: Solaris 9 Operating Environment">
Executive Summary: Solaris 9 Operating Environment
| USABILITY |
Good |
| CAPABILITY |
Good |
| PERFORMANCE |
Good |
| INTEROPERABILITY |
Fair |
| MANAGEABILITY |
Excellent |
| SCALABILITY |
Good |
| SECURITY |
Good |
The Solaris 9 Operating Environment has improved security, capability and manageability. Volume management is now bundled in, eliminating the need for third-party tools. The bundled LDAP server will make Solaris more manageable, and Solaris Resource Manager will allow IT managers to carve up their system resources more efficiently. The upgrade is evolutionary, however, and will be worthwhile across the server board and on high-end systems only to shops that really need these features (and that havent already purchased them through third parties).
Cost Analysis
A media kit for a single-processor server costs $95, making this upgrade a no-brainer for low-end SPARC servers. Pricing for workstations with up to four processors is also inexpensive ($199 for an upgrade license), but prices get much steeper as you add processors, with a 32-processor server costing $60,000 to upgrade. For high-end systems and blanket upgrades, IT managers need to carefully weigh the benefits of the new features of Solaris 9 against the added cost.
(+) Improved management utilities; solid bundled components (LDAP directory, application server, firewall).
(-) Does not support Intel-based systems.
Evaluation Short List
FreeBSD
Hewlett-Packard Co.s HP-UX
IBMs AIX
Microsoft Corp.s Windows 2000
www.sun.com
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Review: Solaris 9: Major Advance 
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A media kit for a single-processor server costs $95, making this upgrade a no-brainer for low-end SPARC servers. Pricing for workstations with up to four processors is also inexpensive ($199 for an upgrade license), but prices get much steeper as you add processors, with a 32-processor server costing $60,000 to upgrade. For high-end systems and blanket upgrades, IT managers need to carefully weigh the benefits of the new features of Solaris 9 against the added cost.
(+) Improved management utilities; solid bundled components (LDAP directory, application server, firewall).
(-) Does not support Intel-based systems.
Evaluation Short List
