Patrick Ale: Experiencing Solaris 11

UPC Broadband
UNIX Technical Specialist

Abstract

This presentation is about Solaris 11 in day to day usage. It will be mostly two folded: desktop usage and server side usage.

On desktop usage: (You need a workstation after all from where you do your sysadmin stuff).

• Reading your Exchange email using Thunderbird or Evolution (by default shipped with Solaris 11) and an opensource tool called 'davmail')
• Setting up local zones for development purposes without breaking your desktop. (You might want to compile/install stuff that breaks).
• Most people enjoy listening to their music during work and this is also possible with the build in gstreamer applications plus a freeware external binary.

On Server side usage:

• Virtual network interfaces with their own network stack for full control and useable with applications/tools that require raw access to the ethernet device.
• Virtual switches to isolate your developement/test environment from the public network. (local only environment).
• Proof of concept how to combine the two above.

Biography

Patrick started working in the IT in 1997 after going to the Hotel Management college in Amsterdam. His first job was on the IT helpdesk where he started playing around with Linux and Solaris. Currently he works at UPC Broadband as Unix system administrator, where he has the opportunity to learn a lot about the latest and greatest on hardware and Solaris operating environment.

At home, Patrick fiddles around with a Sun blade 150 and laptop, trying to get Illumos to work and playing a bit with features which haven't implemented in the work environment (yet).