SunSoft Introduces Solaris 2.5

SunSoft Introduces Solaris 2.5

Increased Performance and Security for Enterprise Network Operating Environments

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- October 31, 1995 -- SunSoft, Inc., the leading information and communications infrastructure software company, today introduced Solaris™ 2.5 for information technology professionals who deliver network computing solutions that give businesses a competitive advantage through improved communications, and the ability to quickly adapt to business change. Solaris 2.5 is available for today's leading microprocessor architectures including SPARC™, UltraSPARC™, Intel®x86, Pentium™, Pentium Pro™ and PowerPC™.

Key improvements include impressive performance gains, as well as advances in database connectivity, 3-D graphics and imaging, security, and networking throughput and management.

"When the network is the life-blood of your business you must have more than an upgraded desktop operating system at its heart," said Janpieter Scheerder, president of SunSoft. "Solaris is proven, and has the best price/performance and functionality range of any UNIX-based CISC or RISC operating environment."

Application and Internet Server Advancements

Solaris delivers powerful 1-64 processor scalability in addition to the following improvements in performance and functionality:

Database performance is improved by moving Asynchronous I/O into the Solaris kernel resulting in superior TPC-C performance with support for databases of over 1.5 terrabytes.
Multithreading advances through POSIX 1003.1c compliant threads libraries; the Solaris threads implementation is the lightest weight in the industry, giving the best performance available on uniprocessor and symmetric multiprocessing computers.
More than 150 percent increase in multi-user/timesharing performance.
X/Open™ Federated Naming, an open, standards-based enterprise directory service that integrates existing naming services for a uniform view.

Solaris Networking and Enterprise Management Advances

Solaris 2.5 has many new features for managing network and directory services throughout an entire enterprise. NFS™ version 3 is now available. NFS is an enterprise distributed file service that enables transparent high-performance access to information on the network. NFS has become the de facto standard for network file sharing with more than 8.5M nodes deployed since it was originally introduced by Sun. New in NFS v3 are: safe asynchronous writes that improve performance several-fold over NFS v2; arbitrarily large transfer packet sizes especially well suited for high-bandwidth networks such as ATM and FDDI; and reliable NFS over wide area networks based on TCP/IP error correction and congestion control.

NFS Lock Manager has been enhanced for both file and record locking from the Solaris kernel providing better quality, data integrity, and performance.
NIS+ Password Update Daemon has been improved to allow explicit changing of individual password repositories. This means that full password aging is enforced, giving users greater security over their accounts and files.
Security has also been improved by enhancing Access Control Lists (ACLs) to include read, write, and execute permission to individual users. In addition, the ACL facility now complies with the POSIX 1003.6 standard.
New names service cache speeds access to system naming information, thereby enhancing the performance of network tasks such as email, software compiles, etc. that need information about system names.

Commercial and Technical Desktop Improvements

Solaris Common Desktop Environment (CDE), SunSoft's flexible graphical user environment for technical and business application development and deployment is included. Solaris CDE includes integrated network-ready productivity applications such as e-mail, calendar and file manager. Solaris CDE is based on Motif and standards specified by the Common Open Software Environment (COSE) partners.
OpenWindows™ user environment is still available and all existing OpenWindows applications will run unmodified in the Solaris CDE environment.
Commercial desktops using mixed databases between clients and servers, can now use the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) programming interface for greater flexibility.
New Solaris XIL, XGL, and PEX graphics capabilities significantly improve 3-D image realism, performance and ease of application development for visual computing applications such as MCAD/ECAD, animation, simulation, and financial trend modeling.
- XIL has been enhanced for better image realism, scaling, compression, color conversion, display, publishing, video, workflow and the Internet while insulating application developers from hardware device changes.
- XGL performance improvements enable developers to use the graphics foundation library for the fastest 2D/3D applications possible.
- PEX has been improved for better access and display of 3D graphics.
Addition of the Kodak Color Management System (KCMS) ensures color consistency from image acquisition and digitalization to the interactive, on-screen image enhancement and retouching process to final output rendering.

Additional Solaris 2.5 Advances

Solaris 2.5 includes an enhanced binary compatibility package (BCP) for SunOS™ 4.x developed applications. Applications that mix static and dynamic linking are now supported under BCP. Also supported is bcopy in libc from SunOS 4.x. This increases the ease with which software developers can migrate their SunOS applications to Solaris without rewriting large portions of their application.

Solaris 2.5 is SunSoft's most tested software release ever. SunSoft's focus on quality has produced the most scalable and secure operating environment available for today's most powerful desktop computers and servers.

SunSoft Inc.

SunSoft, Inc. is the leading provider of information and communications infrastructure software. SunSoft's products - designed for information technology professionals, systems integrators, value added resellers and computer manufacturers - are used to deliver network, Internet, and desktop computing solutions that improve a company's internal and customer communications, and lets them quickly adapt to business change. SunSoft products are distributed through computer manufacturers and resellers worldwide. SunSoft is a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems, Inc. For more information, contact SunSoft on the Internet at http://www.sun.com/software/.

1995 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, SunSoft, the SunSoft logo, Solaris NEO, WorkshopNEO, Solstice, Java, Hot Java and Solaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Pentium and Pentium Pro are trademarks of Intel Corporation. All other products or service names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners.

SunSoft Unveils The Most Comprehensive And Scalable Network Operating Environment For Next Generation Processors

Solaris 2.5 Designed For Business' Most Critical Network, Internet, Desktop Applications

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - October 31, 1995 - SunSoft, Inc., the leading information and communications infrastructure software company, today unveiled Solaristm 2.5 for information technology professionals who deliver network computing solutions that give businesses a competitive advantage through improved communications, and the ability to quickly adapt to business change. SunSoft's new release is the most scalable and secure operating system for network servers, Internet servers and high performance desktop systems.

Solaris is an enterprise-wide operating environment with a suite of infrastructure software for developing, deploying and managing advanced information and communications applications including data warehousing and customer management systems such as overnight mail package tracking systems or stock trading on Wall Street.

"Businesses worldwide know that their success is tightly coupled to improving the quality of information and driving and adapting to change," said SunSoft president Janpieter Scheerder. "Only Solaris provides the infrastructure software to achieve those business objectives. It is the only open network operating environment with integrated Internet and networking services and advanced development and management tools and the only one that can work across multiple processor and software environments, serving thousands of users per node as well as tens of thousands of users across the network. No other software company can make that claim."

Scheerder said SunSoft will introduce the new SPARCTM edition of Solaris next week at Sun Microsystems Computer Corporation's UltraComputingTM event and will announce the new Intel® edition of Solaris tomorrow at Intel Corporation's Pentium ProTM introduction.

Solaris 2.5: Scalable and Secure

Designed to run and manage a company's mission-critical technical and business applications such as software development, financial modeling, transaction processing, multidimensional databases and 3-D image processing and rendering programs, Solaris features new performance enhancements that include:

Industry-leading scalability from 1 to 64 processors.
More than 150 percent improvement in timesharing performance.
Up to 30 percent increase in NFSTM performance with support for NFS v3, delivering increased scalablity, file transfer performance, and security.
Superior database performance supporting over 1.5 terrabytes.
Solaris Common Desktop Environment (CDE) graphical user interface optimized and enhanced for SunSoft environment with network-ready integrated applications including Mail, Calendar and File Manager.
Enhanced administration and security from ACLs and AdminTool within AdminSuite.
Increased 3D graphics speed and rendering performance including improvements in XGL, PEX, and XIL libraries for visual computing applications.
Support for new processors in particular, UltraSPARCTM and Pentium Pro.

"Solaris represents the only real competitor to NT. Its database support, advanced development tools and its scalability -- the ability to make efficient use of additional processors in a single system -- makes Solaris the operating system of choice for mission-critical database applications," said Joseph Vassallo, vice president of Oracle Corporation's Open Systems Division. "Solaris can scale from one to 64 processors. If you can do 64, you can do four in your sleep."

Solaris 2.5 is SunSoft's most tested software release ever. SunSoft's focus on quality has produced the most scalable, secure and reliable operating environment available for today's most powerful desktop computers and servers.

Develop, Deploy, Run and Manage

Solaris is available with a comprehensive suite of infrastructure software for developing, deploying, running and managing a company's advanced information and communications applications. The suite of infrastructure software includes: SolsticeTM - systems and network management software, including security products, that allow administrators to manage the network from anywhere. SunSoft WorkShopTM - an award-winning set of visual tools for rapidly developing mission-critical applications. Solaris NEOTM - the first products for building applications based on networked objects that can be shared by applications anywhere on the network. JavaTM - the first network-enabled programming language for quickly prototyping and building platform independent applications that must run securely over enterprise networks and the Internet.

For more information call 1-800-SUNSOFT (1-800-786-7683), option 1, or 512-345-2412; or visit our World Wide Web site at http://www.sun.com/solaris/.

SunSoft Inc.

1995 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, SunSoft, the SunSoft logo, Solaris NEO, WorkshopNEO, Solstice, Java, Hot Java and Solaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation, Redwood City, California. Pentium and Pentium Pro are trademarks of Intel Corporation. All other products or service names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners.