We use Oracle Solaris to develop and support our VDCF (Virtual Datacenter Cloud Framework) management software. Several virtual machines (LDoms and Zones) are used on SPARC and x86 Servers.
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We use Oracle Solaris to develop and support our VDCF (Virtual Datacenter Cloud Framework) management software. Several virtual machines (LDoms and Zones) are used on SPARC and x86 Servers.
We are able to deploy new environments very quickly and securely. Using the virtualization features, we can migrate the environments very flexibly between our servers.
Solaris includes two virtualization solutions: LDoms for SPARC and Solaris Zones. Both solutions can be combined to create private clouds. Solaris Zones is ideal to separate applications and to migrate from older to current hardware. LDoms is very efficient because it uses the hardware hypervisor of the SPARC servers.
Both technologies increase Security, because they separate the applications from each other. Using the Security Compliance Framework we are sure the systems are setup properly
Patching without downtime would be nice.
Update 08/2021: Live Paching of Kernel is now available. We applied IDRs successfully on several servers.
More than 11 years now.
We had no issues with the stability.
Solaris is very robust and scalable. No issues so far scaling it.
Oracle offers a good online support portal called "My Oracle Support", which includes a big knowledge base. Because Oracle is a very large organization, it sometimes takes a bit too much time for support requests to reach the right support engineer.
Neutral
Used Solaris 10 before, but Solaris 11 is much easier and faster with patching.
Based on BootEnvironments and ZFS Solaris 11 always offers a failback.
The initial setup is straightforward. Oracle has in-depth admin manuals. To speed up deployments, we implemented our own deployment and management framework VDCF.
We implemented it with our in-house team based on Oracle's best practices documents. With virtualization, we recommend to first define a standard on how to deploy and then to deploy using that standard, avoiding any variation. There are so many options, but our favorite is the fully-virtualized LDom with applications installed into Solaris Zones.
When buying a server from Oracle, all the software is included -- OS, virtualization and patches. There are no hidden costs. We like the long life cycle of Solaris and the SPARC servers. There's no need to replace the hardware every two to three years, and we have a life cycle of five years and more.
Use deployment tools for automation and avoid doing everything manually. Deployment tools help to avoid errors and create a standardized environment.
We use the solution as an internal operating system.
Setting up Oracle Solaris can be complex because it requires more commands than other systems.
The product is stable.
We plan to increase the tool's usage. Our organization has many users because we deploy applications on servers, and many users connect to these applications.
The solution's support is fine.
The to0ol's installation can be completed in two hours.
We don't use an authorized license.
Oracle Solaris is a good solution, but I don't think it is widely used. Most companies prefer Linux or Windows. However, its security features are good. I rate the overall product a six out of ten. Users need to be mindful of the tool's flexibility.
