Sun OpenSolaris gets ready for Nehalem | | 2008-07-09 | | Following a software optimization compact between Sun Microsystems and Intel eighteen months ago, Sun has announced that its OpenSolaris operating system will be ready to use new features on the Intel Nehalem range prior to the new processor’s launch.
To date, the alliance has concentrated on optimization of OpenSolaris with Intel’s Xeon architecture with almost 1,000 Intel systems now capable of running Solaris. This along with a strong uptake of OpenSoloris has seen a healthy growth in x86 sales for Sun.
OpenSolaris is given away free to the developer community with new releases issued every six months, the next release being due in November 2008. Intel will issue a release date for Nehalem in August.
Some of the new features of the processor will include simultaneous multithreading which allows one core to be virtualized into several (a feature of the Pentium 4 family but dropped for the Core 2 Duo platform).
Power management and reliability will also to be improved. The Open Solaris platform running on Nehalem will offer system administrators a lot more options before shutting down a system.
"It can take what would be a fatal error and turn it into a simple memory error," said Andy Roach, senior director of X64 engineering at Sun. "This would allow hot-swapping to keep systems up and running. It is about using various levels of fault management."
"We’re working on more than just CPUs. We’re working to deliver full Intel-based solution stacks to Solaris users." he added.
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