LINKS: Sun Campus Ambassador Tech Lead, NITK SURATHKAL INDIA

This is great news for Opensolaris Users. Gparted has finally made it into OpenSolaris. Thanks to the BOSUG (Bangalore OpenSolaris User Group) Community members - Nikhil Vyakaranam, Sujay Patil, Srivatsa V and Nitin Shekhar. Check the details here. The PSARC case acknowledges the contribution. Read more.

Sun Microsystems and Amity Join Hands to Provide Globally Renowned Curriculum to Students in India

Sun Technologies are the most important in the web space and web companies especially web 2.0 start ups need to make the best use of Sun technologies to be technically relevant in todays fast paced world.

Most Important Reasons being to prove it :
UltraSparc - Worlds First true System on a Chip
Solaris Operating System
Crossbow - Network Virtualisation and Resource Control
ZFS
Glassfish - Open Source Application Server
MySQL, PostgreSQL, JavaDB
Java
Javafx for generating Rich Internet Applications
Sun's Next Generation Web Technologies
Now let me
explain each Technology in detail so that you get to know why SUN
technologies are the best for web and solve the myth.
Let us start
from server side. Typically a web company ( Web 2.0 Social networking
sites, Web application Service providers and others) needs a Good Web
Server ( Hardware and Software)
Web Servers need good computing speed and power. Sun has the perfect stack for running the latest Technologies.
Lets Start from the microelectronic layer - Yes UltraSparc T2 Processor powered Server.
Some of its cool features:
Higher performance and throughput, more network bandwidth, integrated security, low power consumption
Optimized to run multithreaded applications rapidly, efficiently, and securely
Superior consolidation and virtualization capabilities: Up to 64 domains on a single processor
Leverages Solaris 10, the most advanced OS available
Built in Virtualisation facilities like Ldoms
Features and Benefits
Revolutionary Multithreaded Networking
Unprecedented Throughput
Faster I/O Expansion
The Consolidation Processor
"Zero Cost" Security
Advantages for OEMs and Developers
With All
these cool features its no doubt Sun Ultra Sparc supported Processors
can handle the load efficiently which a Typical Web Application (
Example Online Transaction Analytical Processing ) would impose on the
underlying OS /Hardware.
Next we come
to Solaris Operating System - The Best and Most Advanced OS on the
Planet. Lot of innovation has been happening in OS like Dynamic Tracing
(Dtrace) , Zetta Byte File System (ZFS) , Service Management Facility
(SMF), Predictive Self Healing, Virtualisation using Zones ( Containers
), Network Virtualisation and Resource Management using Project
Crossbow etc.
Perhaps the most revolutionary Technology applicable to the web is the Database. And Sun has 3 databases to offer.

The best in the pack being MySQL which it recently acquired. The coolest features based on my personal experience are :
Easy to use and very Developer Friendly - even a newborn can start creating tables and forms.
Well integrated with PHP , Python , Java , Ruby etc. The Database ODBC Drivers are easily available.
Open Source , Hence No vendor Lock in.
Free . Customer needs to just pay for the Support / Service. Hence lower TOTAL cost of ownership (TCO).
Has a pluggable Database Engine which is a great innovation unique to MYSQL.
All these amazing Database Technologies Along with ZFS storage
solutions can store really large amounts of Data at very cheap cost and
also retrieve data within a flash giving a good experience for a user
visiting a user.
Now we get to Application Layer where you have a plethora of
technologies supported by SUN. Java leads the way. You have JavaFX to
develop sexy rich internet Applications ( RIAs) . JavaFX Script allows
you to make cool Applications in a very short time. You also have
visual tools to help ease of Development. And wait..... JavaFX is not
just for web. It also takes care of Mobile clients too. The processing
and networking capabilities in today's mobile handsets have the
potential to deliver a new class of rich, Internet-enabled content. To
allow content creators to tap into this power, Sun Microsystems is
bringing JavaFX technology to mobile devices. Moreover, JavaFX Mobile
builds on top of the market-leading Java ME platform to take advantage
of its powerful, device-level capabilities.

Just check the following web pages to experience Javafx.
JavaFX Technology at a Glance
JavaFX Home
JavaFX Learning Centre

Using Intel's Threaded Building Blocks (TBB) With Sun Studio Express- A Tutorial
Related Links:
Intel Threading Building blocks for solaris Home page
Sun Studio Home Page

Heres an article / Case Study which shows the power of Dtrace and Truss in Live Production systems.

Here is an overview of a good article related to xVM virtualisation - CLICK HERE
Also note : xVM Community at OpenSolaris.org

• First you need to download UFSreader from Sourcefourge.net - Download Link

•  Double click on the ufsread.exe executable. PICTURE 1 

•  In the Drive field select Physical Drive. And in the partition field I selected x86 Primary partition 2. I had  windows xp in x86  primary partition 1 and Open Solaris installed in x86 primary partition 2. PICTURE 2
  

•  Now that you have selected the partition type , next step is to select the root slice. In the Slices field I select x86 Slice 0. x86 because i am using an x86 laptop, Slice 0 because it is my root slice ( partition ) in Open Solaris. PICTURE 3
  

• Click OK   PICTURE 4
  

• Done. You must be able to get such a screen shown below. A part of my  UFS root directory ( / ) is seen.Where you can go and browse UFS Directories , Files present in Solaris through Windows. You can also copy Directories and files from Solaris to windows. You could possible also mount solaris partitions in your windows drive.  PICTURE 5

Stay tuned for Casablanca

Wanna mount NTFS / Fat32/ Fat16/ ext2/ ext3 Partitions in Solaris ? 

Details are given in Pradhap Devarajan's Blog .

Hello Fellow Students / Developers. Sun Developer Network introduces Sun Student Courses. Here students can get a good understanding about Sun Technologies. There are good learning notes, Assignments , Quizzes etc to make learning fun and interactive. Currently 3 courses are available at this portal. Students will be getting an online certificate at their inbox after successfully completing a course. I have done the courses and are very informative and i found them very useful for the Demos at College.

1. Introduction to Sun SPOTs

2. Real World Technologies: NetBeans GUI Builder, JRuby, JavaFX, and JavaME

3. Introduction to Solaris and opensolaris.org

 
Students will have to register to access these courses. These Courses have been designed by veterans like Sang Shin of Java Passion fame.