Your initial setup team assigned IP addresses to the global zone and the labeled zones. They considered three types of configurations as described in Access to Labeled Zones and summarized as follows:
The system has one IP address for the global zone and all labeled zones.
This default configuration is useful on a system that uses DHCP software to obtain its IP address.
The system has one IP address for the global zone, and one IP address that is shared by all zones, including the global zone. Any zone can have a combination of a unique address and a shared address.
This configuration is useful on a networked system that regular users are going to log in to. It can also be used for a printer or an NFS server. This configuration conserves IP addresses.
The system has one IP address for the global zone, and each labeled zone has a unique IP address.
This configuration is useful for providing access to separate physical networks of single-level systems. Typically, each zone would have an IP address on a different physical network from the other labeled zones. Because this configuration is implemented with a single IP instance, the global zone controls the physical interfaces and manages global resources, such as the route table.
A fourth type of configuration for a non-global zone is available in Oracle Solaris, exclusive IP instances. In this configuration, a non-global zone is assigned its own IP instance and manages its own physical interfaces. Each zone operates as if it is a distinct system. For a description, see Zone Network Interfaces in Introduction to Oracle Solaris Zones .
If you configure exclusive IP instances in Trusted Extensions, each labeled zone operates as if it is a distinct single-level system. The multilevel networking features of Trusted Extensions rely on features of a shared IP stack. This guide assumes that networking is controlled entirely by the global zone. Therefore, if your initial setup team has installed labeled zones with exclusive IP instances, you must provide or refer to site-specific documentation.