Details on the Solaris 10 5/08 Operating System

The official download release of the Solaris 10 5/08 Operating System (Solaris OS) was announced in mid-April, and the physical media kit's general availability set for release April 28. Now, more details on the version's new features and enhancements are available.

Larry Wake, group manager of Solaris Software at Sun, reviews the updates in this release in a short webcast, and the following list will familiarize you with its latest features.

Capping CPU Resource Usage

This feature allows applications to run on any CPU while limiting their CPU usage. Customers can now set finer grained limits, specified in fractions of a CPU, by projects or zones giving them more flexibility in how they allocate and manage CPU resources.

Support for Enhanced Intel SpeedStep and AMD PowerNow Power Management Technology

Solaris OS can now manage the power saving features delivered by these technologies via CPU frequency scaling and users can configure and activate/deactivate them easily. Once enabled, the new Solaris OS will automatically manage the CPU operating frequency based on the parameters set. It should be noted that setting the processor to a lower operating frequency is especially beneficial in increasing battery life of laptops, reducing variable speed fan noise, etc.

Virtual Network Computing (VNC)

The open source Virtual Network Computing project's vncviewer and vncserver are now included. Vncviewer allows viewing an X windows session from another Solaris OS, Linux or Windows (with optional vnc software) system on a Solaris 10 system. Similarly, vncserver allows sharing a Solaris 10 X windows session with another Solaris OS, Linux or Windows system. This feature is useful in a virtualization environment as the administrator's desktop for a Sun xVM Server guest can be viewed on the Solaris host. Also included are enhancements to the Xorg server enforce Solaris Trusted Extensions in a VNC sessions environment.

Graphical User Interface for PostgreSQL (pgAdmin 3)

This feature provides a graphical interface for PostgreSQL users to administer, maintain, access and develop the Open Source Administration and Development Platform for PostgreSQL - an open source database integrated into Solaris 10 OS.

New Instant Messaging Client (pidgin 2.0)

Pidgin is an open source, multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows for the use all of IM accounts at once. It was formerly known as GAIM.

Adobe Flash 9 Player

Now included with the Solaris OS.

Infiniband Flash Update Tool

Eases updating firmware on Mellanox Infiniband host channel adapters (HCAs), making it a simple process to keep up to date with the latest features and fixes from Mellanox.

Sockets Direct Protocol (SDP)

This industry standard protocol for delivering Sockets-based networking over Infiniband is now supported.

SAS Multipathing Support

Solaris multipathing (Sun StorageTek Traffic Manager, also known as MPxIO) support has been added to the Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS) protocol by extending mpt(7D) driver to utilize the existing MPxIO framework.

Support for Download of New Firmware into SATA Drives

This support is for any system with marvell88sx5081, marvell88sx5080, marvell88sx6041, marvell88sx6081, marvell88sx6040 chips set. (i.e., Thumper x4500 and selected Supermicro systems). New firmware can be installed without powering down a system and is available immediately.

Hardware Key Generation (Crypto Framework Feature)

This feature provides userland access to generate RSA, DH and ECC keys from hardware accelerators. It also provides DH hardware key generation support on Niagara hardware to Solaris. Users can benefit from improved performance (between 8x to 2000x) for key generation on Niagara platforms for userland applications using openssl and NSS. It also delivers improvements seen by IPsec.

SunVTS 7.0

This comprehensive system validation and test suite is designed to support Sun hardware platforms and peripherals. Considered the next generation hardware diagnostic test tool, it offers new and enhanced features such as web-based user interface using Sun Java Web Console (Lockhart), multiple host support and logical tests. It enables users to quickly assess system device connection status and perform functional tests on the hardware. It is simple to use, has effective testing capabilities and offers a better diagnostics experience.

IP Addressing Ability for IBTF Interfaces

A number of IB Upper Level Protocols (e.g. RDS, SDP, NFS) require an interface for IP address resolution that meets the RDMA IP CM Service specification in the InfiniBand Architecture Specification 1.2 Annex. This interface addition brings the Solaris IB implementation into conformance with the industry standard IB specification and enables interoperability with Linux and other industry standard implementations.

iSNS Client for iSCSI Target

This client component for the iSNS Server allows customers to use iSNS to configure and manage large iSCSI SANs used in HPC.

Persistent Group Reservation for iSCSI Target

This feature defines how cluster nodes are reserved and released. It also maintains state/data when a node fails. Its addition enables fault tolerant HPC storage systems. [...read more...]

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