Sun updates Solaris 10

SANTA CLARA, USA: Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced the latest update to the free and open source Solaris Operating System (OS)-Solaris 10 8/07-to deliver an operating system that is optimized for virtualization, performance and resource management.

The update makes it easier for new customers to migrate to Solaris and also makes Solaris even better suited to data intensive environments where price and performance are driving factors, enabling more cost-effective and agile datacenters.

"Enterprises seeking ways to reduce data center power, cooling, and floor space needs are increasingly looking to virtualization as a way to accomplish their goals," said Marc Hamilton, vice president of Solaris Marketing, Sun Microsystems.

He added, "With the latest update to Solaris, the virtualization capabilities of Solaris Containers technology have matured, and are now even better adapted to our customers' needs. Customers can immediately see increased service and server utilization levels, improve system and application performance, and leverage both commercial and open-source solutions by moving to Solaris 10."

Among the new technology features are Solaris Containers for Linux Applications, new networking enhancements, and an updated version of the open source PostgreSQL database with significant performance and cost advantages.

New Virtualization Features

New for Solaris 10 8/07 is Solaris Containers for Linux Applications, enabling customers to run existing Linux applications on x86 systems running the Solaris OS without modification.

Improved Network Performance

With the new ability to run multiple independent network stacks on a single system, Sun continues to enhance Solaris high performance networking capabilities. The new Large Send Offload feature reduces the workload of a system's CPU by offloading networking processing operations to network interface card hardware, enabling systems with limited CPU resources to better utilize high-bandwidth connections.

Solaris and PostgreSQL 8.2

PostgreSQL 8.2 is fully integrated with Solaris, now offering improved warm standby capabilities, online index builds, and support for DTrace probes. Sun delivers price performance advantages with PostgreSQL 8.2 database, which has been updated to deliver a 20 percent improvement in online transaction processing (OLTP) tests. The combination of Solaris and PostgreSQL 8.2 delivers all the unique features of Solaris, high performance, free licensing, and Sun's wide range of support options.