How do I get from Branded Zones to "real" Solaris 10 Zones?

Question

My head is beginning to spin! I am beginning to think I have been led down a blind alley.
We have vast numbers of old Solaris 8 systems that we want to consolidate on new hardware in Solaris 10 Zones. We have been bombarded with advice that the way to go is to move it first to Branded Zones, as a stepping stone, and then migrate/upgrade it from there to Solaris 10. So we have started on our journey.
We now have our first bunch of Solaris 8 containers happily installed and running. And yes, it was relatively easy and painless, and the tool support was good. But now what? What are the steps and tools that will make the second step, from Solaris 8 to Solaris 10?
Everything out there hints that it is supposed to be easy. But every time I try and spec out the steps for our teams to follow I come unstuck. Does Live Upgrade feature in this anywhere? (And if so, at what point does my zone lose its Brand identity?) Is there some way to use archives? (And if so, how do I only include the bits I need to move?) Is there something magic under the covers of the Zone administration commands? (And if so, what pulls in my Solaris 8 stuff?) Is there at least some tool somewhere that will capture the configuration I need and build me a new one?
If the answer is that I just define the new Zone by hand and re-install all my applications from scratch, then can somebody explain just what I have achieved so far, and in what way it can be construed as a "stepping stone"?

Answer 1

Correct. But we have now invested in the time taken to learn about Branded Zones, do the migrations, teach the support teams how to manage them... Plus we are paying the subscription for the Branded Zone software. And we still have pure Solaris 8 applications staring end-of-support in the face. We could have made the same investment to re-install the applications in a real Solaris 10 Zone and make them work "properly". All the publicity tells me I've made my migration to Solaris 10 much easier, but I still can't see how I'm any nearer my end point.Here's where your losing it. There is no real distinction between what you call a normal Solaris 10 zone and a Solaris Branded 8 zone. They could have called it something else and you would still insist that somehow one is normal and one is not. There are a variety of Branded Zones. There's a Solaris 8, Solaris 9, and Linux Branded Zones. They differ from what you call "normal" zones in that you basically are adding an OS to the Base OS and are not just copying files from the Base OS. That's the only difference. In all other respects they are the same. The only differentiators is for a Branded Zone you are adding the files from some other OS, even if it's just an earlier version of Solaris.
How do you migrate from a Solaris 8 zone to a Solaris 10 zone. The same way that you moved from the Solaris 8 physical box to the Solaris 8 branded zone. The steps should be the same. Implicite_Order pretty much said the same thing.
You seem to have a hang up on the words "normal zone." Yea I know, you've spent time and money and educated everyone and now your looking for the payoff. As I already stated and has been echoed by I_O, contact the vendor to see if they have Solaris 10 support, if they do, create a zone on a dev box, do some testing, and then create the zone on the real box, do the install, migrate the data. Just as you already did from the Solaris 8 box. If they don't have a Solaris 10 specific version you can still setup a test box, create a "normal" zone, install the app and some test data, make sure it works, and then create the "normal" zone, install the app, migrate the data, and relax.
alan