Most Sun employees and Solaris fans know that Solaris has run on X86 platforms since 1994 However, in my visits to customer sites as an OS ambassadors I hear these questions frequently. Today, I'd like to dispel some of the most common myths about Solaris.
Myth: Sun is not serious about the X86 market.
At this time, Sun is the 3rd largest server vendor in the world and #5
in the x86 server market. We have a variety of hardware platforms using the Intel and AMD chips from under $1000 to complete blade server systems. We have two OEMs for Solaris signed up (IBM and Intel) with more expected to come in the near future. Intel recommends Solaris as the enterprise OS for their Xeon processor family. We have also agreed to become an OEM for MS Windows server software. We can sell, train, support and take your trade-ins on our complete line of SPARC and X86 systems. We are QUITE serious.
Myth: Solaris on SPARC and X86 platforms are different OSes.
There is only one Solaris source code base. You can see and contribute to it at the OpenSolaris web site. 95% of the code is common. Examples of code that is NOT common includes chip specific features such as memory management, cache, hardware features, boot proms and virtualization technologies. Features such as Solaris containers, SMF, ZFS, Trusted Extensions, resource management and more work the same on Sparc, X86 or virtualized platforms such as VMware.
Myth: Sun's support organizations are different for SPARC and X86 platforms
The same engineering and customer support team is used to design, develop, test and support Solaris. You can call 800-USA-4-SUN and get support for Solaris whether it is on Sun systems or any of the over 900 systems on our hardware compatibility list. Many of our engineers actually do their development work on PC hardware.
Myth: Solaris for X86 platforms is not on the same schedule as SPARC platforms
Solaris updates and patches are released at the same time for each platform. The only exception to this is when a patch ONLY applies to a specific platform, such as an Intel memory management fix that does not apply to AMD or SPARC chips.
Myth: You can only get Solaris from Sun
IBM recently announced that they will be selling Solaris for their blade and rack mounted servers. We anticipate more companies to announce OEM agreements in the future. Intel has also announced that Solaris is its preferred OS for enterprise deployment on Xeon platforms.
Myth: Solaris only runs on a few X86 platforms.
The hardware compatibility list has hundreds of platforms from Sun, HP, Dell, IBM and others. It includes the latest Quad-core Intel and AMD chips, blade servers and more. Of our 10 million Solaris registrations, 63% of them were on non-Sun platforms.
Myth: Solaris doesn't work on VMware
Solaris 10 is a supported platform in the VMware support matrix. VMware is also listed at the Sun hardware compatibility list. Pre-built Solaris vmware images at the Sun Download Center
Myth: It's too hard to move code from Solaris 8 to 10 or from SPARC to X86 platforms.
Solaris is guaranteed to be binary compatible moving forward from Solaris 2.5.1 on each platform. This means that a binary running on an Ultra 2/2.5.1 can be transferred to Solaris 10 on Sun's latest T2000 and is GUARANTEED to run. In addition, Solaris is source code compatibile between the two instruction sets. If you need assistance on the best compiler practices for building 64-bit applications or using the proper performance options see the huge collection of white papers at our Solaris developer's portal.
Myth: Only Solaris Nevada, OpenSolaris or Solaris Express run on X86 hardware.
Our production ready distribution of Solaris (known as Solaris 10) was first released in March 2005 with complete support for SPARC and X64/X86 platforms just as it has since 1994. Available for Solaris 10 is enterprise level support and a long life cycle. Our development for the next version of Solaris (known as Nevada) is currently ongoing as an open source project at www.opensolaris.org. Periodically we produce binary versions known as Solaris Express community edition or developer edition for users to try out new features. Download Solaris 10 now for free for both SPARC and X86 platforms.
Myth: Solaris is hard to install
If you've heard this before, please check out our latest Solaris Express Developer's Edition. It has an updated installer, improved wireless networking support and simpified networking setup. Our Flash archive, Live upgrade and jumpstart technologies simplify data center practices for patching and upgrades.
Myth: You have to dedicate an entire PC to test out Solaris
Solaris works quite well in multi-boot or virtualized environments. The vast majority of Sun system engineers run Solaris either on a Windows or Linux-based PC or in a virtual machine such as VMware Fusion or Parallels on MacOS X. Solaris include the GRUB boot loader to allow you to choose between multiple OS images to boot. We make virtulization easy with pre-built Solaris vmware images at the Sun Download Center
Bonus Myth (thanks to Bob for Suggesting)
Myth: There are no open source or ISV applications for Solaris on X86 platforms.
You can find a prepackaged and easy to install repository of the most common open source applications from blastwave.org. Solaris on X86 has more ISV packages than Red Hat and other competitors. Many freeware packages like PostGreSQL, gcc, gmake, perl, apache, webmin and more are built into Solaris or included on the companion CD.
Now, if only Sun could get a few key OEM's like, oh, say Oracle, to treat Solaris x86 as a Tier 1 platform and not release patches and updates 9+ months after the SPARC, linux, windows, hpux, vms, os2, etc version. at least 10.2.0.3 is finally out, but OEM will still not work and the agent will not install in a zone. (on sparc it is fine, but not x86)
<P>
The press release a few years back claims that solaris x86 was the preferred development platform, but I think that somebody forgot to tell the developers.
Posted by john on October 10, 2007 at 03:40 PM EDT #
We understand this and are continuing to work with Oracle. Meanwhile, customers can vote with their dollars and remember that MySQL and PostGreSQL are included with Solaris and quite capable.
Posted by Jim Laurent on October 10, 2007 at 04:16 PM EDT #
I am a user of Solaris on Parallels. Is there an equivalent repository of current Solaris releases as pre-built Parallels VMs. Also, is Sun working with Parallels to make sure Solaris is a great experience on their VM? There are a few well known issues like the lack of a ethernet driver, serial ports not configured, X Windows integration missing negatively affecting the Solaris/Parallels experience.
Posted by Scott on October 11, 2007 at 01:57 PM EDT #
I'd switch to Solaris x86(-64) everywhere if VMWare would support Solaris x86(-64) as a Host OS.
I know Sun has recently announced their Hypervisor partnership plans but VMWare and ZFS would be the most insanely beautiful thing that I can currently imagine.
Posted by Jason on October 11, 2007 at 04:08 PM EDT #
Myth : networking in solaris is easy to setup.
Busted : Just to change an ip,gateway or netmask you have to change many files.. It's silly. It's easier to do an un-config.
I hope this is the type of thing Indiana is addressing.
As well, I whole heartedly agree with Jason, regarding VMware running on Solaris as a host os. That would be awesome.
Posted by Jeff MacDonald on October 11, 2007 at 04:17 PM EDT #
Jason and Jeff,
Thanks for your comments. Yes, we (field SEs) frequently have conversations with Solaris eng. about ease of use. They are working on it.
Regarding Virtualization, we recently previewed our plans for the xVM platform which will include Solaris as the host OS for the hypervisor being developed in the Xen community. Naturally, it will take advantage of advanced Solaris features such as Dtrace, ZFS, etc.
Posted by Jim Laurent on October 11, 2007 at 04:50 PM EDT #
I've just installed Solaris x86-64 on my machine, because I could not get Oracle DB 64-bits (the companion stuff) to run on their own Oracle Enterprise Linux 64-bits. How sick is that?
I already test-ran Solaris in VMWare, so I knew what to expect. It runs great, and the install couldn't be simpler. Thumbs up. I recently upgraded my PC from a P4 to and AMD64-X2 (64-bits), so once I have the disk with all the 32-bits stuff completely migrated, that will be the day I install Solaris on it, and switch.
Posted by SwitchBL8 on October 11, 2007 at 06:10 PM EDT #
@Jeff: the network automagic feature in Indiana will address many of these issues: http://opensolaris.org/os/project/nwam/
@Scott: http://www.sun.com/download/products.xml?id=461d6b7d -- looks a bit out of date though.
Posted by Calum on October 12, 2007 at 06:43 PM EDT #
Jason is right, VMWare is a big deal and would complete the Solaris Virtualisation Suite. If you want/have to role out VMWare (Server or Desktop) , then Solaris is not currently an option! This should be remedied.
xVM different solution, not better or worst, just different, and some shops will insist on VMWare as it cross-platform credential increase (Windows/Linux/Mac).
My 2c worth.
Peter
Posted by Peter on October 19, 2007 at 08:50 AM EDT #
I agree with the Oracle comment earlier.
Oracle is pretty divided at one stage the write corporate letters that Solaris x86 is their preferred OS -and why not it's superior to any other opensource unix. Yet with support calls they tell you they don't support it. Oracle are a bunch of w.nkers.
Always disliked them but their database product does run flawless on Solaris x86-64 and not products are great. So please ORACLE confirm to your statement and tell developers and support people to support Solaris x86-64.
Posted by Raymond Doetjes on November 20, 2007 at 03:31 PM EST #
You stated:
"Intel has also announced that Solaris is its preferred OS for enterprise deployment on Xeon platforms."
Do you have a link to that announcement?
Posted by MikeS on January 15, 2008 at 12:16 PM EST #
Yes,
See here:
http://www.sun.com/2007-0122/feature/index.jsp
As part of today's announcement, Intel is embracing Solaris as a mainstream OS and the enterprise-class, mission critical UNIX OS for Intel Xeon processor-based servers. In a joint press conference in San Francisco today, executives from both companies announced a Solaris OEM agreement enabling Intel to distribute and support the Solaris OS to its customers as market opportunities arise.
Posted by Jim Laurent on January 15, 2008 at 12:39 PM EST #
What's the support model for Solaris running on non-Sun hardware under VMWare? Do I pay for system, socket, or vm instance?
Posted by Solaris-VM on February 26, 2008 at 06:32 PM EST #
I checked with Sun marketing. The Sun service subscription part numbers are per server with two tiers (1-2 sockets, 3 or more sockets). The prices are the same regardless of the number of Solaris instances run in a virtual environment.
For Solaris subscription pricing see:
http://www.sun.com/service/subscriptions/index.jsp
and Click the "Get Pricing Details" link.
Posted by Jim Laurent on February 27, 2008 at 06:37 PM EST #
Does any one have reference on success deployment of Solaris 10 x86-64 on VMWARE in production environment. I try to get that information from vmware and sun, but somehow no good information shows up.
Posted by David on November 11, 2008 at 11:02 AM EST #
Please see the success story posted at:
http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/success_stories.jsp
Abstract:
Global System Services Corporation
Sun Fire X4200 Server with Solaris 10 and VMWare Replaces 10 Intel Machines, Pays for Itself in Under Three Months
GSS purchased a Sun Fire X4200 server with Solaris 10 and installed VMWare. The combination replaced 10 Intel servers. Now GSS is experiencing higher productivity, increased server utilization and a rapid return on investment.
Posted by James Laurent on November 11, 2008 at 02:42 PM EST #
I have purposely not done any comparisons to "Linux" because "Linux" is a source code development project at kernel.org (not too dissimilar from OpenSolaris at opensolaris.org). "Linux" is not a product. Solaris 10 and RHEL 5 are products that customers can buy and get support for.
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One problem with Oracle particularly for the banking and Insurance sectors is the fact that Oracle does not provide the ProCOBOL precompiler with 10g on Solaris x86. It does on SPARC. Banking and insurance still use COBOL. Not having ProCOBOL precompiler means that COBOL deployments on x86 will only work with Linux. With all the core system replacements due in the coming years, Solaris on x86 would be a perfect platform, particularly for the smaller financial institutions.
Posted by jcat on October 29, 2009 at 10:25 PM EDT #
Based on statements from Larry Ellison and updates to the Oracle Metalink database, we expect Solaris for the X86 platform to become a tier 1 platform for Oracle.
Only time will tell and until the EC approves the acquisition, we can't make any additional commitments.
Posted by James Laurent on October 29, 2009 at 10:34 PM EDT #