System News for Sun Users

Best Practices for Supporting Sun Server and Storage Systems

2011-11-10T17:00:00+01:00

The 44-slide presentation on "Best Practices for Supporting Sun Server and Storage Systems" by Ray Cappola, Director, Oracle Proactive Systems Support, and Wayne Seltzer, Principal Product Manager, Oracle Proactive Support Center, which they presented at Oracle OpenWorld 2011, is now available as a download. The presenters recommend three best practices as the outset, which are:

Install and use Oracle Auto Service Request
Take advantage of My Oracle Support Automated Diagnosis
Access Oracle Sun System Analysis Reports for your Oracle Solaris server

Home free at this point? Not quite but well on the way to faster problem resolution and simplified support operations. The presenters then delve into the details on each of the recommended best practices listed above.

Oracle Solaris Premier Subscriptions for Non-Oracle x86 Systems

2010-11-10T17:00:00+01:00

Now that Dell and HP have certified and agreed to resell Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM on their x86 servers, it comes as a relief that Oracle is now making Oracle Solaris Premier Subscription for Non-Oracle Hardware available. The subscription will be offered to new and existing customers running Oracle Solaris across multiple x86 platforms, which ensures successful Oracle Solaris deployments by providing 24/7 phone access to world-class Oracle Solaris support on any certified x86 system on the Solaris Hardware Compatibility List. Upgrades will include future Oracle Solaris releases and enhancements.

Sun's SunSolve, Member Support Center, Email Center Retirement Notice - October 2010

2010-10-29T16:00:00+01:00

The scheduled transition from Oracle Global Customer Support to My Oracle Support, set for later in 2010, will enable Sun customers and partners to take full advantage of the functionality available to all Oracle Support customers. At the time of the migration, legacy Sun applications - including the Member Support Center (MSC), SunSolve, and Email Center - will be retired, and Oracle's standard support processes implemented. Existing Oracle customers or partners do not need to re-register for My Oracle Support.

Protect Your Java and Solaris Development Tools

2010-07-01T16:00:00+01:00

Developers wanting some security in the tools they use can now purchase two different combined support offerings from Oracle. The first is the Java Development Tools Support that covers all three of Oracle's Java IDE options. The other is the Oracle Solaris Development Tools Support that incorporates Solaris Studio and Solaris Studio Express.

Service and Support Helps Derive More Value from Technology Investments

2010-06-18T16:00:00+01:00

The Oracle white paper "The New Reality of Service and Support" cites a recent IDG Research Services survey that discovered 80 percent of CIOs have come to consider their relationship with external IT service and support providers critical to the accomplishment of their missions. Further, according to the survey, the majority of senior executives claim their company's reliance on external IT service and support providers has increased over the past 12 months.

Support and Certification on Oracle Enterprise Linux

2010-06-02T16:00:00+01:00

The free Oracle Enterprise Linux software and the Unbreakable Linux support program is nearly four years old and it continues to grow its extensive ecosystem of hardware and software partners. Sergio Leunissen provides a bit of background information on the open source software along with relevant links and a sampling of partners who have certified their products with Oracle Enterprise Linux.

Gartner Reports on Oracle's New Sun Support Policy

2010-05-20T16:00:00+01:00

While the old or the usual way of doing the business of hardware maintenance may well be disrupted by the new Sun support policy recently announced by Oracle, the changes may also benefit customers, write Rob Addy, Ron Silliman and Adam W. Couture for Gartner's "Oracle's New Sun Support Policy May Disrupt the Hardware Maintenance Market."

Support Policy Update on Some Sun Products

2010-05-13T16:00:00+01:00

The Oracle Support Library has posted an updated version of its Oracle Lifetime Support Policy that includes some Sun products. The 55-page PDF contains information on Sun and GlassFish Application Server, NetBeans, and Sun JDK; Sun Master Data Management and Data Integrator; Sun Portal; Sun Directory Services and Sun Identity and Access Management; and Sun SOA; among others.

Auto Service Request and Network Services for Sun Systems and Storage

2010-04-12T16:00:00+01:00

Auto Service Request (ASR) is a secure, scalable, customer-installable software feature of warranty and SunSpectrum support that provides auto-case generation when specific hardware faults occur in Sun systems. For Sun storage, network services can be induced so specific services can be performed remotely in order to increase service availability, reduce administration time, maintain storage system performance, and manage data center environments more efficiently. To check which Sun products qualify, there is a wiki page for ASR Systems (servers) and a general product information page on network services for Storage products.

Introduction to Sun Shared Shell

2009-12-30T17:00:00+01:00

A three and a half minute Sun-sponsored video introduces Sun Shared Shell - a collaborative service tool that allows Sun Services engineers to remotely view and diagnose customers' computing issues. As part of the Sun Spectrum Support Service, Shared Shell is a Java application providing secure, shared, remote access. To demonstrate how it works, the video brief walks through the steps of how to access the tool and invite participants. It also presents the various communication tools available during these sessions that make collaboration easy and help overcome noise or language barriers.

Sun Managed Services More Than Satisfies Motor Sports Promoter

2009-08-11T16:00:00+01:00

International Speedway Corporation (ISC) is a leading promoter of NASCAR and other motor sports. With the company experiencing 10-15% growth over several years, it decided to leave its third-party vendor hosted systems and build its own data center, engaging an IT vendor to remotely manage its mission-critical systems that include a ticketing system, ERP system and 54 interactive web sites. ISC chose Sun Remote Operations Management and reports its expectations have been far exceeded.

Sun Shared Shell

2009-05-12T16:00:00+01:00

The Sun Shared Shell, which supports SSH and Telnet and allows users to see and optionally control a remote system has been deemed a "cool diagnostic tool" in the blog of Steffen Weiberle.

Moving those Legacy Applications into the Cloud

2009-03-12T16:00:00+01:00

Lew Tucker, Sun CTO for Cloud Computing, started with the company as a member of James Gosling's original Java development team so, as you might imagine, he has some familiarity with legacy applications. After an absence of a few years, Tucker returned in 2008 to accept his current position, and he has already laid out his first concern, which is to determine how best to bring legacy applications into the cloud, according to Chris Preimesberger, who interviewed Tucker for eWeek.com.

"Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing"

2009-03-02T17:00:00+01:00

Offering software as a service is just one of the many changes in the IT industry that cloud computing brings with the potential to reshape the way IT hardware is designed and purchased. Developers no longer need to waste money on costly resources and can still capture potential customers easier than ever before.

Sun VP/CTO of Cloud Computing: Your Data Center is Your Computer

2009-02-16T17:00:00+01:00

A review of cloud computing is contributed by Lew Tucker, VP and CTO of cloud computing at Sun Microsystems. "Tucker said that Sun as a company had evolved its platform from a Unix, Solaris, and Java infrastructure without losing sight of the company's original vision, which is 'the network is the computer,'" writes Roger Smith, InformationWeek.com.

Sun Names its First Chief Governance Officer for Cloud Computing

2009-02-16T17:00:00+01:00

Without too much fanfare, Michelle Dennedy has been appointed as Sun's first Chief Governance Officer for Cloud Computing, leaving behind her role as the company's Chief Information Strategy & Privacy Officer. Admittedly a bit scared and extremely happy, Dennedy stated in her blog that she is ready to roll up her sleeves and take on this monster challenge of building a framework "that will mold the people, process & responsibility aspects of The Cloud."

Cloud Computing Will Attract Developers

2009-02-09T17:00:00+01:00

Sun CTO for cloud computing, Lew Tucker sees the evolution as the result of, first, the client-server, then the Internet, and now the cloud. He told Paul Krill for an interview in Infoworld that he expects IDEs to evolve in parallel, moving to cloud deployments.

A Brief Look at Cloud Computing

2009-02-02T17:00:00+01:00

Here's a brief introduction to cloud computing technology that comes in the form of a blog by Helena of the Java ES Prague Team, who terms the concept "...usage of technology services via the Internet, without needing to know or control the infrastructure which supports them." The key, she notes, is reliance on the Internet to satisfy user computing needs.

Is Your Organization Ready for Cloud Computing?

2009-01-26T17:00:00+01:00

Cloud computing is not simply a rehash of the shared tenancy computing practiced back in the day of mainframes, writes Sun CIO Bob Worrall in the Sun Inner Circle newsletter. Rather, he continues, cloud computing delivers a number of services, including software as a service, platform as a service, infrastructure as a service and storage as a service, whether through public or private clouds.

Sun Offers Corporate Learning Pass Program

2009-01-12T17:00:00+01:00

Sun is offering what it terms the Sun Corporate Learning Pass Program, which provides customers with up to a 40% discount on comprehensive technical training from Sun Microsystems. The program includes multiple education training credits that can be used for classes from Sun's course catalog to support ongoing employee development, along with a 12-month subscription to the Solaris or Java eLibrary and multiple Certification Exam Vouchers that employees can use to pursue Sun professional certification.

Sun Soars in the Cloud

2009-01-05T17:00:00+01:00

For 2009, cloud computing will be a much talked about service. It is on the cutting-edge in incorporating the latest technologies and satisfying many of today's environmental concerns. Sun is a pioneer in cloud computing. Its cloud computing services include cloud assessments and architecture guides and Sun's open source products, such as MySQL, xVM, and open storage, are the foundation of some of the largest clouds on the Internet today.

Using Identity as a Service

2009-01-05T17:00:00+01:00

OpenSSO Enterprise, a set of reusable, standardized services that provide applications with identity management, enables users to employ Identity as a Service in their environments. Typically based on the service-oriented architecture (SOA), Identity as a Service is system of discrete functional components of identity management. It is derived from the traditional set of functionally overlapping applications such as authentication, authorization, work flow, policy management, attribute management, provisioning, and password management.

Sun Solutions Cut Customers' Costs, Increase Datacenter Efficiency

2008-12-29T17:00:00+01:00

Sun Rapid Solutions is a set of three new services designed to help customers cut costs and increase datacenter efficiency. These solutions are prearchitected and preconfigured products that can be deployed quickly and cost effectively. The solution set includes Sun Identity Provisioning, Sun Managed Virtual Desktop, and Sun Compute Cluster.

Sun Data Protection Services Data Erasure Service; Conforms to DOD 5220-22M Standards

2008-12-29T17:00:00+01:00

Sun Data Protection Services Data Erasure (SDPS-DE) provides an on-site offering delivered by Sun-badged technicians that erases sensitive customer data from the hard disk drives installed in Servers and Arrays. The erasure technology conforms to DOD 5220-22M standards, ensuring non-recoverability of erased data including erasure of locked/hidden sectors such as remapped, DCO, HPA sectors.

A Catalog of Cloud Computing Solutions and Services from Sun

2008-12-22T17:00:00+01:00

Sun solutions architect Alka Gupta has assembled a helpful guide to Sun's cloud computing portfolio in her blog entitled "A Sneak Peek at Sun's Cloud Computing Offerings." She leads off, citing MySQL, Coolstack from Sun, NetBeans, and the Sun xVM portfolio.

Cloud Computing

2008-12-15T17:00:00+01:00

Sun sheds light on Cloud Computing. Learn about the following: What's in it for IT, what it is, why it changes everything, the silver lining, and how Sun can help. The three dimensions to cloud computing are 1) Layers of abstraction, 2) Types of deployment, and 3) Application domain.

Sun Studio Express 11/08

2008-12-01T17:00:00+01:00

Sun Studio Software delivers a high-performance, optimized C, C++, as well as Fortran developer toolchain for Solaris, OpenSolaris, and Linux OSes. This includes support for multicore x86 and SPARC-based systems. The toolchain includes parallelizing compilers, code-level and memory debuggers, performance and thread analysis tools, and OpenMP support, as well as optimized math libraries. Developing parallel applications in the multicore era has never been easier than it is with NetBeans-based IDE.

Support for Solaris 7 Terminated

2008-08-11T16:00:00+01:00

The Solaris 7 EOL (End of Life) last ship date was August 15, 2003. Per the January 23, 2003 Solaris 7 EOL announcement the EOSL (End of Service Life) Phase 2 exit date was announced as August 15, 2008.

Per the above and per the longstanding Sun EOSL policy, upon reaching EOSL on August 16, 2008, except through custom agreements, all support for Solaris 7 will terminate. SunSpectrum and Solaris subscriptions will no longer include Solaris 7 support. Support calls regarding Solaris 7 will no longer be accepted and all patch access for Solaris 7 will terminate.

Solaris 8 Vintage Patch Service

2008-08-04T16:00:00+01:00

As of April 1, 2009, the Solaris 8 Operating System (Solaris OS) will enter Phase 2 of its End of Service Life (EOSL), after which customers whose systems are running the Solaris 8 OS will no longer be able to receive patches -- including security patches -- developed after this date unless they purchase the Solaris 8 Vintage Patch Service.

April 1st, 2009 Will End the Service Life of Solaris 8

2008-05-19T16:00:00+01:00

With the Solaris 8 Operating System's (Solaris OS) end of service life less than a year away (April 1, 2009), customers are trying to prepare for their next move. One option will be to sign up for a Vintage Support Plan that Sun purportedly will be offering.