Solaris Reviews
- OpenSolaris: What Ubuntu wants to be when it grows up
ZDNet - 05/05/08
Jason Perlow of ZDNet recently posted a historical look and very positive review of the OpenSolaris 2008.05 release. He stated that the release shows great promise and has enormous potential as an enterprise-class UNIX desktop. Perlow goes on to share a historical perspective of the OS's Open Source roots and declares that this release is a major milestone release for the project.
- OpenSolaris 2008.05 Gives A New Face To Solaris
Phoronix - 04/24/08
Michael Larabel is pleased with the evolution of OpenSolaris from beta to 2008.05 and is happy with the work done on the underpinnings of the OS, "this test release of OpenSolaris 2008.05 has also offered the best hardware support from our testing and corrects some issues we previously encountered with Solaris/OpenSolaris." He is very excited about the improvements and looks forward to what innovations will be delivered with OpenSolaris Jericho towards the end of the year.
- Moving Towards a Single Machine
Computerworld - 03/25/08
Computerworld published a positive review of Solaris 10's Brandz that highlights how and why this benefits the enterprise. The posts discusses the future of single machine/OS combinations and positions Brandz as a great way to run multiple OSs on a single machine without virtualization. It also points to the author's in-depth review of Solaris 10 8/07 highlighting enhancements to ZFS. He states that overall there is 'a lot to like' in this version of Solaris.
- Solaris Express Developer Edition 1/08
Phoronix - 02/06/08
Phoronix posted a very positive review of Solaris Express Developer Edition 1/08 that highlights improvements such as the addition of Sun's xVM technology and integration of the AMP Web stack. The reviewer states that SXDE 1/08 is a great environment for developing and that he is looking forward to additional releases.
- A Tour of Sun's Project Indiana Preview 2
Phoronix - 02/02/08
Phoronix posted an evaluation of OpenSolaris Developer Preview 1/08 that highlights the great strides the product has made for improving usability for the desktop consumer. The reviewer is impressed with the added capabilities in this release and is looking forward to later versions, which he feels will accelerate adoption of OpenSolaris at the desktop level.
- OpenSolaris Project Indiana
Phoronix - 11/01/07
Michael Larabel at Phoronix posted a first-look review on OpenSolaris Project Indiana, discussing the product's installation and usage improvements. With regards to installation, Larabel mentions that the LiveCD Caiman installer works great and is comparable to Ubuntu's Ubiquity installer. He concludes that OpenSolaris "is the most consumer-friendly Solaris-based distribution to date (even more so than Nexenta OS or BeleniX)" and notes that the first official Indiana release will be the true test of what Project Indiana is "really made of."
- Getting to know the Solaris iSCSI stack
Sys Admin Magazine - 10/29/07
Sys Admin Magazine posted an in-depth review on setting up a Solaris 10 host to act as an iSCSI initiator. In this step-by-step tutorial, the reviewer discusses how to enable the iSCSI initiator service; manage the configuration of the initiator; view the qualified name of an initiator; and configure Solaris initiator with a discovery method. He concludes that the Solaris iSCSI stack "is built to perform, and can easily saturate multiple gigabit Ethernet links."
- Sun's ZFS is close to perfect, but widely misunderstood
InfoWorld - 10/24/07
InfoWorld published a positive review on Solaris that takes an in-depth look at the unique features that make up ZFS and why these make Solaris so valuable to the enterprise. The reviewer, Tom Yager, also praises Sun for making ZFS available through open source. He states in his piece, "the best way to sum up ZFS is that it makes it possible to do anything, no matter how insane, with persistent storage."
- Tip of the Trade: Project Indiana
ServerWatch - 10/23/07
ServerWatch posted a great piece Solaris that highlights Project Indiana The reviewer, Carla Schroder, discusses in detail the Image Package System (IPS) feature in Project Indiana and the benefits this provides to Solaris users. She also mentions other key features of IPS that will be included in the next release of Solaris, including a single LiveCD that installs the base components, plus software repositories for downloading additional packages, and the inclusion of the GNU toolchain.
- Solaris Express Developer 9/07
Phoronix - 09/25/07
In this positive evaluation of Solaris, Michael Larabel provides an overview of the features in Solaris Express Developer Edition (SXDE) 9/07 including a new Solaris installer and a GUI utility for DTrace with Sun Studio 12. The reviewer praises the installer, highlighting it as a significant improvement to Solaris that will be particularly beneficial for new Solaris users. The review wraps up stating that "Solaris Express Developer Edition 9/07 is an excellent candidate" for first time Solaris users.
- Sun's Check Tool: Does Your Hardware Work?
Phoronix - 06/11/07
Phoronix conducted a brief evaluation of the version 1.2 of the Solaris Check tool for x86 hardware. The review looked at the design of the tool, its accuracy and the ease of reporting the findings. The reviewer was pleased to note that when a third party driver is needed, it also lists what driver it is and where can be found. He states: "This part is especially handy for the first time Solaris user!"
- Sun ZFS breaks all the rules
Infoworld - 06/07/07
InfoWorld posted a very positive review on Solaris ZFS highlighting key features and performance. The reviewer does a deep dive on the design of ZFS, and specifically praises the innovation of ZFS stating "it's not every day that the computer industry delivers the level of innovation found in Sun's ZFS. More and more advances in the science of IT are based on simply multiplying the status quo. ZFS breaks all the rules here, and it arrives in an amazingly well-thought-out and nicely implemented solution."
- Do you really need Sun Weblog Publisher?
Linux.com - 04/25/07
An evaluation of the Sun Weblog Publisher posted on Linux.com and is positive about the installation and configuration of the product's add-on, stating from the start that SWP is easy to intall and use. The review also says the main advantage is that, if you already know writer, you can use the familiar OpenOffice.org/StarOffice interface rather than need to learn one, and it may be a worthwhile versus a blog's default program.
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- ZFS: Should You?
ServerWatch - 03/01/07
ServerWatch posted a tutorial on the considerations for migrating to ZFS. The author highlights ZFS flexibility and performance capabilities as strong factors in making the move to ZFS. The tutorial concludes with, "ZFS is great. In Solaris environments there is no reason not to use ZFS file systems. In mixed environments, where you'd like the portability Veritas products provides, ZFS will likely be an option in a few years."
- Tip of the Trade: Stuffing Containers on Solaris 10
ServerWatch - 02/19/07
ServerWatch posted a positive tutorial about using Solaris Containers as a strong alternative to virtualization for software development. The reviewer highlights the performance of the containers, stating: "Sun's GUI control panel for Containers is good. Creating, provisioning and destroying Containers is pretty easy. Performance is exceptional - while there are some high-availability tweaks that you get only with genuine Sun hardware, it's still a screamer on x86-64."
- Sun Gilds Solaris Lily
eWEEK - 10/23/06
eWEEK posted a positive evaluation of Solaris 10 6/06 highlighting several new features including ZFS, support for PostGresSQL and enhanced virtualization capabilities. As part of the review, Brooks does some performance testing of ZFS and highlights its ease of use.
- OpenSolaris Options Show Promise
eWEEK - 10/23/06
eWEEK issued a review of the state of OpenSolaris, providing a status of three distributions - NexentaOS Alpha 5, Belenix 0.5 and Schillix 0.5.2. The review provides an objective look at what is included in each of the three distributions and their current state of development, indicating that each shows promise for enterprise computing.
- Get in the Zone with Solaris Virtualization
Enterprise Networking Planet - 10/05/06
In this review, Charlie Schluting discusses how Zones in Solaris 10 help enterprises with virtualization. According to the review, Zones are the "perfect way to consolidate servers, because zones create very, very little overhead, yet still maintain a high degree of isolation from the host operating system."
- Solaris 10: What's New in Update 2?
ServerWatch - 09/21/06
ServerWatch posted a positive evaluation of Solaris 10 6/06. The review provides an overview of all the new features in Solaris 10 including ZFS, Fault Management, PostGreSQL support and Process Rights Management. The reviewer states that with this release, "Sun has moved beyond the Big Iron market, in no small part due to Solaris 10."
- A Look at Solaris 10 6/06
OS News - 09/20/06
OS News provides a technical evaluation of key new features in Solaris 10 6/06 including ZFS, SATA Framework and Xorg 6.9. The reviewer states "Sun has put forth a great deal of effort into developing Solaris 10 6/06 and bringing new and powerful features to users and system administrators."
- Solaris 10 6/06
ComputerWorld - 08/25/06
Computerworld posted a very positive overview of Solaris 10 Update 2 as the first piece in an ongoing series. This installment provides a technical overview of the new features in the last Solaris update, with a majority of the piece focusing on ZFS and the desktop improvements. The review positions Solaris 10 Update 2 as a significant upgrade from previous versions highlighting an easier and quicker installation, improved fault management and a general overall improvement to the look and feel of Solaris.
- ZFS-The Future of File Systems
TechWorld - 08/14/06
TechWorld posted a very positive review of the Solaris 10 ZFS focusing on how ZFS is structured, highlighting these elements as the reason for ZFS's success. Specifically, the review focused on how ZFS has approached the concept of file systems and disk storage differently than current solutions -- and then detailed why this new approach offers users more benefits in the areas of system administration, scale and security. The reviewer stated: "ZFS - the Zettabyte File System - is an enormous advance in capability on existing file systems. It provides vastly greater space for files, hugely improved administration and greatly improved data security."
- Solaris Containers fill servers to the limit
InfoWorld - 07/03/06
In this sidebar article, the reviewer highlighted virtualization capabilities created by Solaris Containers including its ability to create pooled resources broken down by CPU and allocating fractions of a CPU usage to a virtual machine. The reviewer concluded: "Solaris customers on any platform would be wise to give Containers a look. They certainly have the hallmark Sun thoroughness and complexity, and they back that up with solid performance."
- Wield the Shield: How Trustworthy Is Your OS?
eWEEK - 05/15/06
Jason Brooks published a technical feature on the various trusted operating systems citing Solaris 10's Process Rights Management capabilities. Brooks praised Solaris 10 as one of the top operating systems for 'trusted capabilities,' specifically highlighting "the Solaris approach is much leaner, more manageable and, most important, more mature."
- Solar Power
Linux Format - 05/01/06
In a technical 'how-to' piece, Mike Saunders outlined how to detail and run OpenSolaris. Saunders lauded Solaris, highlighting that "it has an excellent and well-deserved reputation of being rock-solid and speedy on multi-CPU servers - it's very much the OS of choice for large-scale Oracle database systems." He also highlighted the benefit of Solaris for high end management, stating "when you dig under the surface, you uncover the astoundingly powerful features and capabilities that have kept Solaris a favourite of many admins...[these] are not the kind of features that will revolutionise a desktop experience, but on 'big iron' machines they're mightily valuable."
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