Oracle Solaris Valuable Features

DF
Infrastructure as a Service Manager

The most valuable features are the Zones, ZFS, UAR, ABEs, pkg and the entire network stack.

I love the way you can create virtual NICs in the local zones and maintain all of your zpools in that local zone as well. The ability to use ABEs as a back-out for changes is invaluable.

The Unified archives for system-builds and OS backups, to be used in the event of a major issue, has also served us well. This capability has saved us countless hours of potential downtime during our change windows, as we were able to recover a host within five minutes.  

View full review »
Abdul-Salam - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Manager - System Analyst (Datacenter Infrastructure) at Sohar International

We like that the virtualization is built in, so you don't have to spend extra money on buying licenses for a hypervisor. When you buy the box, you are getting everything, including the Virtualization.

It is one of the most flexible predictive systems.

The setup is easy.

It is stable and reliable. 

View full review »
ZM
Network Administrator at Mzansi Security and Fire

The most valuable features of the solution are its security features and user-friendliness. It can be hard to use but is a reliable and understandable tool.

View full review »
Buyer's Guide
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
March 2024
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle, Canonical, Red Hat and others in Operating Systems (OS) for Business. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
RajanChauhan - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Service Delivery Manager at LTIMINDTREE

I like the solution's from a cost perspective. Also, it's pretty stable on Azure, considering that we cannot use it on IEX. So, for that, Oracle is available.


View full review »
GO
CEO at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Of late the most valuable feature is virtualization. They have attained virtualization and it's quite simple to create the Oracle Solaris zones.

The solution is quite powerful.

Oracle Solaris is great due to the fact that it actually is meant for high-end servers. 

The high availability is great. You can clone and you can do quite a number of things with them. There's also the ZFS File system which is very good. Is one of the best file systems that there is.

View full review »
Ikh-Erdene Namsrai - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Administrator at Mongolian Mining Corporation

Oracle Solaris's operating system is good. 

View full review »
YA
IT Project Manager at Awash International Bank

The most valuable feature is the ease of setup.

View full review »
TR
Infrastructure Specialist at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees

Solaris Zones and Containers are my favorite features.

View full review »
Parth Buch - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Architecture at Capgemini

Solaris's best features are high availability, robustness, and database hosting. Its file management system is also better than Linux.

View full review »
MK
Senior Manager IT Operations at NRSP microfinance Bank

The reliability of the solution is excellent.

The security has been very good overall.

We've found the solution to have good availability.

The backup capabilities are quite good.

The solution has proven to be quite stable so far.

The product can scale.

The solution is 100% free to use. It doesn't cost a company anything as it's embedded in the hardware.

View full review »
EO
Senior Systems Engineer at Dimension Data

The platform has valuable stability.

View full review »
Michael GideonGenita - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Service Engineer at Fujitsu

I find it most valuable that it is based on Linux. It is very user-friendly.

View full review »
JC
Group manager at Computer center

The most valuable feature of Oracle Solaris is the incremental backup that happens in the system.

View full review »
HR
Consultant at Hollomey Consultant GmbH

The product has a seamless upgrade feature to set the ZFS file system.

View full review »
AS
Deputy IT Manager at ICAPP (Americana Group)

It works well. It is very stable and very good. 

It is also very safe. It cannot be easily infected by viruses or attacks.

View full review »
DA
Oracle ACE - Specialized in Systems Technologies at Telecom Argentina

The most valuable features for me are:

Virtualization (Containers, Zones, Security, PDOM's, LDOM's)

Performance, ZFS, Debugging with Dtrace

View full review »
CF
KYC Quality Assurance at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

This product handles databases well; they run on top of the operating system.

View full review »
it_user488784 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Architect at a consumer goods company with 10,001+ employees

In Solaris 11, Network Virtualization, LDOMs, Zones, ZFS, and Live Upgrade are the most valuable features to me. In Solaris 10, the most valuable features are the Live Upgrade, ZFS, Zones, and SVC Feature.

View full review »
Alibek Amaev - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Project Manager / DevOps at StarLine

We have found the performance features, some partitioning features, compression features, storage features, and the PL/SQL language features to be very valuable.

The administration features are also very useful.

View full review »
it_user490857 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager - Systems Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

In, Oracle Solaris 11, the most valuable features to me are ZFS, Automated Installer, and Kernel Zones. In Solaris 10, they are ZFS, SMF, Live Upgrade, Zones, and JumpStart.

View full review »
Marcel Hofstetter - PeerSpot reviewer
Oracle ACE Director "Solaris " / CEO / Enterprise Consultant at JomaSoft

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

View full review »
MahmoudFarouk - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Leader at Edafa

Solaris' best feature is its stability.

View full review »
Youssef  Hmani - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Assistant at EOCD

The product's most valuable feature is partitioning resources and optimizing hardware utilization effectively.

View full review »
MA
Technical Presales Consultant/ Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Oracle Solaris was the preferred operating system for their customers to run their databases on and to get the best performance. It performs well with Oracle applications. Additionally, there are some features inside that are called zones which are Linux containers.

View full review »
it_user521556 - PeerSpot reviewer
Platform Architect at Ally Financial Inc.

The most valuable features are its flexibility in virtualization, flexibility in dynamic reallocation of resources and security.

View full review »
Fatih Gedikli - PeerSpot reviewer
DBA Team Lead | Principal Apps DBA at Experteam

It stands out for its exceptional stability.

View full review »
Kevin Honde - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Solution Architect at Econet Wireless Zimbabwe

One of the main features of this solution is the ease of use.

View full review »
it_user431682 - PeerSpot reviewer
Malware Reseacher, Instructor, Consultant and Speaker at BlackStormSecurity
Undoubtedly, Solaris is a very stable, extremely fast, and secure operating system. I have worked as a Solaris instructor for 16 years, and certainly I can assure you that it is incomparable.

An interesting point is that Oracle has been constantly introducing new features for Solaris, and this crucial fact makes Solaris a reference product in the market.
View full review »
it_user491505 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Vice President - (Unix) at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Zones and resource allocation through capping and project is my favourite feature.

Lately, I have been using ZFS and I absolutely love it, but I didn't get much of a chance to explore it fully in a production environment.

View full review »
it_user490860 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Operating Officer at a tech company with 51-200 employees

The following features are most valuable to me:

  • General stability of platform in terms of day to day running minimizes time spent fixing the product
  • General stability in terms of update, fix, patch timescale, minimizes required downtime and effort to maintain
  • Completeness of solution, feels like Oracle and Solaris are designed to properly work together
View full review »
it_user521709 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

It's stable. It scales.

View full review »
it_user429384 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

Too many features to count, the built in, low overhead integration is a huge plus, as is the ease of patching, the ability to use DTRACE to real time troubleshoot issues, the integrated security and most of all the performance.

View full review »
it_user452595 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant: Unix and Clusters (Orange UNIX Engineering) at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Robust kernel: The heart of an OS, i.e., it’s the base/foundation of any operating system. If we have a robust kernel, the chance of getting server panic, etc., is reduced to almost negligible levels and that’s true with Solaris and even with IBM AIX. The bug levels and vulnerabilities to hit such robust kernels are very low.

Patch/package management: Change is a part of IT, with the increased technologies day by day, new software is evolving every day. If the way to install, manage, upgrade, configure them is not easy, then instead of using the software for growth, techies will be killing their time fixing them. With Solaris, this system is very strong. Regular security fixes, vulnerability fixes, recommended patches for new kernel and for new features is in Oracle’s release management process, which is very beneficial for customers to stay updated and fix old bugs.

Visibility at the OS level (nothing hidden): In case of issues, the logging system for Solaris is outstanding. With logs, we can debug the issues to a higher degree by ourselves. In case any changes to kernels are required, Oracle is always there to fix them via patches/pkgs, which is again valued added for any customer.

Compatibility with third-party DB's and applications: The compatibility to install databases and application on top of Solaris is just amazing, we hardly see any issues during installation/upgrade, except third-party driver issues. So overall, it’s an amazing OS to work with.

View full review »
it_user522021 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist at Bureau of labor statistics
  • Its portability is most important. We can move our database from platform to platform.
  • The database itself is fast and reliable and secure.
View full review »
it_user321234 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees

The facility to work between database and the equipment. The facility to integrate with other platforms. Our customers use our cloud. They know the importance of Oracle. They have your own datacenter, but slowly, they want to change to the cloud.

View full review »
PA
Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
it_user588831 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Administrator at a logistics company with 1,001-5,000 employees
it_user522078 - PeerSpot reviewer
Snr Unix Admin at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Backwards compatibility and stability are the most valuable features.

View full review »
it_user490869 - PeerSpot reviewer
OSS Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

The following are the most valuable features to me:

  • Solaris zones: Allows for better server utilization. Drives number of physical servers down. Very lean virtualization technology which I generally prefer to others.
  • Live upgrade: In Solaris 10, it allowed us to decrease downtime.
  • ZFS: Was and is still the best logical volume manager / file system in my opinion. There is still nothing like it production-ready in the Linux world. Favorite features:
    • dedup
    • snapshots
    • checksums and self healing

Dtrace is also pretty useful. However, now Oracle Linux has it and also in RedHat Linux, there is “systemtap” which closely mimics dtrace.

View full review »
it_user492567 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oracle Consultant / Infrastructure Platform Architect at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Solaris' most valuable features to me are its stability, scalability, dependability, RAS, HA, I know there are loads more TLA’s that can be used, and of course it’s grown into all the new cloud features, also, to be ready for the next generation.

For Oracle, it’s Oracle; is there any better database? I’m biased. It can be used on the smallest device running a simple meta data store to the biggest, hard-hitting, critical system.

I just think the maturity of Solaris, the base core has been proven, and it is evident in these Enterprise level/required features. People don't look at Solaris and ask is it production ready, it is probably one of the first options written down when people need to look at a Unix OS for big critical solutions because of the core features. Other features thats always been there is of course Security also, and now being expanded with all the Cloud ready features.

View full review »
SK
senior managed consultant at a tech services company
  • ZFS: It is very stable and scalable. It provides excellent security, and cool deduplication, compression, encryption and recovery capabilities.
  • DTrace: It is the best for performance analysis and fault analysis.
  • Zone containers: The feature is stable and can provide the service with fewer resources.
View full review »
it_user417540 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oracle Database Technical Systems Consultant at a tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Reliability, safety, support offered, speed, endurance. Overall, if I’m forced to make an automotive industry comparison, from my perspective Oracle Solaris is the “Volvo” of operating systems.

Reliability – because referenced operating system was always trustful to host assigned applications, in the most desirable way

Safety – penetration test performed against related platforms never get the chance to pick any vulnerabilities. Attempts were logged on system log, daily check scripts pick those and send to monitoring team, investigations was performed to pinpoint the offending host. All the times the host was the one used to perform penetration testing. Other layers of infrastructure security prevented the attackers to rich the Solaris environments, but never heard about proper configured OS like this to get on its knees due to such.

Support Offered – Oracle SPARC platforms come with free support for Solaris operating system, and in contrast with the saying “there is no free lunch”, the support offered is at the highest standards. In some of the rare occasion when high severity incidents ( with root cause proven to be triggered from application side), the customer on organized conference requested a Service request to be opened with Oracle, so the issue to be cornered from both directions. I can say that have nevered encountered a new or known bug on OS side during those experiences.
Speed – Living the hardware and storage capabilities out of the equation, the responsiveness and agility of Solaris operating system is one in the top of my preferences.

Endurance - Years of uptime (except planned downtime related to recommended patch set applying) say it all.

After all of the above, hope that the comparison from automotive industry will not be considered forced at all.

View full review »
it_user488778 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Consultant at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Built-in virtualisation (Zones / LDOMS), ZFS, SMF, and FMA.

View full review »
it_user921192 - PeerSpot reviewer
Interim CTO at Vectorsec

The most valuable features of Oracle's technology are the use of Kernel Zones and a ZFS file system, which is the best choice for a shared file system.

View full review »
it_user521781 - PeerSpot reviewer
Staff Engineer, Database Engineering at a media company with 5,001-10,000 employees

I can run the database, run a query, run the report, see the whole picture, and analyze the data.

View full review »
it_user521721 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Database Administration/Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

It's solid in terms of security; secured systems.

View full review »
Buyer's Guide
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
March 2024
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle, Canonical, Red Hat and others in Operating Systems (OS) for Business. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.