- Provisioning in Replicated, Mission-Critical Environments
- Solaris™ Flash and Solaris™ Live Upgrade Technology
- Solaris Flash Software Overview
- Solaris Live Upgrade Software Overview
- About the Authors
- Related Resources
- Related Resources
- Ordering Sun Documents
- Accessing Sun Documentation Online
Solaris Flash and Solaris Live Upgrade Technology
Solaris Flash software provides a mechanism to create a Flash archive, which is a complete system snapshot of the Solaris OE and all other installed software from a reference system. This archive can then be replicated on multiple machines (clones). Flash archives can be deployed by a network server or local media with custom Solaris JumpStart software or the Solaris Web Start software. John S. Howard (Howard and Noordergraaf, 2001) explains
Flash is a powerful tool for deploying complex server configurations. Complex system architecture only needs to be implemented and configured once and then a Flash archive created; all subsequent system installations from that Flash archive will be identical. For systems such as database servers, the Flash archive should be created before the system goes into production.
Solaris Live Upgrade software enables Solaris systems to perform uninterrupted while the system administrator installs a Flash archive or upgrades to a new Solaris 8 or 9 OE. Solaris Live Upgrade software allows creating, managing, upgrading, comparing, and activating multiple boot environments. Solaris Live Upgrade also supports fallback if an upgrade failure occurs. Solaris Live Upgrade software reduces system downtime and risk associated with an operating system upgrade or patch maintenance.