The software, called Project Janus, will work on servers using "x86" chips such as Intel's Xeon and Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron, said Ann Wettersten, Sun's vice president of systems software product marketing. She spoke at a panel discussion held at its offices in San Francisco in conjunction with the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo. The software intercepts a program's communications with Linux and translates them into communications with Solaris.
Janus isn't an "objection neutraliser" that might make life easier for Linux users planning to move to Solaris, but it's not likely to trigger such a move, said D.H. Brown analyst Tony Iams. "I don't see it opening up a new wave of users. It smoothes the path for those already considering a move to Solaris."
But Jonathan Schwarz, Sun's former top software executive and now its chief operating officer, said he believes it will prove compelling to customers who want alternatives to Red Hat Linux, the dominant version of the software and the one with the most compatibility certifications from software companies.
"In the data centre, your Linux vendor just tripled their price. You cannot move. Your application is not certified to Debian," a Linux variant that hasn't achieved mainstream commercial success, Schwartz said. Solaris provides that escape hatch, he said.
The technology is the latest move in Sun's hot-and-cold relationship with Linux. The company for years shunned Linux in favor of Solaris, but in 2002 accepted the open-source operating system into its fold. These days, Sun sells Linux but has an aggressive program to spread Solaris widely.
The Janus performance penalty of about 5 percent will be offset by the ability to use Solaris features such as N1 Grid Containers to run multiple operating systems on a single computer or Dtrace to find software bottlenecks, Wettersten said.
To start with, Janus will provide 100 percent compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, even complicated programs such as Oracle's database or BEA Systems' Web server, said Jack O'Brien, a group manager of x86 operating system marketing. Later, Sun also plans to make compatibility with Novell's SuSE Linux later in an early update.
Sun wouldn't quite guarantee that Janus would run all Linux applications. "What Sun is saying is if it works in the Red Hat 3.0 environment, and you run that on Janus and something is not working correctly, Sun will fix it," Wettersten said.
The Santa Clara, California-based server maker plans to take a page from the Linux playbook later by releasing Solaris as open-source software. Sun will reveal details of the plan this US fall, Wettersten said.
The open-source Solaris strategy is risky, Iams said. "Software intellectual property is a critical element of Sun's success. You're playing a very risky game by doing that," he said, though it does fit in with Sun's powerful urge "to make sure Solaris remains relevant."
Sun plans to release Solaris 10 by the end of the year. Sun is demonstrating Janus at LinuxWorld this week.
It used to be that Linux had to make itself look like Solaris to get a toe-hold into the enterprise space.
Now, Solaris has to make itself look like Linux in order to survive.
My, how the world has changed.
So long proprietary UNIX. Hello freedom.