Sun delays major Solaris features

Sun Microsystems is delaying two major features of its new Solaris 10 operating system.

Users had originally been promised that the Janus Linux support system, which allows users to run unmodified Linux software on the Solaris platform, would be available soon after the Solaris 10 launch earlier this year.

Sun is now not planning to release Janus until next year. In addition, the planned Zettabyte File System (ZFS), designed to improve the management of data storage on the Solaris platform, also now won’t be ready until next year, when previously it was promised for this year.

With Solaris under increasing pressure from Linux and other Unix variants, the delay in releasing these solutions will be a blow to Sun in convincing enterprise users that Solaris can provide a one-stop-shop in the data centre.

Solaris is expected to become fully open source by this summer.