Top 10 Articles of 2012 Include Oracle Solaris, Linux, Virtualization

That's a 72 Norton Commando fashioned into a cafe racer. Heavy.com named a newer version the #1 bike in the 2012 New York International Motorcycle Show. (I didn't like Heavy.com's picture, so I found a better one from the blog listed as source, above.)

OTN also has an annual top 10. In that post by Bob Rhubart, from OTN's Architect community, six of the top ten technical articles were about technologies of interest to system admins and developers.

Boo-yah!

#2 - How Dell Migrated from SUSE Linux to Oracle Linux

by Jon Senger, Aik Zu Shyong, and Suzanne Zorn

In June of 2010, Dell made the decision to migrate 1,700 systems from SUSE Linux to Oracle Linux, while leaving the hardware and application layers unchanged. The people who worked on the migration describe how Dell planned and implemented the migration, including key conversion issues and an overview of their transition process.

#4 - Getting Started with Oracle Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 2

by Lenz Grimmer

How to update your Oracle Linux systems to the latest version of the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel. Switching is easy—applications and the operating system remain unchanged. There is no need to perform a full re-install; only the relevant RPM packages are replaced.

#6 - How to Use Oracle VM VirtualBox Templates

by Yuli Vasiliev

This article explains how to use Oracle VM VirtualBox Templates in Oracle VM VirtualBox. It is similar to the article that explains how to prepare an Oracle VM environment to use Oracle VM Templates, but it describes how to download, install, and configure the templates within Oracle VM VirtualBox, instead of on bare metal.

#7 - How to Update Oracle Solaris 11 Systems From Oracle Support Repositories

by Glynn Foster

You may already know that you don't have to worry about manually tracking and validating patch dependencies when you update a version of Oracle Solaris 11. This makes updates much easier. Glynn Foster demonstrates how easy it is to update the OS from a support repository, and how to make sure everything went well.

#8 - Tips for Hardening an Oracle Linux Server

by Lenz Grimmer and James Morris

General strategies for hardening an Oracle Linux server. Oracle Linux comes "secure by default," but the actions you take when deploying the server can increase or decrease its security. How to minimize active services, lock down network services, and many other tips.