1. What is the Solaris Operating System?

   If you want to cut costs, simplify system administration and maintain high service levels, the Solaris 10 OS is the ideal cross-platform choice. It offers breakthrough virtualisation and utilisation, high availability, advanced security and industry-leading performance – all at a great price.

   To learn more about Solaris 10 visit our Solaris Adoption Learning Center.

Back To Top

2. What is the OpenSolaris Operating System?

   A leading-edge open source release that is free to acquire and run, and offers a range of support options for enterprises. The latest enhancements to Solaris, including ZFS, Solaris Containers and Predictive Self Healing, will be found in OpenSolaris first. OpenSolaris also contains features that are unlikely to be included in the Solaris OS until the next release after Solaris 10 – including the new Solaris installer, GNOME desktop enhancements and support for the latest wireless networking technologies.

   Learn more

Back To Top

3. What's new in Solaris 10 5/09?

   Systems running Solaris 10 can now boot from the Solaris ZFS file system and can use ZFS as their root file system.
   
   Virtualisation enhancements include:
   

   • a Solaris Container can update its environment - automatically - when moved from one system to another
   • Logical Domains support for dynamically reconfigurable disk and network I/O
   • paravirtualisation support when Solaris 10 is used as a guest OS in Xen-based environments - such as Sun xVM Server.
   
   Solaris 10 5/09 also includes support for the latest systems from Sun and other vendors – including systems based on the Intel ® Xeon® Processor 7400 Series.
   
   Working closely together, Sun and Intel have ensured that the Solaris OS and the new Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series combine to deliver new Intel Xeon-based systems with the highest x64 performance, energy efficiency and reliability available.
   
   For more information about Solaris ZFS, please visit the ZFS Learning Centre and read the ZFS FAQs.

Back To Top

4. What's unique about the Solaris OS in comparison to other operating systems?

   Released in early 2005, Solaris 10 includes many innovative features, including: ZFS, Solaris Dynamic Tracing (DTrace), Solaris Containers, Predictive Self Healing, Solaris Trusted Extensions, and  Logical Domains (LDoms). With unique features that are designed to deliver flexibility and breakthrough enterprise functionality in a wide range of business environments, the Solaris OS offers technical benefits and business benefits. Unique among operating system vendors, Sun protects your IT investments by guaranteeing that existing Solaris applications will run unmodified on Solaris 10, and providing a support lifecycle for long-term deployments.

Back To Top

5. Where can I learn about support and services for Solaris?

   A wide range of support plans are available. Visit the Support & Services resources page for more information. Support plans are also available for OpenSolaris.

Back To Top

6. Where can I learn more about current and upcoming Solaris virtualisation technologies?

   Several virtualisation technologies are incorporated in the Solaris OS, such as Solaris Containers, Sun xVM Server / Sun xVM Ops Center and Logical Domains (LDoms). In addition, through Sun xVM Virtualbox,  Sun offers the ability to run a wide variety of operating systems as virtual machines. Sun also offers Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, a technology to virtualise desktops.

Back To Top