Key Features in Solaris Express
The Solaris Express releases introduce enhancements to the Solaris 10 OS. The Solaris
10 OS includes the following key features.
In the Solaris 10 OS, Sun Microsystems developed a new architecture for building
and deploying systems and services that are capable of Predictive Self-Healing. Self-healing technology
enables Sun systems and services to maximize availability. The Predictive Self-Healing feature includes
significant changes to the booting and service administration processes. Also in the Solaris 10
OS, changes in the installation of the operating system provide a simplified and
unified installation process.
The Solaris 10 OS introduces Solaris Zones software partitioning technology. Solaris Zones is
a component of the Solaris Containers environment. Zones are used to virtualize operating
system services. Zones provide an isolated and secure environment for running applications.
Other key features in the Solaris 10 software include the DTrace dynamic tracing
facility, process rights management, and a new architecture for network stacks. DTrace is
a comprehensive dynamic tracing facility that gives Solaris users, administrators, and developers a
new level of observability into the kernel and user processes. In the Solaris
software, processes that previously required superuser capabilities now require process rights. Process rights management
uses privileges to restrict processes to only those rights that are required to
perform the task. Also of particular importance, the networking stack for TCP connections
has been rearchitected to deliver extremely high performance while improving the scalability.
Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition 5 is another key technology. Also of particular
significance, the Solaris 10 software introduces support for the 64–bit computing capabilities of
the AMD Opteron processor. Finally, the Solaris 10 software introduces the Java Desktop
System. This desktop system combines open source software with Sun innovation.
For a complete summary of all the new features that are new
in the Solaris 10 release, see Solaris 10 What's New at https://docs.sun.com. For a summary of features
that were introduced in the Solaris 9, Solaris 8, or Solaris 7 releases,
see What's New in the Solaris 9 Operating Environment at https://docs.sun.com.