From scary to useful

Much as I was taken aback by the native cifs client that is now in OpenSolaris, there is a serious side to this.

Integration with the Microsoft world is a huge deal. You just can't ignore it. (OK, Sun did try that approach for a while.)

As the "backup guy" I was just given a simple task. Copy some old files off to tape, archiving them so they can be deleted. Simple. Only they're on a Windows server.

But now it's real easy. Just mount the share, and tar to tape.

Normally I install each SXCE build onto an old Ultra 60 that's dedicated to testing. But for this task I could justify using something just a little more modern (and something that has a faster network interface so I don't have to wait forever). OK, so a Sun Blade 1500 isn't going to set the world on fire, but it's more than capable of doing the job. And it really was just a case of mounting the share and issuing a tar command.

Job done.