Also on Tuesday, as part of Sun's regular release cycle, the company shipped the latest version of Solaris 9, called 4/03 for the date on which it was originally unveiled. In line with the Orion strategy, Sun has bundled some new features into the standard package that once cost extra. For example, the Sun Management Center version 3.5, which ships with Solaris 9 4/03, includes "grouping" technology that previously cost extra. Grouping lets an administrator make changes to a group of servers in one fell swoop rather than dealing with each individually. When it was introduced in 2002, Solaris 9 included volume manager software, another item that had previously cost extra. Solaris 9 4/03 updates this package, which lets a server communicate with several storage systems as if they were one, with the ability to employ a volume as large as 2,000 terabytes. The previous limit was 1 terabyte, said Bill Moffitt, group manager for Solaris product management, in an interview. A future version of Solaris will include updated Unix File System software that also can span a 16-terabyte range, he added. The new version of Solaris also has the ability to handle a revamped Internet standard called IPv6, which permits vastly more devices to have their own Internet addresses than does the prevailing IPv4 that's in use today. The new Solaris can transfer the IPv6 data on IPv4 networks, Moffitt said. "You don't have to build complete IPv6 infrastructure to have IPv6 services," Moffitt said. The feature is of the most interest to Asian telecommunications companies, which need the large address space to handle the profusion of cell phones that tap into Internet services. "Initially, IPv6 is of primary interest in Asia. Europe is starting to catch on now," Moffitt said.
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