You can create and deploy Oracle Solaris Zones directly from Unified Archives. You can create new zone configurations using an archive as a template with the zonecfg command. You can install zones using zoneadm.
Note that zone configuration and zone installation are independent tasks. You can create new zone configurations from an archive and install the zone from IPS or other means. You can also use existing zone configuration and install using an archive. You can therefore source zone configurations and zone installations from different archives, as well. Refer to Creating and Using Oracle Solaris Zones for more information about zone configuration and installation.