O V E R V I E W

Solaris is a Unix operating system originally developed by Sun Microsystems, which superseded their earlier SunOS in 1992.

Oracle Solaris, as it is now known, is owned by Oracle Corporation after Oracle's acquisition of Sun in January 2010.

Solaris is known for its scalability, especially on SPARC systems, and for originating many innovative features such as DTrace and ZFS.

Solaris supports SPARC-based and x86-based workstations and servers from Sun and other vendors, with efforts underway to port to additional platforms.

Solaris is certified against the Single Unix Specification. Although it was historically developed as proprietary software, it is supported on systems manufactured by all major server vendors, and the majority of its codebase is now open source software via the OpenSolaris project.

History

In 1987, AT&T and Sun announced that they were collaborating on a project to merge the most popular Unix variants on the market at that time: BSD, System V, and Xenix. This would become Unix System V Release 4 (SVR4).

On September 4, 1991, Sun announced that it would replace its existing BSD-derived Unix, SunOS 4, with one based on SVR4. This was identified internally as SunOS 5, but a new marketing name was introduced at the same time: Solaris 2.

While SunOS 4.1.x micro releases were retroactively named Solaris 1 by Sun, the Solaris name is almost exclusively used to refer to the SVR4-derived SunOS 5.0 and later.

The justification for this new "overbrand" was that it encompassed not only SunOS, but also the OpenWindows graphical user interface and Open Network Computing (ONC) functionality. The SunOS minor version is included in the

Solaris release number; for example, Solaris 2.4 incorporated SunOS 5.4. After Solaris 2.6, Sun dropped the "2." from the number, so Solaris 7 incorporates SunOS 5.7, and the latest release SunOS 5.10 forms the core of Solaris 10

Supported architectures

Solaris uses a common code base for the platforms it supports: SPARC and i86pc (which includes both x86 and x86-64).

Solaris has a reputation for being well-suited to symmetric multiprocessing, supporting a large number of CPUs. It has historically been tightly integrated with Sun's SPARC hardware (including support for 64-bit SPARC applications since Solaris 7), with which it is marketed as a combined package.

This has often led to more reliable systems, but at a cost premium over commodity PC hardware.

However, it has also supported x86 systems since Solaris 2.1 and the latest version, Solaris 10, includes support for 64-bit x86 applications, allowing Sun to capitalize on the availability of commodity 64-bit CPUs based on the x86-64 architecture.

Sun has heavily marketed Solaris for use with both its own "x64" workstations and servers based on AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processors, as well as x86 systems manufactured by companies such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM.

As of 2009, the following vendors support Solaris for their x86 server systems:

1.Dell - will "test, certify, and optimize Solaris and OpenSolaris on its rack and blade servers and offer them as one of several choices in the overall Dell software menu“.

2.IBM - also distributes Solaris and Solaris Subscriptions for select x86-based IBM System x servers and BladeCenter servers

3.Intel

4.Hewlett-Packard - distributes and provides software technical support for Solaris on ProLiant server and blade systems.

5.Fujitsu Siemens

July 2010: Dell and HP will certify and resell Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM on their respective x86 platforms.

July 2010: IBM stops direct support for Solaris on x64 kit. More detail at vendors' support sites.

Versions and

Features of

Solaris

Solaris 1.x SunOS 4.1.xReleased Date SPARC 1991–1994

End of support: September 2003

SunOS 4 rebranded as Solaris 1 for marketing purposes.

Solaris 2.0 SunOS 5.0Released Date SPARC June 1992

End of support: January 1999

Preliminary release (primarily available to developers only), support for only the sun4c architecture.

First appearance of NIS+.

Solaris 2.1 SunOS 5.1Released Date SPARC-Dec. 1992

X86 –May 1993End of support: April 1999

Support for sun4 and sun4m architectures added; first Solaris x86 release.

First Solaris 2 release to support SMP.

Solaris 2.2 SunOS 5.2Released Date SPARC May 1993

End of support: May 1999

SPARC-only release. First to support sun4d architecture.

First to support multithreading libraries (UI threads API in libthread)

Solaris 2.3 SunOS 5.3Released Date: SPARC-November 1993

End of support: June 2002

SPARC-only release. OpenWindows 3.3 switches from NeWS to Display PostScript and drops SunView support.

Support added for autofs and CacheFS filesystems.

Solaris 2.4 SunOS 5.4Released Date: SPARC & x86- Nov.1994

End of support: September 2003

First unified SPARC/x86 release.

Includes OSF/Motif runtime support.

Solaris 2.5 SunOS 5.5Released Date: SPARC & x86-Nov. 1995

End of support: December 2003

First to support UltraSPARC and include CDE, NFSv3 and NFS/TCP.

Dropped sun4 (VMEbus) support.

POSIX.1c-1995 pthreads added.

Doors added but undocumented.

Solaris 2.5.1 SunOS 5.5.1Released Date: SPARC & x86-May 1996

End of support: September 2005

Only release to support PowerPC platform;

Ultra Enterprise support added; user and group IDs (uid_t, gid_t) expanded to 32 bits,

also included processor sets and early resource management technologies.

Solaris 2.6 SunOS 5.6Released Date: SPARC & x86 July 1997

End of support: July 2006

Includes Kerberos 5, PAM, TrueType fonts, WebNFS, large file support, enhanced procfs.

SPARCserver 600MP series support dropped.

Solaris 7 SunOS 5.7Released Date: SPARC & x86-Nov. 1998

End of support: August 2008

The first 64-bit UltraSPARC release.

Added native support for file system meta-data logging (UFS logging).

Dropped MCA support on x86 platform.

Last update was Solaris 7 11/99.

Solaris 8 SunOS 5.8Released Date: SPARC & x86- Feb.2000

End of support: March 2012

Includes Multipath I/O

Solaris Volume Manager

IPMP

first support for IPv6 and IPsec (manual keying only) mdb modular debugger.

Introduced Role-Based Access Control (RBAC);

sun4c support removed.

Last update is Solaris 8 2/04.

Solaris 9 SunOS 5.9Released Date: SPARC –May 28,2002

x86- Jan. 10, 2003End of support: October 2014

iPlanet Directory Server

Resource Manager

extended file attributes

IKE IPsec keying, and Linux compatibility added;

OpenWindows dropped

sun4d support removed

Most current update is Solaris 9 9/05.

Solaris 10 SunOS 5.10Released Date: SPARC & x86-Jan.31,2005

End of support: ------

Includes x86-64 (AMD64/Intel 64) support,

DTrace (Dynamic Tracing),

Solaris Containers,

Service Management Facility (SMF) which replaces init.d scripts, NFSv4.

Least privilege security model.

Support for sun4m and UltraSPARC I processors removed.

Support for EISA-based PCs removed.

Adds Java Desktop System (based on GNOME) as default desktop.

•Solaris 10 1/06 (known internally as "U1")

added the GRUB bootloader for x86 systems

iSCSI Initiator support and fcinfo command-line tool.

•Solaris 10 6/06 ("U2")

added the ZFS filesystem.

•Solaris 10 11/06 ("U3")

added Solaris Trusted Extensions and Logical Domains.

• Solaris 10 8/07 ("U4")

added Samba Active Directory support

IP Instances (part of the OpenSolaris Network Virtualization and Resource Control project)

iSCSI Target support and Solaris Containers for Linux Applications (based on branded zones)

enhanced version of the Resource Capping Daemon (rcapd).

•Solaris 10 5/08 ("U5")

added CPU capping for Solaris Containers

performance improvements,

SpeedStep support for Intel processors and PowerNow!

support for AMD processors.

• Solaris 10 10/08 ("U6") added boot from ZFS and can use ZFS as its root file system.

also includes virtualization enhancements including the ability for a Solaris Container to automatically update its environment when moved from one system to another

Logical Domains support for dynamically reconfigurable disk and network I/O.

•Solaris 10 5/09 ("U7")

added performance and power management

support for Intel Nehalem processors

container cloning using ZFS cloned file systems

and performance enhancements for ZFS on solid-state drives.

•Solaris 10 10/09 ("U8")

added user and group level ZFS quotas

ZFS cache devices and nss_ldap shadowAccount Support

improvements to patching performance.

Person’s Involved

Lawrence Joseph "Larry" Ellison

Lawrence Joseph "Larry" Ellison (born August 17, 1944, New York City)

is an American business magnate,

co-founder and chief executive officer of Oracle Corporation,

a major enterprise software company.

As of 2010 he is the sixth richest person in the world, with a personal wealth of US$28 billion.

Robert Nimrod "Bob" Miner

Robert Nimrod "Bob" Miner

(December 23, 1941 – November 11, 1994)

was a co-founder of Oracle Corporation and architect of Oracle's relational database management system.

From 1977 until 1992, Bob Miner led product design and development for the Oracle relational database management system.

In Dec., 1992, he left that role and spun off a small, advanced technology group within Oracle.

He was an Oracle board member until Oct., 1993.

Ed Oates

Ed Oates

(born 1946) co-founded Software Development Labs in August 1977 with Larry Ellison, and Bob Miner.

Software Development Labs later became Oracle Corporation.

Ed Oates graduated with a BA in mathematics from San Jose State University in 1968, and worked at Singer, the US Army Persinscom (drafted), Ampex, and Memorex before co-founding Oracle.

He retired from the company in 1996.

He volunteers time on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Zoological Society and the Tower Foundation Board of San Jose State University.

Advantages

1. Performance :

Mainly because it is optimized to work with the SPARC, it gives better performance than the Other alternatives avaliable.

You would find many of the Sun's server Solutions running with the Solaris OS such as Netra series.

2. POSIX

compliant environment: Solaris can be considered to be compliant with the POSIX environment which means a standard programming interface for developers.

Disadvantages

1. Uncompatible :

It is not recommended to run Solaris on other architectures such as Intel, AMD.

It is possible to install Solaris on Intel however, the performance would degrade considerably since Solaris cannot make use of Intel that efficiently.

2. Lack of good GUI :

Solaris does have GUI support - Common Desktop Environment, OpenWindows etc.

but they are far way from the other GUI environments seen in Windows or Mac.

3. Costlier :

With other cheaper alternatives such as Linux available,

it proves to be costlier to acquire a license of Solaris.

Since it is intended to be used on SPARC so the end user often ends up in buying the hardware as well.

Now it all depends what kind of need you have.

If you are a home user or a developer with average needs then it makes sense to either go for Windows or Linux (since Linux is POSIX compliant too).

I personally feel that as a developer you have more choices on Linux than on Solaris.

However, if perfromance is what you want then solaris would be a good option.

Screen Shots

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