Tuesday October 04, 2005

I'm trying to think of how long it has been since I've installed Solaris (my laptop aside). Feels like months. I used to install Solaris on a regular (bi-weekly) basis. To run the Java Integration Suite pre-Solaris 10, I would have installed (yet another) Solaris box and a Windows box to run VMWare (VMWare preceeds Solaris 10, but work with me). Now I find myself installing Solaris Containers. I have installed the Java Integration Suite three times now, twice within Solaris Containers. To run the eDesigner development tool, I am running Windows in VMWare on a Linux LX50 (thanks to Matt) so I don't have to boot Linux/VMWare on my laptop. Not one part of this configuration is without OS virtualization. To go a step further, I am accessing that LX50 using VNC/TightVNC (yes, another layer of virtualization).

What makes this test environment a bit different for me is that *none* of the OS instances nor hardware are under my control. They belong to someone else. They have yet to fully realize the impact of their decision, but I'll take it as far as I can before they resource control my derriere. :)

So far, all is going extremely well. Virtualization is saving time, money and effort. Keep in mind that the Java Integration Suite is not supported on Solaris 10 (yet). I'm tellin' ya, Solaris Containers should be the default on every Solaris 10 host.