VirtualBox 3.0 is released with major enhancements like SMP support and virtual machine management capabilities. NetBeans 6.7 also is released, offering integration with Project Kenai - a collaborative environment that lets developers host their open source projects in the cloud.

A recent interview with James Gosling sheds insight on his thoughts regarding Java's outlook in the Oracle business plan and many other things.

Achieve out-of-the-box performance gains with a single-socket UltraSPARC T2-based server. A test of out-of-the-box performance looks at Intel Xeon 5500 processor series on Sun servers running OpenSolaris 2009.06, SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 and Solaris 10 Update 7.

There is a freely downloadable patch management utility for Solaris that generates lists of installed and missing patches. If interested in the "Less Known Solaris Features," Solaris News Bites offers a link to the new PDF book along with other tidbits on the OS.

Read about the latest support and key features of Solaris Cluster 3.2 01/09 for the SAP NetWeaver stack.

Sun technologies that enhance the performance, monitoring and tuning of the Oracle database on Sun servers are being gathered.

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Sun stockholders have approved the company's merger with Oracle. Sun released preliminary results for its fourth quarter fiscal year 2009 and reports an expected net loss and lower revenues.

Performance Engineer John L. Henning shares why he has lost his fear of ZFS.

Take a technical deep dive with Sun Distinguished Engineer Glenn Brunette as he presents a mediacast of Solaris 10 Security updated for version 05/09.

An early access version of Sun Ray Software 5 and Sun Ray Soft Client 1.0 has been released.

Read about the first large scale grid validation for the SAS Grid Computing 9.2 benchmark with the Sun Storage 7410 Unified Storage System. Also see performance comparisons of the entire Sun Storage 7000 product line.

Improve OpenSolaris performance on Intel Xeon 5500 series processors. The first High Availability (HA) solution for OpenSolaris, Open High Availability (HA) Cluster 2009.06 , is available.

A white paper entitled "Building HPC Systems for Business-critical Workloads," and a new Sun BluePrints on configuring systems for very high bandwidth I/O are covered.

Ars Technica reviews VirtualBox 3. Learn how to install a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise as an xVM guest.

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The new six-core AMD processor release has enhanced a variety of systems. There are two new PTO options for Sun Fire X4540 with six-core AMD Opteron Processor 2435. Get specific model numbers and features of the new six-core processors for Sun Blade X6240 and X6440 Server Modules.

The Istanbul processors have also created many questions about performance. Test drive results are posted of the Sun Fire X4140 with six-core Opteron processors using Web 2.0 toolkit Olio, and in a separate test with Postgre SQL 8.4. Which is the most suitable processor for a particular use of cloud computing, Intel Nehalem or AMD Istanbul?

Thierry Manfe explains how to deploy the AMP stack in a virtualized environment.

Sun HPC ClusterTools 8.2 and 8.1 are reported on, as is information on the Sun Datacenter Infiniband Switch 648.

OpenSSO Express Build 8.0 will offer mobile one-time password, allowing two-factor authentication out-of-the box without the need for a third party product.

Linux administrators are advised to take a closer look at OpenSolaris.

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Logical Domains 1.2 is one of few recently released Sun solutions and developments covered this week. Sun HPC Software, Developer Edition 1.0 is another, as is Sun ODF Plug-in 3.1 for Microsoft Office, a new PatchFinder tool and OpenSolaris SourceJuicer 1.2.0.

Performance enthusiasts will want to take a look at an interpretation of Sun's SPECpower ssj2008 Publications. Sun's Open Network Systems have set multiple record-breaking results on BIDW and e-mail serving benchmarks.

Learn more about Sun and partner solutions in a variety of reference materials:

• Quick reference guide for developers on optimizing Intel Xeon 5500 processors on Solaris.

• White paper targets how Sun and VMware solutions can ease Windows server consolidation.

• A quick start guide advises on deploying Apache HTTP Web Server on Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage Systems.

• eSeminar on Oracle's Siebel CRM 8 running on Solaris 10, Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 systems and Sun Open Storage

Additional references of interest include the ZFS Guides and a product overview of Sun Secure Global Desktop Software.

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Sun SPARC Enterprise systems now offer 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC T2 and T2 Plus processors. See the results of various performance tests of the new 1.6 GHZ processors running on the Sun CMT family of systems.

Oracle database on these just released pumped up Sun SPARC systems has set a SAP two-tier SD world record. New Sun Open Network Systems Enterprise 2.0 Solution for Oracle claims enterprise infrastructure deployment at up to 75 percent faster rates than traditional approaches.

MySQL performance on Sun Storage 7110 and 7210 is examined. Users of Sun Storage 7000 systems may be interested in a quick start guide on setting up with VMware ESX servers.

The latest six-core AMD Opteron processors are now in Sun x64 blades and rackmount servers.

OpenDS 2.0 is now available free along with the supported version Sun OpenDS Standard Edition 2.0.

Microsoft Enterprise Engineering Center is now relying on Sun Ray thin clients. Read about the integration and get access to a Microsoft white paper on virtualizing Windows on Sun Ray Thin Clients.

Another white paper explains how to set up a system with OpenSolaris, serving as a host for at least two VirtualBox OpenSolaris guests.

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