Oracle Solaris 11

Oracle Corporation has announced Oracle Solaris 11, the first cloud OS.

Below is the summary of key features/benefits of Oracle (cloud) Operating System.

User Environment

• Popular Open Source Software Packages - Java SE 6 and 7, GCC 4.5.2, Python 2.7, Perl 5.12, Ruby 1.8.7, PHP 5.2.17 and complete web stack
• Enhanced Desktop Environment
• Default $PATH and User Familiarity
• Default Shell - bash shell for users
• Removable Media
• New Sound System
• Search for Content in Manual Pages
• Virtual Console Terminals
• Time Slider Snapshot Management
• CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System) Printing
• libc Familiarity
• paths.h Path Name Definitions
• Locales and Languages
• TrueType Fonts

Installation

Installation of Solaris 11 or upgradation/migration to Solaris 11 made easier.

• Automated Installer
• Jumpstart Migration Utility
• Interactive Text Installations
• Live Media Installation
• Distribution Constructor

Packaging

No more patching! when installing & updating software, IPS manages dependencies and image instances to keep installations running smoothly.

• Image Packaging System (IPS)
• SVR4 Package Compatibility

Virtualization/Zones

Oracle Solaris 11 virtualization enables the deployment of less hardware to perform the work that used to be distributed among many hardware systems.

• Oracle Solaris 10 Zones
• Zone Physical-to-Virtual (p2v) and Virtual-to-Virtual (v2v) Pre-flight Checker
• NFS Server in a Zone
• Exclusive-IP Zones by Default
• Automatic VNIC (virtual network interface controller) Creation for Zones
• Administer Network Flows within Non-Global Zones
• Delegated Administration
• Zone Boot Environments (ZBE)
• Improved Zones Dataset Layout
• Immutable Zones
• Shutdown Zones Cleanly with zoneadm
• Monitoring a Zone with zonestat
• Zones Statistics Library, libzonestat

Storage

Oracle Solaris 11, with it's File system, DTrace and predictive self-healing features, ensures that the cloud's services are always available.

• ZFS (Zone File System) Dataset Encryption
• Save Space with ZFS
• ZFS Shadow Migration
• ZFS Backup with NDMP (Network Data Management Protocol)
• Temporary ZFS Mounts
• ZFS Snapshot Alias
• Recursive ZFS Send
• ZFS Diffs
• NFSv4 Client and Server Migration Support
• Built-in CIFS (Common Internet File System) for Microsoft Interoperability
• DTrace Storage Providers
• COMSTAR (Common Multiprotocol SCSI Target) SCSI Target Framework

Security

Oracle Solaris 11 provides unmatched security for cloud.

• Role Authentication
• Trusted Platform Module (TPM)
• Labeled IPsec
• IPsec Supports AES GMAC (AES Galois/Counter Mode) Cryptographic Algorithm
• New Kerberos DTrace Providers
• Trusted Extensions Enhancements
• Support for ssh X.509 Certificate Extension
• Oracle Solaris Cryptographic Framework
• In-Kernel pfexec, Forced and Basic Privileges

Networking

Oracle Solaris 11 keeps the cloud eco-friendly with zones & network virtualization.

• Network Virtualization and Resource Management
• Manual and Automatic Networking
• Default Names for Datalinks
• Changing MAC Address with dladm
• InfiniBand, Enabled and Optimized
• Registration of Virtual LANs
• Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) Support
• New Sockets Architecture
• Load Balancing
• Link Protection
• Bridging and Tunneling
• IP Observability
• IP Multipathing (IPMP)
• IPMP Administration through ipadm
• IPMP Transitive Probing for Less Restrictive Availability
• Improved Availability for in.mpathd
• I/O Enhancements to netcat
• New FTP Server Implementation
• DTrace Networking Providers

System Configuration

With Oracle Solaris 11, the first cloud operating system, users sees only what they actually use, and use only what they actually need.

• Layering of the Service Management Facility (SMF) Repository
• System Configuration in the SMF repository
• Resetting System Configuration
• SMF and FMA Notifications

Kernel/Platform Support

Solaris 11, from Oracle Corporation, has been optimized for Oracle Database.

• SPARC T4 Support
• Critical Threads
• Single-root I/O Virtualization
• NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) I/O
• Intel Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX)
• Dynamic Intimate Shared Memory (DISM) Performance Improvements  - useful for Dynamic SGA in Oracle Database
• Suspend and Resume to RAM
• Improved Hardware Support
• Measuring System Latency
• DTrace cpc Provider

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