1. Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4 Release Notes
  2. Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4 What's New
  3. What's New in the Software

What's New in the Software

This section highlights information for existing customers about new features in Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4 software.

The Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4 software provides the following new features:

  • Cluster File System with ZFS – Beginning with Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4 you can use proxy file system (PxFS) functionality on top of ZFS datasets. This feature facilitates access to mounted ZFS file systems from any node in the Cluster, delivers ZFS functionality for storage management while maintaining POSIX compliance, and extends Cluster Device Configuration System (DCS) to zpool management. See Creating Cluster File Systems in Installing and Configuring an Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4 Environment.

  • ZFS Snapshot Replication – Beginning with Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4 you can use the Oracle Solaris Cluster disaster recovery framework module for Oracle Solaris ZFS snapshot to replicate zpools for globally mounted ZFS file systems.

    For more information, see Oracle Solaris Cluster Data Replication Guide for ZFS Snapshots.

  • Scalable Services for Exclusive IP Zone Cluster – Beginning with Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4, Solaris Cluster Scalable services, which provides load balancing, now works with Exclusive-IP zone cluster (ip-type=exclusive). See Creating and Configuring a Zone Cluster in Installing and Configuring an Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4 Environment.

  • First Boot IP Configuration for Exclusive-IP Zone Clusters –Beginning with Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4, exclusive-IP zone clusters can have their public interfaces automatically configured to be on the networks at first boot.

  • Immutable Zone Clusters – Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4 now supports deploying HA data services on immutable zone-clusters in fixed-configuration and flexible-configuration profiles. See Creating and Configuring a Zone Cluster in Installing and Configuring an Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4 Environment.

  • LP64 – Leverage ADI – Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4 commands, libraries and plugins are now ported to LP64. Some benefits of a LP64 conversion include:

    • Modernization

    • Increase performance, especially on x64 platforms where additional CPU registers will be available when the utilities are recompiled in 64-bit mode

    • Better randomization with the new Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) Oracle Solaris security feature

    • An LP64 conversion solves the Year 2038 problem with commands that use or manipulate 32-bit time_t values.

  • Oracle WebLogic Server for Oracle Solaris Cluster Manager – Beginning with Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4, Oracle GlassFish server is replaced with Oracle WebLogic Server for Oracle Solaris Cluster Manager.

  • Precision Time Protocol (PTP) – You can now configure Precision Time Protocol (PTP) on Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4 nodes which otherwise use Network Time Protocol (NTP) by default. If you configure the hardware assistance feature of PTP, the network interface configured for PTP can not be used to host LogicalHostname or ScalableAddress resource IP addresses.

  • Centralized Install – Beginning with Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4, you can perform centralized installation of the software. See How to Install Oracle Solaris Cluster Software Using Centralized Installer (clinstall) in Installing and Configuring an Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4 Environment.

  • Disaster Recovery Framework Name– Beginning with Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4, to better describe the functionality of the product, the Disaster Recovery feature has been renamed from Geographic Edition to Disaster Recovery Framework.

  • Puppet Support – Puppet is cross-platform software that you can use to automate and enforce the configuration management of most major subsystems. You can use Puppet to perform several common system configuration tasks. For further details about Puppet refer to Using Puppet With Oracle Solaris Cluster in Administering an Oracle® Solaris Cluster 4.4 Configuration and Using Puppet to Perform Configuration Management.

  • Java 8 Update Considerations – Updating to Oracle Solaris 11.4 removes Java 7. The default version of Java for Oracle Solaris 11.3 is Java 8. If the default version of Java on your Oracle Solaris 11.3 system was changed by re-setting the java mediated link (as in pkg set-mediator -V 1.7 java), then after upgrade to Oracle Solaris 11.4, this link points to a path that does not exist. To use Java 8, do one of the following:

    • Reset the mediated link.

      # pkg set-mediator -V 1.8 java

    • Specify the full path to Java 8: /usr/jdk/instances/jdk1.8.0/bin/java

  • Supported Data Services– For a list of the data services supported by Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.4, see the Oracle® Solaris Cluster 4 Compatibility Guide.