23 May 2002 Sun Microsystems is bundling its application server and directory server software with its newly launched Solaris 9 Unix operating system in a bid to establish itself as a major web services technology vendor.
“As the foundation for the Sun ONE architecture, the Solaris 9 operating environment helps accelerate the deployment of web services with its core integrated software stack,” said Anil Gadre, vice president and general manager of Solaris Software.
Sun is bundling its Java Two Enterprise Edition (J2EE) compliant Sun ONE Application Server and the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) compatible Sun ONE Directory Server with Solaris 9, launched yesterday.
The move mirrors the bundling policy successfully deployed by bitter rival Microsoft – a strategy that Sun once blasted as anti-competitive, but which it has been forced to adopt in a bid to make up lost ground. The two products languished in the iPlanet alliance between Sun and media giant AOL Time Warner for three years before Sun acquired them outright in March this year.
Solaris 9 boasts a number of other new features. These include configuration management tools and resource management functions to aid server consolidation projects and provide some “utility computing” functions.
In addition, Sun is bundling a suite of security tools with the operating system, including the SunScreen firewall, Solaris Secure Shell for encrypted remote access and the Kerberos version 5 server for system authentication.
