1.3 Overview of the UNIX Operating System
1.3.3 Benefits of UNIX
UNIX is an open standard, and although it varies somewhat from one manufacturer to another, it is basically still UNIX. Most major computer manufacturers support some form of UNIX, a tribute to its importance as an operating system. It is one of the most powerful, flexible and scalable operating systems in the world.

UNIX in general continues to advance its position as the bulletproof operating system of choice for mission critical applications. Mission critical applications are those that are crucial to the operation of a business or other organization. UNIX is also tightly integrated with Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol or TCP/IP. TCP/IP basically grew out of UNIX due to the need for LAN and WAN communications. TCP/IP is the acknowledged standard protocol of the Internet and many private networks. All computers (workstations and servers) running the TCP/IP protocols are referred to as hosts and are given an IP address and a host name. The IP address is what allows the host to be uniquely identified on the Internet. If a name server is available, the computer can be referred to by its name, which will then be translated to its IP address. The TCP/IP protocols, IP addresses and name servers will be covered more in Chapter 16 on Networking Basics.

Sun Microsystems' Solaris Operating Environment, with its core operating system, SunOS, is a high performance, versatile 64-bit implementation of UNIX. Solaris runs on a wide variety of computers from Intel-based personal computers to powerful mainframes and supercomputers. Solaris is currently the most widely used version of UNIX in the world for large networks and Internet web sites. Sun is also the developer of the Write Once, Run Anywhere™ Java™ technology.