OpenSolaris OS Beta Now Available

Posted on May 15, 2008

Sun and the OpenSolaris community have announced the availability of the OpenSolaris OS. The free operating system is based on Sun’s Solaris kernel and is the first OS to feature ZFS as its default file system.

In 2005, Sun Microsystems formed the OpenSolaris open source project to build a development community around its Solaris operating system. Monday, the company announced that a beta version of the OpenSolaris operating system is now available.

According to company information, the operating system is available at http://www.opensolaris.com/ and at Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). BetaNews reports:

The EC2 platform leases Amazon’s high bandwidth servers on a bandwidth-per-hour basis, giving small businesses a way to host their applications even when they don’t have servers of their own. OpenSolaris on Amazon EC2’s private beta is available for only the cost of Amazon’s services, which start at 10 cents per CPU-Hour.

The operating system combines the basic technology of Solaris with open source desktop applications, according to CIO Today, and is aimed specifically at developers who want to test and deploy Web services, network applications and high performance computing, or HPC. OpenSolaris governing board member Stephen Lau says:

OpenSolaris provides an ideal environment for students , developers and early adopters looking to learn and gain experience with innovative technologies…

Observers say the new release could prove to be renewed competition for the various Linux distributions.

About the author

Lora covers the emergence of open software and standards in IT Business Edge’s Leveraging Open Source weekly report.  Read Lora’s blog, Not Just Linux, to learn about how alternative operating systems ensure uptime and grow the bottom line.

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