14 DAY TRIAL // Oracle Solaris, one of the most widely deployed UNIX operating systems, which delivers critical cloud infrastructure with built-in virtualization, simplified software lifecycle management, cloud scale data management, and advanced protection for public, private, and hybrid cloud environments, has finally reached version 11.2.
It's hard to quantify just how many changes and improvements have been made for this release, but there are quite a lot. The developers have gathered numerous modifications and new features since the previous version, 11.1, which was made available back in October 2012.
“Oracle Solaris 11.2 accelerates your ability to deploy enterprise cloud computing with an efficient, secure, compliant, open, and affordable cloud platform. Engineered for cloud and deeply integrated with Oracle Database, Java, and Oracle Applications, Oracle Solaris 11.2 is more than an operating system (OS).”
“It combines a complete OpenStack distribution, application-driven software-defined networking (SDN), zero-overhead virtualization, enterprise-grade disaster recovery, and high availability with an enterprise-class OS to simplify and secure the delivery of mission-critical cloud services. Oracle Solaris is a strategic element in Oracle's growing systems business,” reads the official website.
According to the changelog, the distribution is now able to provide an efficient, secure, compliant, open, and affordable path to enterprise cloud computing, the OS is open cloud platform engineered for large-scale enterprise cloud environments, it features OpenStack, it comes with application-driven SDN technology, clustering, and zero-overhead virtualization, and it should make the IT's transformation to enterprise-grade cloud simple, fast, and affordable.
Also, the Unified Archive template and OpenStack distribution should provide a fast setup for a cloud environment, the compliance overhead is reduced with built-in compliance reporting and simple resolution instructions, built-in virtualization that delivers scalability at low cost has been implemented, multi-tier recovery from outages and disasters is available, and support for more than 30 common enterprise application suites, including new modules for Oracle's JD Edwards Enterprise One, is provided.
Oracle took over the development of Solaris back in 2012 and they have turned the distribution into a powerful OS aimed at companies and firms with big infrastructure needs. This is a closed source proprietary operating system, but some bits from it do have open source components, which are provided on the official website.
A comprehensive list of changes, features, and updates can be found in the official announcement. You can download Oracle Solaris 11.2 right now from Softpedia, but you will also have to create an account with Oracle in order to get the download links.