Solaris 11.4 SRU45 (May 2022) - zstd compression utility

Solaris 11.4.45 includes now the zstd compression utility.

-bash-5.1$ zstd -V
*** zstd command line interface 64-bits v1.5.0, by Yann Collet ***

To compare I have a Oracle DB19c home as a tar file.
I executed this tests on a SPARC S7 LDom with 1 core

# ls -lh 19c.tar
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root       6.66G May 23 17:36 19c.tar

zstd does a higher compression compared to lz4, but takes
more time.

# time zstd 19c.tar -o 19c.tar.zstd
19c.tar              : 39.24%   (7153274368 => 2806612298 bytes, 19c.tar.zstd)

real    3m26.408s
user    3m29.804s
sys     0m6.698s


# time lz4 19c.tar
Compressed filename will be : 19c.tar.lz4
Compressed 7153274368 bytes into 3629706666 bytes ==> 50.74%

real    2m35.092s
user    2m25.227s
sys     0m6.852s

# ls -lh 19c.tar.lz4 19c.tar.zstd
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root       3.38G May 23 17:36 19c.tar.lz4
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root       2.61G May 23 18:14 19c.tar.zstd

With decompression zstd is a bit faster than lz4.

# time unlz4 19c.tar.lz4
Decoding file 19c.tar
19c.tar.lz4          : decoded 7153274368 bytes

real    2m9.913s
user    1m23.008s
sys     0m8.339s


# time unzstd 19c.tar.zstd
19c.tar.zstd        : 7153274368 bytes

real    1m52.263s
user    1m1.836s
sys     0m9.236s

New Features in Solaris 11.4 SRU45 (May 2022)

Every month after the CPU (Critical Patch Update) Oracle releases
a new feature Release for Oracle Solaris.

In May 2022 it is again a BIG one

Kernel Zone Memory Live Reconfiguration (MLR) on SPARC
ZFS File Retention
vmstat uses sstore for history
packet filter (PF) filewall for Solaris 10 Branded Zones
Zstandard (zstd) fast compression utility
NTP Monitor only mode (new SMF ntp:monitor)
PHP: version 8.1 added and version 7.3 removed
Puppet: version 6.26 added / version 5 and Puppet Master removed

and many, many more FOSS updates

Stay tuned for more blogs about this new features

How to Migrate from Solaris 10 to Solaris 11

Solaris 10 was released in 2005. Currently Solaris 10 is in extended Support
and Oracle is planing to provide patches till 01/2024.

Great News About Extended Support for Oracle Solaris 10 OS

There is no easy upgrade from Solaris 10 to 11 because Solaris 11
includes many new features not available in Solaris 10.

best option
At our customers we install new Solaris 11 systems or LDoms and install
the application, do the configuration and move the data from Solaris 10.

compromise option
If your application is not supported on Solaris 11 or you want to migrate
away from older hardware in short time. Then your option is Solaris 10 Branded
Zones. You can install Solaris 10 Branded Zones on a Solaris 11 server
based on a 1:1 archive from your Solaris 10 System.

Lift and Shift Guide - Migrating Workloads from Oracle Solaris 10 SPARC Systems to Oracle Solaris 10 Branded Zones


next step: sysdiff
If you already have a Solaris 10 Branded Zone, you can use the new sysdiff tool
to identify application binaries and files and convert this into a Solaris 11 ips package.
This ips package can then be deployed on a Solaris 11 Server.

sysdiff: moving Oracle Solaris 10 legacy 3rd party apps to 11.4

If you need support for such migrations just contact our experienced consultants at JomaSoft
https://www.jomasoft.ch/about/#team