Interoperability Resources for System Administrators

Karen Perkins, last updated on 2009-09-23

Interoperability can occur on many different levels, from basic TCP/IP networking to Web services, identity management, systems management, and storage. Sun provides interoperability across a wide range of technologies, from the desktop to the data center to developer products, and Sun is committed to increasing interoperability.

Why should you care? Well, besides the obvious need to share data and enable communication among systems, interoperability makes administration tasks, such as software updates and system maintenance, easier, and it reduces complexity in the IT environment. Interoperability also ensures that new equipment operates with existing equipment, so you can deploy new equipment to get new functionality without having to prematurely replace older equipment. Finally, it enables you to buy the best hardware and software for a particular task knowing that all the pieces will be able to work together.

The Solaris Operating System is a strong platform for heterogeneous compute environments, because it interoperates with many other operating environments, including Linux and Microsoft Windows. In addition, the Solaris 10 OS supports open source applications and open standards, such as UDDI, SOAP, WSDL, and XML, and it includes software such as Apache, Perl, PHP, Python, and Samba. For more details, see the Solaris Interoperability web site.

The Sun interoperability web site provides details on vendor alliances and interoperability for Sun x64 systems, for the client and desktop, in the data center, for developers, and in storage.

More Resources

The following sections of this web site provide additional resources:

• Resources for Running the Solaris OS and OpenSolaris OS on non-Sun Hardware, which provides links to BigAdmin apps and tools (for example, the Solaris Hardware Compatibility List) and info about running Solaris and OpenSolaris on HP, Dell, IBM, Intel, AMD, and other non-Sun hardware

• Resources for Working With Multiple Boot Environments, which provides resources for environments that run multiple operating systems

• Resources for Running non-Sun Software on Sun Hardware, which provides resources for running software from Oracle, Microsoft, Zmanda, Symantec, and other companies on Sun storage products and Sun servers (last updated on 2009-09-23)

• Resources for Running Linux With Sun Technologies, which provides resources for environments that run Linux with Sun products and technologies

• Sun Virtualization and Web 2.0 Technologies That Enable Interoperability, which provides resources for Solaris Containers, Solaris Zones, Logical Domains (LDoms), Sun xVM portfolio, Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), the GlassFish portfolio, Solaris OS + AMP (SAMP) software stacks, and other Sun technologies that enable interoperability

• Other Interoperability Resources, which provides miscellaneous resources, such as info for Kerberos, Common Internet File System (CIFS), the Sun and IBM Open Document Format (ODF) Toolkit, the Sun/Microsoft Interoperability Center, and more

Also see the BigAdmin Interoperability resources collection, which lists resources on BigAdmin as well as third-party resources and community submissions.