Comparison between MS Servers Window 2012 v2 and Oracle Solaris 11.2History and background of MUOSwindow server Windows Server is a collection of operating systems created by Microsoft that supports enterprise-managements, data storage, applications, and communications. For early versions of Windows Server, they have concentrated on steadiness, security, networking, and many improvements to the file system. Other developments also have more features about enhancements for deployment technologies, as well as increased hardware support. So far, there have been 6 releases of window servers including 3 main releases and 3 versions R2. The first release was window server 2003 and the latest release of Windows Server is Windows Server2012R2Windows Server2003 (April 2003) and Windows Server2003R2 (December 2005) This version goes with WindowsXP. It improved networking installation, integration, web services and abilities for DTFS (Direct Tape File System). Its no longer used anymore.Windows Server2008 and Windows Server2008R2 These releases contains a number of additions for security and administrative features shared with WindowsVista:, developed Firewall, .NET Framework technology, and numerous enhancements to the kernel, file, and memory systems.Windows Server2012R2 and Windows Server2012 Besides emphasizing on cloud support with features such as improved IP-addressing, updated Hyper-V, and a new file system (ReFS), windows Server2012R2 continue having more development to virtualization, management, storage, networking, virtual desktop infrastructure, access protection, information protection, web services, and application platform infrastructure.Moreover, Microsoft has also designed specialized SKUs (stock keeping units) of Windows Server which supports better for home and small business markets. Windows Essential Business Server 2008 This was designed for medium-sized businesses, maximum of 300 users, and concentrated on integration with the Management Console. Based on Windows Server2008.Windows Small Business Server This one was designed for small-to-medium-sized businesses with no more than 75 users. Based on Windows Server operating systems up to Windows Server2008R2.Windows Home Server and Windows Home Server 2011 This was designed for a home with PCs using multiple network, file sharing, and remote access, and automated backups. Based on Windows Server2003 and Windows Server2008R2.Windows Server Essentials 2012 and 2012 R2 This was a next move of the Small Business Server line, and focuses on a tight corporation with the unified Management Console. Based on Windows Server2012 and Windows Server2012R2.Introduction of Windows Server 2012 and R2:Unlike previous releases, Windows Server 2012 dont support forItanium-based computers,[6]and it only has four editions: Foundation, Essential, Standard and Datacenter. Various new features were added or improved from Windows Server 2008 R2 including Cloud OS, Hyper-V, storage management, failover clustering, networking and other enhancement. The successor to Windows Server 2012 is Windows Server 2012 R2 released along withWindows 8.1in October 2013 and has its update in April 2014. With Windows Server 2012 R2, you can scale to run your most important workloads with robust recovery options. Youll achieve value quickly with a wide range of cost-effective, high-performance storage options and simplified delivery of multi-tenant IT services. You can build, deploy, operate, and monitor applications on premises and in the cloud. Empower users with secure access to corporate resources on the devices they choose.Editions

Oracle Solaris Solaris, the UNIX-based operating system developed by SUN Microsystem, was born in 1987. AT&T (is an Americanmultinationaltelecommunicationscorporation) and SUN Microsystem tried to combine the leading Unix versions (BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution), XENIX, and System V) into one operating system. In 1991, SUN Microsystem substituted its existing Unix operating system (SunOS 4) with one based on SVR4, called Solaris 2. With many new developments, including use of theOpenNetwork Computing (ONC) functionality, NIS+ and windows graphical user interface, symmetric multiprocessing which Solaris 2 was specially designed for. And now, for over twenty-years, numerous versions of Solaris has been released with great inventions to catch up with the changing of the computerenvironment, trying to foreseen where the computer world is going.

The most important milestones of Solaris OS innovations:

1. Solaris 2.5.1 (1996) NFSv3 (Network File System version 3) filesystem and NFS/TCP (transmission control protocol) , CDE (Common Desktop Environment) , includedsupportfor the Macintosh PowerPC and the CDE , expanded user and group IDs to 32 bits.

2. Solaris 2.6 (1997) Kerberos5 security encryption, Web NFS file system and large file support to increase Solaris internetperformance. It became the most popular version for the next three years

3. Solaris 2.7 (renamed just Solaris 7) (1998) 64-bit, improved its performance, capacity, and scalability. Native support for file system meta-data logging (UFS logging (Unix file system)). It was not very successful version, just few move from 2.6.

4. Solaris 8 (2000) first OS(Operating system) to combine datacenter and dot-com requirements, offering support for IPMP (IP network multipathing), IPv6 (Internet protocol version 6) and IPSEC (Internet Protocol Security), Multipath I/O and it became a considerable success and is still used as of 2011. Most Sun users moved from 2.6 directly to Solaris 8.

5. Solaris 9 (2002) Open Windows (friendly with Linux compatibility), added the resource manager, Solaris Volume Manager, extended file attributes, and the iPlanet Directory Server. This version became standard Solaris version until appearance of Solaris 10. Most current update is Solaris 9 9/05.

6. Solaris 10 (2005) free of charge, more compatible with Linux and IBM system, Dynamic Tracing (DTrace), NFSv4, Java Desktop System based on GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment), ZFS (ZFSis a combinedfile systemandlogical volume manager) (later in 2006).It became huge success. The last success of Sun as an independent company.

7. Solaris 11 Express. First release of Solaris under Oracle ownership. This release build a secure, efficient, mission-critical cloud, speed up and protect Your Enterprise Applications, provide the highest levels of performance in your data center with cost efficiency. It also added new packaging system (IPS=Image Packaging System) , network virtualization and QoS, virtual consoles, ZFS encryption and deduplication, updatedGNOME. RemovesXsun, CDE.

8. Solaris 11.2 (2014) emphasized on cloud infrastructure, delivers modern cloud platform with integrated openStack Distribution and improved combination of OpenStack, SDN technology, clustering, and virtualization with a proven enterprise-class OS in one single product.

The evolution of the Solaris OS shows the capacity of Sun Microsystem to be on the cutting edge of the computing world without losing touch with the current computing environment. New versions of Solaris is regularly released incorporated the latest development in computer technology and also included more cross-platform compatibility and incorporating the advances of other systems.

Introduction of Oracle Solaris 11 and 11.2Oracle Solaris 11 is a complete, integrated and open platform designed for large-scale enterprise with cloud environments. It combines OpenStack, uncompromised virtualization, powerful application driven Software Defined Networking, and agile, secure and compliant application deployment with a proven enterprise-class OS, all in a single, supported cloud offering.Oracle Solaris 11.2 introduces many new features that enhance its capabilities as an overall cloud infrastructure solution including Centralized Cloud Management With OpenStack, Independent and Isolated Environments With Kernel Zones, Application Provisioning With Unified Archives, Software-Defined Networking - Elastic Virtual Switch, Software-Defined Networking - Application-Driven Flows, ,Comprehensive Compliance Checking and Reporting, .

Analyze and Compare User Interface designWindows server 2012

Server Manager

Windows Server 2012 has a start screen like its client cousin windows 8. The first thing you notice is the Dashboard which is rather new in Server Manager. Server Manager is also available for Windows 8 as part of the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT). The Dashboard offers a quick view of server status, and the ability to add and remove features.The new interface of Server Manager is now useful for managing multiple servers. With a new view, administrators easily manage server statusby role as well as by individual server. When all is well, the color scheme shows green and red if there is any problem needed to be fixed. When a specific server is selected, the Server Manager will show events, services and performance, and has access to the Best Practices Analyzer for inspecting its configuration. A PowerShell console can be opened at the remote server, or a Remote Desktop session if you want to manage locally.

Internet Information Server

In this version, Internet Information Services (IIS) 8.0 has not changed much from the previous version. One welcome new feature is centralized management of secure sockets layer (SSL) certificates. It is such a bother to copy certificates around multiple web servers, this work easily get this wrong or let a certificate expire if using for many machines. With, Centralized SSL management , users can store all certificates on a network share, view expiry status, and set up new secure sites with no copying manually. Central processing unit (CPU) controller is another new notable feature, which allows you to limit the CPU time of an individual application pool. One better additional support for Non-Uniform Memory Access (Numa), which is increasingly significant as servers back up more processors and more RAM.

Windows Server 2012: Start menu

The Start screen of Windows Server 2012 is similar to Windows 8. The main reason is that Microsoft want to have the consistency with Windows 8, especially remember that all applications of Windows Server 2012 are desktop applications rather than the Windows Runtime apps that Microsoft is promoting for the client. Also, touchable icons could be useful if users use the server from a tablet. In practice it matters little, since most features are available from the Server Manager and administrators will rarely see this screen. There is also an administrative menu on the top-right desktop which contain quick move to tools such as Control Panel or Device Manager like Windows 8 client. Microsoft hopes this product will be used to empower the services for tablet applications.

Windows Server 2012: Automation with PowerShell

PowerShell is an automation engine designed by Microsofts for administrators, its built on the .Net runtime and run with its own language. PowerShell plays a crucial role in Server 2012 in two versions. Many of the processes in Server Manager are enacted by PowerShell scripts, and in some cases you can adapt thescript that is generated. There are new features in PowerShell. Areas that were not strong earlier, such as Hyper-V, are now broadly covered.PowerShell also allow user to use remotely, so it become very useful not only for local networks but also for managing servers in the cloud, such as those hosted on Windows Azure.

Oracle

Centralized Cloud Management With OpenStack

Oracle Solaris 11.2 provides a comprehensive OpenStack service. OpenStack, the open-source cloud-computing software, support complete self-service environments which help system share and manage compute, network, and storage resources in the data center through a centralized web-based portal. As all Oracle Solaris 11.2 integrated with OpenStack, users can easily use OpenStack to set up an enterprise-ready private cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) environment in minutes.

Solaris 11.2 provide the open-source destop GNOME.Solaris Users Have Access to Lots of Software

The Package Manager interface is designed to help users can find and install software packages easier

.

Solaris 11.2 Includes an OpenStack Havana

Users have access to a full OpenStack cloud platform, containing neutron networking, Nova compute , cinder storage, glance image management and the Horizon OpenStack dashboard.Unified Archives Enable Easy Cloning

Unified Archives is the new native format to create application and system image archive

Kernel Zones Provide New Virtualization Options

Solaris has well-known with having virtualization containers for applications, Zones. With Solaris 11.2, the idea of Kernel Zones is being introduced. Full Solaris kernel will be allowed to run inside a container.Elastic Virtual Switch Enables SDN

The Elastic Virtual Switch (EVS) permits Solaris 11.2 administrators to create a fully distributed virtual switch.

Security Compliance Testing Is Built-In

One of the security tools in Solaris 11.2 is the compliance framework that makes a series of tests to assess the security posture of the host operating system.Solaris Desktop Includes Firefox

For the desktop interface of the Solaris 11.2 beta, the popular Firefox Web browser is part of the default installation.

Operating system kernel:

The kernel is computer program which has a mission to manage I/O requirement from software, and compile them into instructions processing data for the central processing unit and other components in computers. Therefore, the kernel is the fundamental part of modern operating system.Function of KernelManage memory:The kernel has access to full resource of systems memory and must allow processestosafely accessthismemoryasthey requireit.central processing unitWhen programs are running under central processing unit, the kernel will play a role to decide when each programs should be assigned .

Random-Access memoryWhen processes are running, both program instruction and data will be stored in memory and they want to access and sometimes demand more memory than those thats available in a computer. The kernel will decide which memory each process can use and solve the problem if there is not enough memory available.

Input/output (I/O) devicesWith I/O devices such as key board, mice, printer , the kernel will check the request from application in order to perform the i/o to devices appropriately and provides convenient ways for using the devices.

In window server 2012, Microsoft keep using a Microsoft NT kernel as a hybrid kernel that powers all operating system in the Windows NT family.

Windows Server 2012Like traditional kernel, Windows NTkernel modehas full access to the system resources of the computer, hardware, software and runs code in a protected memory area. It has a controls over access to scheduling, thread, memory management and the communication with hardware. When user mode services or application access to critical areas of the operating system where they shouldnt have done, the kernel mode will stops them. The kernel mode will perform such operations on behalf of user under their request.

Oracle solaris 11.2Kernel Zonesare a new addition to the Oracle Solaris Zone environment in Oracle Solaris 11.2. They can be created using different version of Oracle Solaris than the one in Global Zone. Now you can also install latest release of Oracle Solaris which will come after Oracle Solaris 11.2, even if Oracle Solaris 11.2 is installed on Global Zone which was not possible earlier, which will be good for testing new release of Oracle Solaris before installing it on production servers or Zones. As in previous types of zones you were only able to install same or older version of Oracle Solaris then one installed on Global Zone. Kernel Zone will have dedicated kernel, which will separate or isolate Kernel Zone from Global Zone and increase performance, also kernel zone have its own patch level. Kernel Zone will be installed on dedicated storage space (like separate LUN coming from storage server), which was earlier not possible. These features of Kernel Zone makes it more like virtual machine then just a virtual operating system environment (as it was earlier with whole root or sparse zones). Kernel Zones can be used to host non-Kernel Zones, creating a nested Zone structure. The Kernel Zone acts as a Global Zone for the nested Zones. Kernel Zone can be created on SPARC T-4 systems and above and can be created on x86 systems with VT (Virtualization Technology) enabled in BIOS.https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-oracle-solaris-kernel-zone-nitin-kanojia

Tuning Processor scheduling:The way the window operating system perform for applications and installed services is determined by the processor-scheduling configuration. Processor-scheduling options control how much processor resources are allocated to application running on a server, which in turn determines the responsiveness of applications. You can optimize processor scheduling for the following application types.

http://www.computerweekly.com/photostory/2240162613/Windows-Server-2012-inside-Microsofts-Enterprise-Server-OS/3/Windows-Server-2012-Server-Manager

NT Kernel Resources offers high quality development toolkits, software applications and expert level consulting services for Windows kernel mode development, networking, computer security, virtualization and operating systems analyses.

NT Kernel Resources development libraries are widely used in numerous firewall, hotspot, VPN, VoIP, QoS, access control and security solutions all over the world. In many cases, our experts participated in the development process and created core components for those solutions. All our development toolkits are free for private (non commercial), or educational (including non-profit organization) use. Commercial licenses (including global royalty free source code license) are also available.

NT Kernel Resources is pleased to support customers with development requirements in the field of our expertise. Whether your requirement is simple (customizing our existing solutions or creating a concept proof sample) or an innovative new requirement, we would be glad to help.

NT Kernel Resources

http://www.ntkernel.com/