Solaris SPARC to Solaris x86 Porting Guide

Endianness might occur when you try to manipulate multi-byte data (for example, raw files which, are

used by applications or individual data types using pointers). To resolve this issue, perform byte

swapping.

Performance benchmarking

Sun has not published any major benchmarks on SPARC during 2009. However, Sun has published a

number of single system benchmark results in 2009, on the x86 platform. These systems have Intel®

Xeon® X5570 processors and Solaris 10 or OpenSolaris OS. Following benchmarks have been

published:

• TPC-H benchmark at 1000 GB scale factor for all non-clustered systems

• Unicode result on the two-tier SAP SD Standard Application Benchmark

• SPECweb2005 benchmark

• SPEC CPU2006

• Thomson Reuters Market Data System benchmark

• SPECjbb2005

• SPEC OMP benchmark

• SPECjvm2008

Programming to specific hardware and configurations

Known Solaris compatible hardware

The Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) identifies hardware that is compatible with the Solaris OS.

Separate lists identify systems and components that are compatible with the latest commercial versions

of the Solaris OS and with the latest development versions. The HCL is available in a comma-

separated value (CSV) format, for searching and sorting the list in a spreadsheet or database.

Testing x86 hardware for Solaris compatibility

The Hardware Certification Test Suite (HCTS) includes system certification tests, controller certification

tests, a command-line interface, and a browser-based user interface. HCTS tests certify systems,

motherboards, and various network, storage, and serial I/O controllers to work with the Solaris OS.

HCTS collects log files, determines test pass or fail results, and generates a final test report. Hardware

that passes HCTS certification testing is eligible to be included in the Hardware Compatibility List as

Certified.

Developing in the x86 assembly language

The Solaris OS provides an assembly language for the x86 platforms. The assembler generates the

code for the 32-bit x86 processor architecture and translates source files that are in assembly

language format into object files in linking format.

For more information, see Assembly Language Reference Manual.

Developing 64–bit applications for the Solaris OS

The Solaris OS provides a 64–bit computing environment along with backward compatibility for 32–

bit applications.

For more information, see Solaris 64-bit Developer’s Guide.

The Solaris 64-bit Developer’s Guide is written primarily for the application developer. The book

provides guidance for choosing whether to use the 32–bit Solaris application development

environment or the 64–bit environment. The manual explains the similarities and differences between

the two environments, and explains how to write code that is portable between the two environments.