NEWS Company executives detailed the major new enhancements in the operating system, including a new file system code-named ZFS; a more fine-grained security model for establishing access privileges; "predictive self-healing" software to prevent failures; and a dynamic tracing feature, called DTrace, for automatically diagnosing common problems.
The majority of Solaris applications run on servers built on Sun's own Sparc processor but the company is aggressively promoting Solaris on x86 servers based on chips from Intel or AMD. Sun will have a minor update to Solaris 10 early in 2005. That upgrade will let the automatic diagnostic tools spot processor, memory, or input/output failures on servers based on x86 processors.
Solaris 10 will also have a feature called N1 Grid Containers, which can isolate several software processes on a single instance of the operating system. The feature will give customers more security and allow them to consolidate many computing jobs onto a single machine.
Sun intends to include a software addition called Janus with Solaris 10, which will enable Linux applications to run on Solaris unchanged. If Janus isn't ready for the Solaris 10 deadline, Sun will release the addition shortly after, Weinberg said.
Dartmouth's Dobson lauded the new features in Solaris 10, such as Janus, as well as Sun's programme to promote use of Solaris on low-cost hardware servers. Dobson noted that some customers of Red Hat, which sells services around its version of Linux, have been unhappy with the company's licensing programme.
"I won't pay for a Red Hat operating system when they added no other innovation except packaging," Dobson said.
Separately, Sun executives said that a far-reaching agreement with Microsoft to improve interoperability between Sun and Microsoft wares will not affect Solaris 10. However, the two companies have discussed other areas of technical integration, such as the file system in Solaris and Windows.
The two companies plan to make an announcement in October regarding initial collaborative work in web services and directory interoperability, McClain said.
Martin LaMonica writes for CNET News.com.
