MONDAY SPOTLIGHT: Announcing Oracle Linux 6 Update 7 for SPARC

The Oracle Linux operating system is engineered for open cloud infrastructure. It delivers leading performance, scalability and reliability for enterprise SaaS and PaaS workloads as well as traditional enterprise applications. 

Oracle Linux 6 Update 7 (SPARC) is the first public release of Oracle Linux on the SPARC platform. It was built from the same source packages as the corresponding Oracle Linux distribution for the x86 architecture, plus any required patches and modifications to support the SPARC platform. 

Support 

Oracle makes Oracle Linux 6 Update 7 (SPARC) available as a developer release for the benefit of developers and partners. Oracle does not offer support for Oracle Linux 6 Update 7 (SPARC) except where it has been installed on Oracle Exadata Database Machine SL6 hardware and is using the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 2 (UEK R2). 

Oracle Linux 6 Update 7 (SPARC) is a pure 64-bit operating system and can only work on a 64-bit SPARC CPU. The software has only been built and tested on the following platforms: 

• SPARC T5 server (Minimum firmware version: Sun System Firmware 9.6.6.a 2016/09/09) 
• SPARC T7 series server (Minimum firmware version: Sun System Firmware 9.7.4 2016/12/08) 

Always update to the latest firmware for your hardware, if possible, before installing Oracle Linux 6 Update 7 (SPARC). The latest firmware for these systems can be downloaded from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/systems/patches/firmware/release-history-jsp-138416.html. 

Availability and Installation

Oracle Linux 6 Update 7 for SPARC is available as ISO installation media from the Oracle Technology Network (https://www.oracle.com/linux/products.html) and as individual RPM packages from the Unbreakable Linux Network (http://linux.oracle.com) and the Oracle Yum Server (http://yum.oracle.com).

The distribution can be installed either as an Oracle VM Server for SPARC guest domain (also known as a logical domain ), or on a bare metal server. If you have questions regarding configuring or using yum to install updates, refer to the Oracle Linux Administrator's Solutions Guide at http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37670_01/index.html.

The kernel's source code is available from a public git source code repository at http://oss.oracle.com/git/.
Notable Changes and Differences from Oracle Linux 6 on x86_64

Oracle Linux 6 for SPARC is built from the same source files as the Oracle Linux 6 Update 7 release for the x86 platform. A number of packages were amended to compile on the SPARC platform. These portability changes were applied on top of the existing source archives. In many cases, the changes only related to the RPM specification files that define how to compile the source code and package the resulting binaries. In some cases, changes to the actual source code were necessary. All of these patches are available in the source RPM packages or have been contributed back to the upstream project. 

Due to the fundamental differences between the SPARC and Intel architectures, some additional changes were necessary, such as the removal of some packages. Some packages that better facilitated Oracle Linux on the SPARC platform or specifically required by Oracle Exadata were added to the distribution. The complete list of package additions and modifications is available at: https://linux.oracle.com/OL6u7_SPARC_pkgs.html. 

Oracle Software in Silicon


The microprocessors for the SPARC T7 series servers offer new co-engineered hardware and software capabilities that enable applications to run with the highest levels of security, reliability and speed. This functionality is called Oracle Software in Silicon.

Software in Silicon features are offered as a technology preview in the UEK R2. They include: 

Silicon Secured Memory 

This feature enhances application data integrity (ADI) by enabling the detection of memory corruption issues. When the feature is enabled, software can mark buffers with special version information that is checked by the hardware. If there is a version mismatch on a load or store, an exception is raised and the application is not allowed to access that region of memory. Silicon Secured Memory helps prevent buffer overflow or other external attacks. An application that uses its own custom memory allocator can take advantage of this feature. 

Data Analytics Accelerator (DAX) 

Co-processors in the SPARC chip perform query-related operations directly in the hardware and significantly improve Oracle Database performance. The DAX can also be leveraged by Oracle Database 12c In-Memory operations. The DAX is supported in Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 and later. 

The APIs to these features are subject to change.

For more information about Oracle Software in Silicon functionality, refer to: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/softwareinsilicon/index.html.