The U.S. Department of Justice approved Oracle's proposed $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun on August 20 with no restrictions. This decision came faster than what some analysts and legal experts had anticipated, particularly since licensing concerns were in question with Oracle acquiring Sun's Java software, one of the world's most widely used computer languages. The Oracle-Sun deal still needs to be approved by the European Commission before the deal can close.
Apache Hadoop is a free Java software framework that supports data intensive distributed applications. It enables applications to work with thousands of nodes and petabytes of data. OpenSolaris has a project dedicated to Hadoop with the goal of making it more scalable, robust, deployable and easy to use. Philippe Julio elaborates on the Hadoop architecture, defining its features, tips for proof of concept, configuration and multiple resource links.
Hardened OpenSolaris 2009.06 on Amazon EC2's cloud computing service is now available with the new features: encrypted swap memory and auditing. This release is a 32-bit AMI optimized for Amazon EC2's cloud computing environment. The hardening guidance for the OpenSolaris system configuration is based upon the work conducted by Sun and the Center for Internet Security (CIS). This project is affiliated with the Immutable Service Container project whose goal is to develop security reinforced virtual machine images.
A provider of web services security to the Western European market and the U.S., the French company Symeos has opted for an online identity management platform with open-source Sun solutions that have cut its development costs by 60%. The virtualized platform, called EGO, features Sun Blade servers using the UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor that have cut power costs by 10% and energy consumption across the entire platform by around 20%.
Several knowledgeable hands at Sun have collaborated in preparing the Sun BluePrints Online document "The Solaris Operating System Optimized -- for the AMD Opteron Processor." The authors state their intention was to create a quick reference guide for developers and system administrators who want to optimize applications running on Solaris and AMD Opteron processors. The paper describes technical details about specific features and capabilities that can be implemented in the Solaris ecosystem to make the best use of multicore AMD Opteron processors.
The Solaris 10 Recommended and Sun Alert patch clusters located on the SunSolve page have had some improvements made so that installation of the clusters is easier and more efficient. Modifications range from a new installcluster script with support for interims boots to the notification when zones have to be halted, to several other changes. Recently released, these updates are available in the current clusters for contract customers from the Patch Cluster & Patch Bundle Downloads on SunSolve. Gerry Haskins' Patch Corner blog has the details.
Factors driving the growth of cloud computing were the focus of the keynote speech presented by Sun Vice President and CTO of Cloud Computing Lew Tucker during the OpenSource World Conference & Expo 2009 held in San Francisco on August 12-13. Companies are realizing through using the cloud, they can focus more on business and less on maintaining physical IT, he said, reported ChannelWeb's Kevin McLaughlin.
Consolidating the growing stores of disparate identity data, where increasing numbers of users and applications are the rule rather than the exception, is one of several daunting tasks facing system administrators. The recent Sun white paper "Top Three Reasons to Deploy a Virtual Directory" explains why a virtual directory can help solve this task by providing a single consolidated view of disparate identity data to organizations dealing with diverse legacy resources.
ZDNet's Craig Simms critiques Sun's x64 media and storage server, offering his view of its external and internal design, specs and performance. "Whether you need to apply yourself with some dense storage or just need the compute power of 16 cores, its flexibility is commendable," Simms surmises. "It's not the quietest server around, but stuck in a server room no one is likely to notice."
A new Fabric Expansion Module for the Sun Blade T6320 and T6340 Server Modules is expected to support Sun Blade 6000 Virtualized 10GbE Network Express Module (NEM). This new product offering will help customers reduce the cost of cabling and port management, simplify blade deployment and re-configuration as well as eliminate the need for compatibility and interoperability issues with enterprise switches.
Integrated Lights Out Management (ILOM) is system management firmware that is preinstalled on some Sun servers that enables users to actively manage and monitor components installed in the server. ILOM provides a browser-based interface and a command-line interface, as well as SNMP and IPMI interfaces. The latest version is 3.0 and its been updated in its security, scalability, User Interface (UI) performance, power monitoring, serviceability and system administration and management from the previous 2.0 version.
ZFS snapshots can help users view or recover files on a Windows desktop by simply using the Previous Versions tab. Snapshots are accessible via the Previous Versions tab in Windows Explorer using the Shadow Copy client, which is available by default on Windows XP SP2 and later. For Windows 2000 and pre-SP2 Windows XP, Microsoft offers a download. Alan Wright explains how to recover deleted or previous versions of files on Windows in a recent blog entry.
Sun StorageTek T10000B tape drive has received the FIPS 140-2 Certification at Security Level 2 - a federal data security standard published and maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). With this certification on Sun's eco-efficient tape drive, federal customers are ensured the Sun solution meets the FIPS-validated requirements for product purchase, while other end-users can rest assured that it meets stringent security standards. Sun reports that it is the first and only tape drive vendor to achieve Federal FIPS Certification at Security Level 2.
We track how frequently each article is viewed on the web site to determine which the readers consider the most important. For last week, Vol 137 Issue 5, the top 10 articles were:
Sun SPARC Enterprise servers with chip multi-threading (CMT) technology set three new world records on industry-standard e-mail serving and Java benchmarks, Sun reports. These include SPECjbb2005, an industry-standard benchmark that emulates the design of real-world server-side Java applications, and SPECmail2009 that is designed to simulate real-world corporate e-mail environments. Additionally, outstanding performance on the Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition test and Zeus Extensible Traffic Manager were demonstrated.
Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat, Oman, needed an IT solution that would allow its researchers working on a range of computationally-challenging science and engineering applications more computing power than they were getting from the institution's PC-based computing facilities. The university decided to incorporate an HPC system from Sun based on the Sun Blade 6000 HPC Blade Cluster.
The Sun BluePrints Online paper "Logical Domains: Quick Start Guide" is designed to provide a simple set of steps for setting up and running a server with Logical Domains (LDoms) 1.2 software. This guide is not intended to be a comprehensive beginner’s guide to LDoms; rather, it has been written to cover the use case of using LDoms in a laboratory environment for the first time. The authors, Peter A. Wilson and Gary Combs, both of Sun Systems Technical Marketing, assume a minimal amount of supporting infrastructure, specifically a desktop or laptop computer connected via a network to the server. Neither do they require the use of a network install server.
"Optimizing PostgreSQL Application Performance with Solaris Dynamic Tracing" is one of several Sun BluePrints articles that focus on optimizing Web 2.0 solutions. Author Robert Lor describes how Solaris DTrace functionality can help with PostgreSQL database application tuning. Specifically, the article includes examples showing aspects of PostgreSQL database server operation that can be observed using DTrace probes. The article assumes that the reader has a basic understanding of the Solaris OS, Solaris DTrace, the PostgreSQL database server and general database application development.
YubiKey is a device that acts as a USB keyboard and provides secure authentication by a one-time password (OTP) algorithm. Working on a client's suggestion, Sun's Rene Klomp has extended the standard VdaClient used in the Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) 3 with YubiKey authentication and details his efforts in his blog entry "YubiVDI".
Not only will VirtualBox 3.0 do most of what both VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion can do, it comes free of charge with a Personal Use and Evaluation License from Sun, writes Jeff James in his Windows IT Pro review. James was also impressed by the capability VirtualBox 3.0 gave him to work with a variety of guest OSes.
The Sun Continuous Integration Server (SCIS) is a Sun-supported version of Hudson, the integration server started by Kohsuke Kawaguchi that monitors executions of repeated jobs, such as building a software project or jobs run by cron. SCIS is now included as part of the broader Sun GlassFish Portfolio. The commercial support subscription offered by Sun is being released to meet the ever-growing demand of businesses relying on Hudson.
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