Press Release
February 8, 2002
Solaris 8 Provides a Rock-Solid, Enterprise Network OS, Says Author of O'Reilly's Solaris 8 Administrator's Guide
Sebastopol, CA--Sexiness often wins out over stability when it comes to
capturing our attention, in matters of technology as much as anything
else. Yet, when an organization is counting on you to provide
consistent high-level network services, twenty-four hours a day,
year-round, in addition to dealing with the changing demands of
customers and management, taking extra security precautions, and
scaling up to meet global demands, suddenly stability can look pretty
darned appealing. Which is why the Solaris operating system from Sun
Microsystems, with its reputation for being one of the most reliable
and scalable platforms on which to build e-commerce products, has
attracted an increasing number of network administrators and
architects. But newcomers to Solaris frequently face the hurdle of
finding out what Solaris offers. The Solaris 8 Administrator's Guide
(O'Reilly, US $39.95) by renowned Solaris expert Paul Watters, is an
independent and objective attempt to provide the answers administrators
need.
"I wanted to provide a quick and easy-to-read guide to key topics in
managing Solaris networks," Watters says of his new book. "Solaris 8 is
being deployed in production by many organizations, and there are big
changes that need to be factored into future designs. New features like
IPv6 and IPSec receive a lot of attention, but in my experience, they
are not core yet. Sometimes we need to focus on basic issues like
routing and security as much as new technologies. In this book, I
wanted to focus on networking issues with a succinct, hands-on
approach."
The Solaris 8 Administrator's Guide covers all aspects of deploying
Solaris as a network server, including both basic and advanced network
services. The book is squarely aimed at supporting enterprise-level
services, providing conceptual and difficult material that is absent
from other manuals. The Guide is unique in that it does not cover
historical services (which are not commonly found in modern
environments) nor provide an in-depth history of Solaris or Unix,
assuming that the reader can find this information elsewhere. Instead,
the focus is on supporting relevant contemporary networking
technologies, emphasizing practical issues like evaluating the
security, scalability and reliability of specific packages.
"Security is understandably a very big issue right now," Watters says,
addressing a critical concern of administrators. "In my book, security
is the most important aspect of building networks around Solaris. Today
we have remotely accessible multi-user, multi-process systems that were
the stuff of science fiction not so long ago, and we have to be able to
deal with the power that this level of access can give to rogue users.
This calls for more resources, more training, better security software
with penetration testing and intrusion development, and ultimately more
investment in research and development."
Some network administrators may wonder about the future of Solaris in
light of Sun's recent announcement, after the first round of Solaris 9
betas, that they were discontinuing the release of any more Solaris for
Intel betas. Says Watters, "I'm sure that many administrators,
architects, and developers wonder whether Sun will drop Solaris for
Intel altogether, given the integration of Linux that features
prominently in the features list for betas. Perhaps this just
indicates that Sun is focusing on what they do best--build excellent
hardware systems with a rock-solid OS."
Solaris 8 Administrator's Guide is aimed toward administrators of
heterogeneous networks who want to make use of Solaris for routing,
filesharing, PC support, and running enterprise services based on Java
2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE). System administrators, designers,
architects and developers involved with Solaris network services will
benefit from reading this book.
Online Resources:
Solaris 8
Administrator's Guide
By Paul Watters
ISBN 0-596-00073-1, 282 pages, $39.95 (US), $56.95 (CAN)
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
About O'Reilly
O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.
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