EXOTERIC - Information Worth Sharing: ex·o·ter·ic
-adj
1. Not confined to an inner circle of disciples or initiates.
2. Comprehensible to or suited to the public; popular.
3. Of or relating to the outside; external.

Every Sun server system has a "Stack" of software components that comprise the Operating System, Firmware, Drivers, Diagnostics, System Management, Middleware, Compilers, and so on. There are generally two types of Stack components; platform specific and common. The platform specific components are either unique to the server system, like firmware or system configuration reader add-ons, or it might be a set of required OS patches. Common software can be installed on any type of server system, like Sun Studio Compilers, Java, MySQL, StarOffice, etc.

Information about what platform specific software stack components are available for a particular Sun server is out there, but it is not easy to find. Product Notes might indicate specific OS update levels and required patches, but might not connect these to the latest firmware or virtualization technologies. A change to one software or firmware component might require changes to others in order to get the best performance and stability on your Sun server system.

To help identify the software stack components for each Sun server system, I have put together a set of Wiki pages on BigAdmin with the help of Rick Ramsey and Robert Weeks. Rick's BigAdmin blog entry last week broke the story. Currently the Sun System Stack Pages only have the SPARC systems covered, but we hope to expand this to all Sun server systems in the future.