Illumos is increasing in popularity, with currently available distributions such as:
SmartOS by Joyent - https://smartos.org/
OpenIndiana - OpenIndiana
NexentaStor (CE and Enterprise Edition) - Home - Nexenta
and others: Distributions - illumos - illumos wiki
My use case specifically, is SmartOS and Nexenta. I use SmartOS for virtualization, and Nexenta for NAS file storage hosting.
Our internal network is built with Mellanox Switches, specifically the SX1012's. With today's growing need and desire for high performance, low latency bandwidth, it won't be long before the 10G cards currently in use will be maxed out. It would be ideal if a Illumos driver for the Mellanox ConnectX-3 cards were available. Once a driver is made available and public, it can be certified by Illumos and other companies such as Nexenta.
This is a huge opportunity for Mellanox and their customers, as they can corner the Illumos market. Currently there are no 40G solutions for Illumos, and specifically Nexenta. Mellanox could stand to gain a lot of additional traction in the storage market, and I know I would be very happy to introduce 40G to our NAS appliances.
Thank you for your time.
Best Regards,
Kyle