As promised, Sun released the Solaris 9 Containers software at the end of April and its download is now available. This offering enables a simpler migration of Solaris 9 applications to the latest systems running the Solaris 10 Operating System (Solaris OS). This solution is intended for those customers who want to run their Solaris 9 environments on newer Chip Multi-threading (CMT) systems running Solaris 10 8/07 or later releases.

What it Can Do

Solaris 9 Containers allows Solaris 10 features, such as ZFS, DTrace and Predictive Self Healing to be used. For example, it is possible to put a Solaris 9 Container root filesystem on ZFS and clone it. DTrace can be used to analyze and troubleshoot applications running in the Solaris 9 Container.

Since the Solaris 10 is run as the base operating system, its features automatically apply, including those which are transparent to applications. The Solaris Fault Manager (FMA), for example, delivers improved uptime to systems and applications, and its improved networking stack results in much better performance.

The implicit benefit to all applications and users is, of course, that their Solaris 9 environments now run on systems and peripherals that were previously unsupported, such as CoolThreads and M-series servers. This gives customers the proven economies and efficiencies of CMT running on the Solaris OS.

How it Works

Through the use of Solaris 9 Containers, the application and its environment are captured, converted and moved from the Solaris 9 system to the Solaris 10 system. Customers get all the advantages of the Solaris 10 OS while keeping their original Solaris 9 application environment. The end result is a run time environment that can run the migrated Solaris 9 environment on the new system.

The way this software works is through the use of two software components. One is a physical to virtual (P2V) conversion tool that helps with moving the application and its environment from the Solaris 9 system to the Solaris 10 system, and converts it so it can run on this new platform. When the existing Solaris 9 environment is transferred to the destination system and placed in a Solaris 9 Container, the installer adds a few patches to the Solaris 9 image to make it work correctly on the new system. This installation does not install a new version of Solaris 9. Rather, it creates the Solaris Container that will hold the Solaris 9 bits that were copied from the source system and put those bits into the Container ready to run on the new system.

The second component is the Solaris 9 Container that is the run time environment which runs the migrated Solaris 9 environment.

Benefits

Solaris 9 Containers can help:

• Reduce time to deploy Solaris 10: Run Solaris 9 applications in a container on Solaris 10 and later move to a native deployment.

• Provide a Solaris 9 Container for difficult applications: Some applications may not run natively on Solaris 10 due to embedded application tests. Solaris 9 Containers provides a Container that looks and behaves like Solaris 9 and will allow many of these applications to run successfully.

• Speed access to Sun's latest technologies: With Sun's new hardware and the advanced features of Solaris 10, customers have the potential for significant improvement in data center efficiencies. Solaris 9 Containers is one Sun technology that enables these benefits to be exploited quickly.

Subscription/Licensing

The Solaris 9 Containers subscription includes the right to use (RTU) the software and premium support for the Solaris 9 Containers software for a term of one year. The duration of the subscription is on a per year term and must be renewed each year. This subscription does not impact the Solaris 9 right-to-use.

Sun is offering an evaluation license for customers wanting to try out the software. A subscription must be purchased, one per server, before deploying in production.

Customers must have a valid Solaris 9 license and either a Solaris 10 premium subscription, a Sun System Gold Plan or Platinum Service Plan. This ensures that both the Solaris 9 application environment and the Solaris 10 OS are covered by support subscriptions.

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