Solaris Operating System - Upgrading to the Solaris 9 OS

The Solaris 9 Operating System (OS) will help you do more with less and the move is designed to be simple and low risk. When compared to previous Solaris releases, you will find that the Solaris 9 OS:

• Is Faster
• Is More Secure
• May Save you Money
• Delivers Tools for Easier Transition

It's Faster

The Solaris 9 OS delivers higher performance than the Solaris 8 OE and has best-of-breed performance for:

• Data Services
• Java and App Services
• Web Services
• High Performance Computing

Significant performance gains have been demonstrated for:

• OLTP, DSS, and OLAP applications such as Oracle 9i and Oracle Express using industry standard benchmarks.
• Java and Application Services such as Sun ONE Application Server and major ISVs including BEA and Borland.
• Web services such as Sun ONE Web Server, Apache, and Zeus

This has been accomplished through the following new Solaris 9 features:

• Enhanced Multi-Thread Library Improvements
• Multiple Page Size Support (MPSS)
• Enhanced Page Coloring
• Remote Shared Memory API (RSMAPI)
• Network Cache and Accelerator (NCA)

It's More Secure

The Solaris platform has demonstrated it offers one of the most secure environments for many years, and now it is even better with:

• Solaris Secure Shell
• IPSec with Internet Key Exchange (IKE)
• SunScreen 3.2 Firewall
• Kerberos v5 Server
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) (Enhanced)
• Flexible Installation

It May Save you Money

The Solaris 9 OS may save you money as follows:

• Better management features which are designed to enhance administrator productivity such as:
  • Solaris 9 Resource Manager
  • Solaris Volume Manager
  • Patch Manager
  • Network Control Panel
  • Solaris Flash,
  • Sun ONE Directory Server
• These features are part of the Solaris 9 OS and can eliminate the need for expensive, third-party add-on applications.
• Solaris 9 Resource Manager facilitates the consolidation of hardware.

Tools for Easier Transition

The upgrade to the Solaris 9 Operating System has never been easier:

• Solaris Application Guarantee - Protect your software investment, with a guarantee that existing customer developed applications written to the Solaris Application Binary Interface (ABI) will run in the Solaris 9 OS.
• Solaris Readiness Evaluation Tools (Coming Soon) The downloadable tools can operate on entire Solaris IT environments. Includes:
  • A list of applications that are eligible/ineligible for the Solaris Application Guarantee program.
  • Detailed reports identifying areas where remediation will make applications compliant with the Solaris ABI.
  • Hardware and software data (including patches) on the entire Solaris IT environment collected by the Asset Survey tool
  • These tools are available at no charge to customers.
• Solaris Live Upgrade technology enables Solaris 8, 7 and 2.6 systems to continue to run normally while an administrator installs, configures Solaris 9 software, and simply reboots the system to run the upgraded environment. Solaris Live Upgrade also supports fallback to help mitigate any risk.
• In addition, by using Solaris Web Start, installing or upgrading Solaris systems is done through a series of wizards that enable simple and easy Solaris software configuration.
• The Solaris Flash feature provides new installation and provisioning functionality. System administrators can capture a snapshot image of a complete server -- including the Solaris Operating System, the applications stack, and the system configuration -- and can then replicate this image onto multiple servers.