Oracle Solaris Reviews

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

I would like to see a graphical user interface (GUI) improved.

Moreover, there is room for improvement in documentation. 

I have been working with this solution for three years now. 

It is a stable solution. 

It is a scalable solution. I recommend it for bigger companies. We have been selling it to some major telecom sites.

The technical support is very responsive and user-friendly. I do not see any problem with their current speed of response.

Positive

I worked with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat Enterprise Linux has a wider variety of resources, so I would recommend it more often.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is more secure and better documented. So Oracle could learn from them when it comes to security and documentation.

I recommend it to my customers. Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We primarily use Solaris for compute storage. It is a server product that runs databases.

Our current equipment that Oracle Solaris runs on is approximately five years old and I only deal with it occasionally. This is a legacy product for us now and times have moved on.

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

This product is not as flexible as other similar solutions on the market today. Times have moved on and there are newer operating systems that are better to use and more compatible with current technology.

I began working with Oracle Solaris between 15 and 16 years ago.

This is a stable product.

We've moved to other products recently, so scalability is no longer an issue for us. That said, the legacy version was slightly fixed.

We had approximately 25,000 end-users in some form or another.

We used to deal with technical support for this product. However, because it's older and things have not been changing, we have not had any recent experience with them.

When we were installing this product, it was straightforward. We haven't installed one in a while. It used to be maintained by our network team but as it's now a legacy product for us, we do not have dedicated staff to take care of it.

We were implementing this product with our in-house team.

There are no licensing fees but you can opt to pay for support.

The suitability of this product depends on the use case. There are other products that are more flexible and better to use these days. It was stable, so I would recommend it for some cases but more often than not, we wouldn't use it anymore.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

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.

It integrates with different applications with complete stability.

I think Oracle should also promote x86 architecture for Solaris, so that the same can be used in ESX and in cloud environments with an x86 variant. It would be a bonus for Oracle.

SPARC hardware is costly. Most businesses want to run their infrastructure environments - especially non-production environments - on x86 hardware, where customers can run heterogeneous OS platforms (Linux, Solaris and/or AIX). However, this is not possible with AIX at all (especially with Solaris). So, if Oracle improved x86 support in Solaris, it could promote Solaris x86 as having the same stability and reliability levels as Solaris SPARC servers. This would provide customers a reason to move their servers - which are currently migrating to Linux servers – to Solaris x86. And I am sure this will boost Solaris even further. I am well aware that Oracle is promoting Oracle Linux for the same reasons, but I think the same can be done in a better way for the existing Solaris OS.

I have been using it since 2007 until now.

We always perform POCs first and try to do all possible testing in that phase. As such, we have not encountered any major deployment issues.

It actually depends on the application version, and compatibility also. Sometimes, after a kernel patch, we might encounter some issues, but that’s just because of poor planning and poor documentation.

For standalone systems, scalability’s always a challenge, but improved T-series and M-series have good options. However, Oracle still lags behind in this area, compared to ESX and IBM (LPARs), to a great extent.

Sun Microsystems customer service was superb!!! (My first love sunsolve.sun.com.) When Oracle initially took over, their customer service was just pathetic, but it slowly improved. It’s always hard to maintain the same standards and I can understand it’s tough in the initial phases. I would say, from my experience, there is still room for improvement in this area.

Technical support is good, as it’s divided into different levels. Sometimes, it takes time before L1 escalates to L2/L3 and that sometimes is frustrating (sometimes :-) ).

Before moving to engineering, I worked as admin / implementation team in a heterogeneous environment. So this solution completely depends upon cost and the client’s requirements.

Migration is always a challenging step, if you want everything to be the same as it is running on an existing environment. AIX to Solaris or Linux to Solaris or vice versa is always a job to be performed with extra precaution, as you are going to play with your data.

We implemented it ourselves and did the hardware replacements via a global vendor. It’s good.

ROI is good. I am sure Solaris has devoted everything to it. For an OS to survive a long time, Oracle has to maintain Solaris like a baby, as Sun Microsystems did until 2010.

Since taken over by Oracle, there has been an increase in the software cost (earlier patch/packages were free with SunSsolve), but that’s business and I think it’s okay.

Today, if you ask me for low-cost solutions, I have open-source Linux versions and for stable releases, we have RedHat and IBM AIX.

It’s a very good product to use. You are going to love this OS.

I still love Solaris; for me, it’s always been the best.

Our primary use case is the storage of logged information from several IoT devices.

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.

The product is very expensive. 

The Solaris code is open, and the documentation is accessible to all, not only to registered users. Also, the documentation does not support some solutions, and there are no other options.

I've been using this solution for nine years.

Oracle Solaris is stable and reliable.

The initial setup can be complex if you don't have a lot of experience. The deployment can take anywhere from days to months.

It is a very expensive product.

This product is stable, has good documentation, lots of solutions, a big community, and good support. Oracle Solaris is a good product, but it is expensive.

Therefore, I would rate it at eight on a scale from one to ten.

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

Aforementioned stability simplifies ongoing maintenance.

The total cost of ownership of SPARC vs. x86 will always be a consideration.

There is a lack of general availability of training outside of Oracle University.

We are Oracle partners so come from this from both sides of the fence.

Generally skills in Solaris (RISC) are on the decline whereas Linux is still on the rise. You can expect nearly every techie to have x86 windows and or Linux skills but Solaris is a niche skill that is getting harder to recruit for. Previously Solaris was for the enterprise and x86 was commodity however because of the improvement in hardware, x86 is generally a match for RISC in many cases but far cheaper.

If you were starting from scratch, most companies would opt for x86 because it’s cheaper and easier to find skills and training for. You can find any number of training courses for Linux online, classroom, book based, you tube etc etc. Solaris tends to be only supplied by Oracle University at premium rates.

We have used this solution since August 2003.

I did not encounter any issues with deployment. This is a key feature of Solaris.

I did not encounter any issues with stability. This is another key feature of Solaris.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability. This is another key feature of Solaris.

Oracle Support is generally good, although in support requests, there can be a feeling that they are sticking to a script rather than answering the question. My perception is it increases time to resolution. For higher-priority calls, once you get through first-line support, things tend to get better.

We previously used x86 Linux equivalents.

We generally implemented everything with an in-house team.

Using Oracle Enterprise Edition on Solaris was an audit requirement, but I suspect we did not use enough features to make it cost effective otherwise.

Oracle licensing is very complex, so don't make any assumptions that could come back to bite you.

Implementing this product is a no brainer if you are using Oracle databases on SPARC.

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

It's an integrated stack for us, so hardware, software, OS and platform all work together, because they all come from Oracle. It easy with the Oracle databases, WebLogic and so on; it's an integrated stack, so we have one vendor to go through.

Live migration of kernel zones would be the biggest improvement for us; the ability to migrate that from one hardware platform to another on the fly without downtime.

It is extremely stable. Of all our OS platforms, it's the most stable we have.

We've scaled it up to the very large systems, the E25Ks in the past. We've rolled in 5000s in the past. We're just now getting T7s, so we're working on those now.

Technical support has been very good. We've had very good success with it, better than we've had with other vendors. They're very fast; good resolution time; good escalation in the hierarchy also.

We had a solution that was going out of support. It was dying off, so we needed to move to a newer platform. Because Oracle already had the database, it made sense to use that platform.

It was a new technology. Some learning curve was involved, but after we understood how to deploy it and how to use, it worked out quite well.

Before choosing this product, we also looked at IBM. That was the other major player. They were cost prohibitive and they didn't seem to have a very good roadmap, as far as their processors and OS.

When I’m choosing a vendor such as Oracle, the important criteria for me are responsiveness, good sales, good after sales, good long-term technical support, and a breadth of technologies; not just siloed on one technology, they've got the entire stack.

When you're doing a TCO analysis, you have to take all factors into consideration, such as migration cost, training cost, back line support cost, professional service cost and to the entire solution. A lot of the vendors just wanted us to pinpoint one area without thinking about the wider-range impact. It makes a big difference.

I primarily use Solaris for installing software application servers like WebLogic.

Solaris' best feature is its stability.

There is an issue where Solaris doesn't give the correct figures for memory use when checked.

I've been working with Solaris for seven years.

Solaris' stability and reliability is one of its best features.

Solaris is scalable.

Oracle's technical support is good but slow.

I previously worked with Red Hat.

Solaris is highly priced compared to other solutions, but since it's a niche product, this is to be expected.

I would give Solaris a rating of eight out of ten.

Fantastic features are contained in Solaris, such as Zones and LDOM, which have given solutions to companies for which I have provided consulting services. By using Solaris Zones, I have consolidated big environments into just a few hosts. Additionally, by using the built-in resource manager feature from Solaris, it's possible to control and set up limits for CPU and memory consumption. Finally, installing packages and patches into a virtualized system are very simple tasks.

Solaris has made the administration simpler, easy and intuitive. Its innumerable security and performance features provide conviction to companies that they're moving forward in the right direction.

During my many years of use, I've suffered with small problems while implementing the advanced features of Solaris. They were always, however, resolved by referring to the old and legendary Sun Solve and, today, to the excellent Oracle documentation website (http://docs.oracle.com).

I've worked with it for exactly 16 years since version 5.7 (Solaris 7). I've had the opportunity to follow dozens of features being implemented during this long period of time. Better yet, I have a good perspective about next new features which will be introduced in the near future, so I am sure Solaris will continue alive and strong for many years.

I've had the small problems in the Areas for Improvement section, but other than that, I haven't had issues with deployment.

I've absolutely never had any issues with stability. Solaris is a very solid and stable operating system, and its release schedule ensures that all potential stability problems are resolved as soon as possible. Additionally, the Solaris kernel is one of most interesting and featured kernels that I have ever seen because almost everything is made and implemented by taking into account security and stability.

One of the more remarkable advantages of Solaris is the fact that it scales almost linearly. New SPARC processors introduce more cores and Solaris' performance responds proportionally. In particular, I have observed a huge performance gain while processing mathematical applications.

They're straightforward. Honestly, I don't have constant contact with customer services, but the few contacts that I have had were fair enough. Oracle professionals always had a suitable behavior and an appropriate attention to problems.

When my clients needed technical support, the level of customer service was excellent because most field engineers are ready to solve any problem almost instantly.

When critical problems come up and the first level of engineers is not able to solve the issue, the problems are forwarded to more experienced specialist and it is enough to solve the issue quickly.

A long time ago, an open Linux distribution was the main option for running most hosts, but raw performance and security problems forced us to migrate most critical systems to Solaris.

The initial setup was not complex in any way. All Solaris implementations are extremely straightforward, easy to install, and well documented. Most Solaris commands are kept from older versions, which is a big advantage because we can reuse past knowledge.

I always implement solutions by myself because have enough knowledge about Oracle solutions. Nonetheless, most vendors team that I could work together have an appropriate knowledge about all Oracle products.

The ROI of my customers have been very high. As Oracle Solaris provides a total integration with the remaining Oracle portfolio, the necessary time to implement any Oracle solution is very short. Furthermore, as Oracle Solaris is very solid and stable, usually the downtime is insignificant and all investment is recovered by keeping their business working well.

Before thinking about pricing and licensing, we should try to understand whether the return of investment will be enough and fair. For example, I have provided technical consulting services for several companies that, at first, chose another operating system, but after some time, they implemented Oracle Solaris because they understood the importance of an operating system which provides security, performance, and total integration.

No, I didn't. Usually, I try to understand the customer's environment before making any choice, but most of the time I can use Oracle Solaris and part of its features as the more suitable solution.

Before implementing Oracle Solaris, my best recommendation would be to know all its available features for making the right choices. I have seen several implemented solutions which are working, but they could have implemented better techniques and methods if more appropriate features had been chosen for the specific project.