OpenSolaris

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OpenSolaris News

Here are some news articles about OpenSolaris. If you see an interesting article that we missed, please send details to news-discuss, and we'll discuss it there. This news page is maintained by the Advocacy Community Group by Terri Molini and Joe G.

Ian Murdock Talks About OpenSolaris’ Upcoming First Release | Think Future Group | 04/21/2008

Sun's Ian Murdock gave a presentation about OpenSolaris at LugRadio Live this past weekend. He explained how OpenSolaris reflects Sun's changing platform strategy and also discussed some of the technical attributes that differentiate OpenSolaris from Linux. Murdock explained that Sun's traditional strengths in the enterprise are being overshadowed by significant changes in the market and in software adoption processes. He pointed out that much of the success that Linux has enjoyed in the server room is a result of its increasing popularity on the desktop among system administrators and other IT specialists. This is because people tend to deploy the technologies that are most accessible to them, he argues.

Solaris ZFS: Here Comes The Hammer | Blog: On The Record, Daniel Berthiaume | 04/18/2008

At the Sun Tech Days event this month in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sun's Jim Hughes found a unique way to... um... hammer home a point about the capabilities of Solaris ZFS. Wielding a sledgehammer and standing in front of approximately 2,000 audience members... actually, the video tells the story better than words ever could. Check out ZFS "Hammer Time" and see for yourself.

Sun xVM Ops Center | ZDNet, Dan Kusnetzky | 04/18/2008

I’ve long known that Sun is one of the few suppliers that has an entry in nearly every virtualization software category listed in the Kusnetzky Group Model. This not only allows the company to address organization’s requirements at almost every level. This also means that I don’t have a chance to address everything they’re doing here........Here’s a bit about Sun’s xVM Ops Center and my take on what clearly is a powerful product for Sun’s own Solaris, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) environments.

Sun Updates Streaming System, Adds Solaris Support | The Unix Guardian, Timothy Prickett-Morgan | 04/17/2008

A year ago, Sun Microsystems launched the Streaming System, a cluster of Linux-based application servers and storage servers and a new video stream switch, that Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim was creating when he was working in stealth mode at Kealia, a company Sun acquired in February 2004 to get Bechtolsheim back on board and to flesh out its server, storage, and switch product lines. This week, Sun is making some of the modules of the Streaming System software available on Solaris as well as Linux and is also allowing it to run on smaller Sun boxes.

BeleniX 0.7 OpenSolaris Desktop | Blog: Phoronix | 04/16/2008

Long before Sun's Project Indiana came about, BeleniX has been one of our favorite GNU/Solaris distributions. BeleniX has been a LiveCD based upon OpenSolaris, but with yesterday's release of BeleniX 0.7 it is now a source-level derivative of the Project Indiana blend of OpenSolaris. Today we're taking a quick look at this new release.

Sun touts big plans for OpenSolaris as first release nears | Arstechnica.com, Ryan Paul | 04/15/2008

Sun's Ian Murdock gave a presentation about OpenSolaris at LugRadio Live this past weekend. He explained how OpenSolaris reflects Sun's changing platform strategy and also discussed some of the technical attributes that differentiate OpenSolaris from Linux. Murdock explained that Sun's traditional strengths in the enterprise are being overshadowed by significant changes in the market and in software adoption processes. He pointed out that much of the success that Linux has enjoyed in the server room is a result of its increasing popularity on the desktop among system administrators and other IT specialists. This is because people tend to deploy the technologies that are most accessible to them, he argues.

ZFS boot support for SPARC / x86 | Blog: O'Matty | 04/13/2008

The flag day for ZFS boot support was just announced which will allow for root file systems (/, /var, /usr) to be bootable from both SPARC and x86 platforms. It looks like this functionality is going to come into OpenSolaris at build 88. The install support (selecting ZFS file systems from a jumpstart profile) or from optical media looks like it’ll make its way into build 89. A lot of people have been waiting to play with this on SPARC platforms. =) Its exciting stuff. If you would like to find out some more information about what changes were required to the boot process to allow for ZFS root, check out the ZFS-Boot project’s website on OpenSolaris found here.

Ian Murdock on OpenSolaris… And Beyond | Blog: colin Charles | 04/13/2008

I paid great attention to Ian Murdock’s talk at LugRadio Live USA 2008, as he’s an important person at Sun in terms of the open source community, and I’m community facing as well. It was also the first time I got to meet Ian (after his talk), and we hit off a conversation really quickly. I look forward to working alongside Ian more… Now to the talk notes.

Why ZFS rocks | Bits on Bytes | 04/11/2008

This morning while I’m still asleep my wife goes “Chris your computer is making a noise…” and after repeating herself ten times I finally comprehend what she’s saying and start listening. Sure enough there was a loud clicking noise coming from my server in the other room. I figured I had just lost a hard drive but I wasn’t worried because I have a spare that’s supposed to pop into action when this happens. So I hit the power button once and listen as it shuts itself down cleanly. Looking back I probably should have been more cautious but hey, I was still 98% asleep. When I finally got a chance to look at it, I find out the spare wasn’t actually added to my storage pool. Oops, my bad. Well I still wasn’t worried because my storage pool (all my really important data) was still up and rockin’:

The NSA Works with Sun to Boost Solaris Security | IT Jungle, Timothy Prickett Morgan | 03/27/2008

The NSA and Sun recently said that they would be working together through the OpenSolaris development community to integrate a new form of mandatory access control, called Flux Advanced Security Kernel, or Flask for short, into the Solaris platform. The NSA has been working with Red Hat and other commercial Linux distributors to put the features from the initial Flask projects from the early 1990s (which were created into a project called OSkit at the University of Utah) into something called Security Enhanced Linux, or SE-Linux. Red Hat has been a champion of SE-Linux, ironically, while Novell has championed a different kind of security controls embodied in its AppArmor security extensions for SUSE Linux. The Flask architecture is also used in the TrustedBSD variant of FreeBSD Unix, which is also sponsored by the NSA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Apple Computer (Mac OS X is a variant of BSD), Yahoo (a big user of BSD Unix), and others. Flask security has also been woven into the open source Xen hypervisor, the PostgreSQL database, and X server code.

I’m not against Windows; Unix just works better | ZDNet, Paul Murphy | 03/26/2008

“Linux is great -you know I work with it all the time - but when it comes to complex, mission critical, requirements at your scale it’s crippled by x86; and sure, it runs on SPARC too, but not nearly as well as Solaris, so what’s the point?

Sun Announces MySQL Bundle | eWeek, Darryl Taft | 03/26/2008

The bundle, announced March 25, consists of GlassFish version 2.0 with the MySQL Community Server 5.0 (5.0.51a) and MySQL JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) driver 5.1.6. It is designed to provide developers with popular open-source versions of enterprise Java and the database and give them easy access to the platforms to develop and deploy rich Java and Web applications, Sun officials said. The bundle is available for all the major software platforms, including Solaris, Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. Meanwhile, other benefits include GlassFish support for the latest Web event-driven technologies such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and Comet, which make for rich customer Web experiences. Also, users can freely develop applications on the open-source bits and later, when they need support, decide to buy a subscription to products from Sun that offer training, support and product updates, company officials said.

CommunityOne Free and Open Developer Conference Returns For Second Year | Sun Microsystems, Jacki Decoster | 03/26/2008

The CommunityOne Session Catalog is located at: http://www28.cplan.com/cc197/sessions_catalog.jsp. CommunityOne is a free, one-day event that allows developers and students to benefit from the innovation and choice of the free and open source ecosystem. The conference program is the result of a public call for papers, which received more than 200 submissions. CommunityOne will offer more than 70 sessions led by contributors and committers of more than 30 different open source and community projects; from chip design to operating systems, to web servers and databases, to scripting languages and tools. CommunityOne will also offer “unconference” sessions, led by the analysts from RedMonk, in which participants will determine the topics they wish to discuss, exchange ideas and identify best practices.

GlassFish and MySQL communities release software co-bundle for developers | On The Record, Terri Molini | 03/25/2008

Check it out! Within a few weeks of the completion of the acquisition of MySQL AB, the GlassFish and MySQL communities are announcing the availability of an optimized bundled release. The bundle consists of GlassFish V2 with the MySQL Community Server 5.0 (5.0.51a) and MySQL JDBC driver 5.1.6. It is designed to provide developers with the leading open source versions of enterprise Java and database and giving them easy access to the platforms they need to develop and deploy rich Java and Web applications. GlassFishThe bundle is available for all the major software platforms including Solaris, Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.

Sun Set to Bring NSA Tech to Solaris | Internetnews.com, Sean Michael Kerner | 03/14/2008

Back in 2004, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) helped the Linux community to build something called SELinux, which brings mandatory access control (MAC) policies to the Linux kernel. Now four years later, Sun is getting the same technology from the NSA to use with its Solaris operating system. Sun's OpenSolaris community will work on integrating the NSA's Flux Advanced Security Kernel (Flask) architecture, which is a form of mandatory access control, for type enforcement. Flask is the basis of SELinux.

NSA's Flask coming to OpenSolaris | vnunet.com, Shaun NIchols | 03/14/2008

Sun taps National Security Agency for Flux Advanced Security Kernel. Sun will incorporate the National Security Agency's Flux Advanced Security Kernel into OpenSolaris

Sun and NSA team up for new version of OpenSolaris | Security Watch, Isabelle Chaize | 03/14/2008

Sun Microsystem’s OpenSolaris operating system is to be enhanced by a deal between Sun and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The merge will integrate Flask (Flux Advanced Security Kernel), the NSA’s security architecture for operating systems, into OpenSolaris in a move which will create mandatory access controls in OpenSolaris.

NSA Project Enhances OpenSolaris Security | Linux.com | 03/14/2008

Sun Microsystems and the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) announced an agreement to jointly work within the OpenSolaris community to research and to develop security enhancements to complement existing OpenSolaris security mechanisms. Both Sun and the NSA will work with the OpenSolaris community to integrate an additional form of mandatory access control (MAC), based on the Flux Advanced Security Kernel (Flask) architecture.

Sun, NSA Link Arms To Improve Solaris | InformationWeek, Charlie Babcock | 03/13/2008

Sun Microsystems said Thursday that it has signed an agreement with the U.S. National Security Agency to jointly develop new security mechanisms for OpenSolaris. The two will work with the open source project, OpenSolaris.org, to integrate an additional form of mandatory access control.

Sun joins IBM, HP in standards advocacy group | BetaNews, Michael Hatamoto | 03/13/2008

The newest member of the Open Group today is Sun Microsystems today, in its latest effort to become recognized as the pinnacle of the open source community. Sun's new level of participation will allow the company to work on the Architecture Framework (TOGAF), IT Architect Certification (ITAC), and IT Specialist Certification (ITSC), which are open projects designed to help companies become more efficient by following best practices and guidelines. The TOGAF framework is especially interesting as it allows companies to create their own enterprise architecture without contracting the job out or relying on another company for assistance. At the same time, compliance with TOGAF makes companies eligible for assistance with training and education.