One of the macro industry trends that relates to cloud is the move towards Software-Defined 
Networking (SDN) for cloud infrastructure. In SDN, networks are programmable, enabling more flexible deployments of both networking hardware and applications. Solaris 11.1 includes support for SDN as well as the IEEE 801.Qbg Edge Virtual Bridging (EVB) standard. With EVB, Virtual Machine traffic is sent to a network access switch, and for traffic that is headed to another virtual machine connected to the same switch it can be returned via the same port.
Additionally Solaris 11.1 now supports Data Center Bridging (DCB). DCB provides a standardized way for both LAN and SAN traffic to be converged onto a single fabric. Oracle also sees the combination of EVB and DCB as being mechanisms to help maximize network resource utilization and manage bandwidth in cloud environments
As part of that cloud optimization effort, Solaris 11.1 includes the Federated File System (FedFS). FedFS is an open standard approach to building a cloud file system and was first proposed back in January of 2010 as IETF RFC 5716. According to Oracle, FedFS provides a unified namespace for cloud-scale data environments.
Read the full story at ServerWatch:
Oracle Solaris 11.1 Updates Unix for SDN and the Cloud
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.
