Oracle Corp. has just pushed out a new release of its Solaris enterprise Unix platform, adding several enhancements that include OpenStack integration and various security, performance and compliance boosters.

The most interesting addition to Oracle Solaris 11.2, which was launched in beta test in April, is OpenStack support. Solaris 11.2 runs the OpenStack Havana version of the cloud-spinning software. The new release also includes new support for software-defined networking (SDN), which is part of Oracle’s effort to transform its Exalogic Elastic Cloud into one-stop datacenters.

Although intended to be used as cloud-hosting systems, Exalogic boxes tend to be used more as massive servers or for transaction processing. But with the introduction of SDN capabilities, Oracle is hoping to change that. Now, telcos and other enterprises can run mission-critical clouds using Solaris, or they can use bits of OpenStack, which means they can do away with hardware from the likes of Cisco Systems, Inc., and Juniper Networks, Inc., according to Oracle.

In reality, though, very few people are actually using OpenStack. Most enterprises prefer established vendors like Amazon.com, Inc. or Microsoft Corp. to pure open source. The fact that Oracle has chosen a later and less mature build of OpenStack is also unlikely to contribute to rapid adoption.

Oracle has also announced “future support” for OpenDaylight SDN in Solaris 11.2. OpenDaylight is an open-source framework for SDN that’s led by the Linux Foundation. It came into life last April, and has the backing of Cisco, Citrix Systems, Inc., HP, IBM, Microsoft and Red Hat, Inc., among others.

Now it seems that Oracle is trying to use OpenDaylight against those who built it, as support for the framework will go some way towards transforming its Exalogic servers into one-stop datacenters.