you to the USB and install path, but it is not necessary. I built Vagrant boxes that had SmartOS on a regular disk, and I believe that more recently SmartOS has been running well in GCP. There is no reason it could not run in AWS or Azure, either.
> Most managed Kubernetes systems cannot even provision in that time frame.
when was the last time you used k8s?!
I mean as of now there is even the expirmental k3os which boots a fully fledged k8s in seconds. you can even built a cluster with it. sadly HA backplane is still not available since k3s is still early in its development.
I'm talking here about the managed Kubernetes offerings from AWS and Azure. As for when I last used them: waiting for provisioning right now (18 mins and counting) is affording me the time to comment on this article.
The total time to install across 4 hosts was probably 15 mins or so. There used to be a post on the Joyent blog that explained the setup for small scale, I'm not sure if it is still there.
"For a start it needs to do its first boot off a CD and subsequent boots off a USB drive-type-arrangement."
No it does not. I boot my SmartOS instances with PXE, DHCP and TFTP from the network. Served by a Solaris 10 intel server, no less. No CD's or USB images anywhere in sight.
In fact, I came up with a trifecta scheme where three SmartOS servers will all run TFTP and DHCP servers, thus being able to boot each other and all the other SmartOS servers over the network. In the event where all three would lose power simultaneously, THEN I reach for a USB stick with the emergency boot image. And I'll have two of those. But barring such catastrophic loss of power simultaneously, there won't be any CD's or USB sticks needed.
There are also some really subtle Linux compatibility problems. For instance: IIRC a SmartOS malloc will not fail. Ever. But it might not return either. There's a really complicated mark/sweep type virtual memory thing and the documentation is good, for the nasty node stuff, and kinda terrible otherwise.
Finally, and with no lack of irony, you just can't run SmartOS on the cloud. For a start it needs to do its first boot off a CD and subsequent boots off a USB drive-type-arrangement. The hard part is that most cloud providers run a butchered Linux kernel and not a fully generalised VM - and on vultr at least, while they run a proper VM, for some reason the processors don't "come up".
I've not looked at all this stuff for at least a year so it may have changed. Either which way I believe the majority of the community is now on OmniOS - which I always got on better with anyway.