Different Oracle Solaris utilities can create BEs. However, for regular administration of BEs, always use the beadm command. Even though the command is based on ZFS technology, it has additional functionalities specific to managing a BE's root dataset and its contents.
The beadm command can also perform the following operations:
It aggregates all datasets in a BE and performs actions on the entire BE at once. Do not use ZFS commands to modify each dataset individually.
It manages the dataset structures within BEs. For example, when the beadm command clones a BE that has shared datasets, the command automatically recognizes and manages those shared datasets for the new BE.
It enables you to perform administrative tasks on BEs in a global zone or in a non-global zone.
It automatically manages and updates the GRUB menu for x86 systems or the boot menu for SPARC systems.