This presentation describes the main differences between most major Linux distributions and Solaris Operating Systems.

1. Solaris vs. Linux
Technological
Perspective
Haim Tzadok
CEO

2. Disclaimer
This lecture describes my solely personal opinion. The information
might not be accurate and might be subject to changes at any
time.
It does not project any opinion from any other company or
institute which I am affiliated with.
You are encouraged to participate in the lecture and to reflect
your own opinion.

3. How to compare between OS’s ?
In order to compare between Solaris and Linux Operating systems
we need to declare several things -
What is the purpose of the operating system ?
Goal
Who is using the operating system ?
Usability
How the operating system is built ?
Quality

4. Solaris vs. Linux
Purpose

5. Solaris vs. Linux
Purpose
Linux
Solaris
• Embedded
• Tablet/Phones
• Server X86/X86_64
• Growing application
coverage
• Good support for DB
• No availability
• No Availability
• Server X86/X86_64 (Intel)
• Large ISV install base
• Better support for DB
• Heavy duty (Mainframe,
Itanium)
• Minimal ISV install base
• Poor support for DB
• Heavy duty – SPARC
• Large ISV install base
• Better support for DB

6. Solaris vs. Linux
Usability

7. Solaris vs. Linux
Role
Demand
Linux
Solaris
Managers
Consistency
High system
throughput
• Good stability
• Excellent
stability
End users
Low application
response time
• Good HW/SW
Integration.
• Excellent
HW/SW
Integration.
Programmers
Fast access to
system resources
• Excellent API’s
• Good binary
compatibility
• Good API’s
• Excellent binary
compatibility
System
Administrators
Ability to install
and administer
the system easily
• Good
administration
Ability
• Excellent
Administration
Ability

8. Solaris vs. Linux
Quality
Hardware Integration
Intel, SPARC
vs.
Kernel
Well engineered
vs.
File-system
ZFS
vs.
Networking
Network virtualization vs.
Scheduling
Scheduling classes
vs.
IO & Storage
Multipathing/COMSTAR vs.
Virtualization
Zones
OVM for Sparc
Installation
Jumpstart/AI
Packaging
IPS
Services
SMF
Intel/Mainframe
Well developed
ext4/btrfs
Regular network
Optional API’s
Standard device
mechanism
vs.
LXC
SW hypervisor
vs.
Kickstart
vs.
RPM
vs.
SVR4

9. Hardware Integration – Solaris X86
Integration with Intel CPU’s
Sun Microsystem and Intel are collaborating since 2007.

10. Hardware Integration – Solaris X86 (cont)
FMA – Fault Management Architecture

11. Hardware Integration – Solaris SPARC
SPARC – The fastest Microprocessor in the world
Best of breed architecture
CPU features:
• Accelerated Cryptography – Cryptography is done by hardware.
• Critical Thread optimization – Ability to utilize a core in 2 ways:
• 8 hardware threads - when multithreaded behavior is needed.
or
• 1 hardware thread in case single thread intensive processing is
needed.
• A Multithreaded Hypervisor – allows to utilize the Virtual environment in
Oracle VM for SPARC better, by splitting the hypervisor operations to
several hardware threads.

12. Hardware Integration – LINUX X86
CentOS
RedHat
Oracle Linux
Oracle Solaris
Suse
Ubuntu
HP
ORACLE
DELL
IBM
Where as most Linux distribution require complex matrix of support to
other HW vendors, Oracle Linux and Oracle Solaris are adjusted to Oracle
Hardware better.

13. Kernel - Solaris
Well Engineered
• Binary compatibility
• Kernel Debugger in
real time and for
postmortem (mdb,
crash analysis)
• Security (RBAC aware)
• Well defined APIs
vs.
•
•
•
•
•
Well Developed
18K lines in one day.
Much more feature rich
Scheduling
Security (RBAC aware)
Constant changes in API’s

14. File System
ZFS
vs.
ext4/btrfs
• Matured
• Ext4 – very old, btrfs - still
• Ease of administration
new not implemented in
• No evacuation of disk
most of the distributions.
(until BPR is
• Use the old UNIX/POSIX
implemented).
command semantics.
• ZFS integrated with
• It sometimes takes 1 zfs
DTRACE for better
command to be
observation, monitoring
implemented in 2-4 btrfs
and analysis.
commands.
• Integrated with Image
Packaging System
More info:
http://www.seedsofgenius.net/solaris/zfs-vs-btrfs-a-reference

15. Networking
Network virtualization
vs.
• Allows Virtual objects –
VNICS, Virtual Switches.
• Well engineered.
• Structured driver model –
the hardware driver layer is
separated from other layers.
• Structured administration
model(dladm, ipadm)
• Move from files to DB
configuration.
• Configuration is object
driven (e.g: addresses are
now objects) and not text
driven (using files).
• Flow(QoS) administration
• The network configuration is
implemented as a service.
With Dependency
mechanism.
Regular network
• Basic Network configuration
with no virtualization.
• Driver have one static
implementation for all the
functionality of the driver.
• Configuration is in old text
files.
• Most of the configuration is
spread over several files.

16. Scheduling
Scheduling classes
vs.
• Variety of Scheduling
classes (dispadmin –l)
• FSS – Fair Share
Scheduler.
• Ability to configure
Scheduling class if
needed.
• Ability to use – Realtime
and Fixed priority classes
very easy with no need of
programming skills.
Optional API’s
• Basic Scheduling
• Nice for configuring
priorities.

17. IO & Storage
Multipathing COMSTAR
• Rich Multipathing support
MP supports cross
protocols.
• Wider support for:
• Infiniband
• FC
• FCoE
• Iscsi
• COMSTAR –
• Ability to create
software defined
storage – with lun
provisioning
vs.
Standard
• Standard IO ability

18. Virtualization
Local Virtualization (Zones ) or HW virtualization
vs.
Local Virtualization (LXC) or SW Hypervisor
• Zone –
• Well engineered
• Well embraced
• Rich resource
management ability
• LXC – not yet embraced.
• OVM for SPARC–
• Hypervisor on chip
• Enterprise class
virtualization
• Supports Oracle stack.
hypervisors –
Variety of Linux based
hypervisors.
XEN/Vmware/KVM based.

19. Installation
Jumpstart/AI
vs.
Kickstart
• Very rich installation • Matured installation
ability
method.
• Integrated update
mechanism with ZFS
• Boot Environment
facility.

20. Packaging
IPS
vs.
RPM
• Feature rich
• Matured packaging
packaging system
system
• Integrated with ZFS • Introduced dependency
• Contains dependency
facility
facility.
• Integrated patch
mechanism into
packaging system.

21. Services
SMF
• Feature rich Services
Mechanism
• DB driven with xml
configuration
semantics.
• Allows dependencies.
• Allows to administer
services
configuration. And
rollback from a
configuration if
needed.
vs.
SVR4
• Very old services
mechanism.
• Text based.
• No dependency.
• No ability to rollback
services configuration.

22. Thank you !
See you next Oracle Solaris Forum event