Archives for October 2008

SourceForge Unveils Hosted Apps

October 13, 2008 by Robin Wauters 3 Comments

SourceForge has announced the launch of Hosted Apps, a new service for developers that provides instant, virtualized access to popular open source applications. SourceForge will centrally manage the infrastructure and security of Hosted Apps, allowing developers to innovate freely without being distracted by the maintenance of their project’s infrastructure.

ReadWriteWeb has a good article on the launch.

The inaugural application lineup contains three of the most widely used applications within the SourceForge community: phpBB (forum software), MediaWiki (the wiki platform that powers Wikipedia), and LimeSurvey (an online survey tool). Because the Hosted Apps platform allows SourceForge.net to easily add support for a wide variety of third-party open source applications, more applications are scheduled for deployment over the coming months.

These hosted applications can be enabled for any new or existing SourceForge.net project through the Hosted Apps page in the project administration section.

SourceForge

Sun and Fujitsu Introduce SPARC Enterprise T5440 Server, Aims to Redefine Midrange Enterprise Computing

October 13, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu Limited today announced the SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, the first server to deliver the scalability and reliability of traditional midrange systems with the breakthrough performance and radical energy efficiency of the UltraSPARC T2 Plus architecture.

According to the press release, the SPARC Enterprise T5440 server with the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) delivers world record performance and enables customers to consolidate and virtualize midrange applications, including large scale OLTP databases, CRM and ERP. In a compact 4U package, the SPARC Enterprise T5440 server increases server utilization while reducing energy consumption and lowering operating costs. Additionally, the SPARC Enterprise T5440 server is the first chip multi-threaded (CMT) server to scale up to four processors.

The SPARC Enterprise T5440 server, with up to 32 cores (256 threads) and 512 GB of memory, is one of the first systems to incorporate unique power management features including the ability to park idle threads. The server also features Intelligent Fan Control (IFC) which adjusts rotational fan speed according to changes in temperature thereby reducing power consumption. Running fans at lower speeds saves significant amounts of energy, and also reduces noise and vibration which helps extend component life. An additional design element that maximizes power savings is dividing the chassis and fans into cooling zones which allow a response only from those fans needed to compensate for changes in temperature. The SPARC Enterprise T5440 server also features a redesigned power distribution subsystem with highly efficient digital regulators which reduce wasted energy over previous analog designs.

With built-in, open source, no-cost virtualization via Solaris Containers and Logical Domains (LDoms), the SPARC Enterprise T5440 server is an ideal platform for consolidating hundreds of existing enterprise class workloads onto a single system. Additionally, for existing Solaris customers, the Solaris 8 and 9 Containers capability enables customers to run multiple Solaris 8 or 9 environments on a single SPARC-based system. As a result, customers can quickly and easily move existing physical environments to virtual containers on Solaris 10 and take advantage of the performance, scale and cost savings of new SPARC Enterprise CMT-based servers today. Solaris 10 10/08, to be released later in October, also enables improved virtualization performance and includes an enhanced Solaris ZFS file system which offers increased data integrity and a fully integrated disaster recovery capability to help ensure business continuity.

The SPARC Enterprise T5440 proves its mettle with world record performance on seven benchmarks including the best four processor result on two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark, Oracle’s Siebel CRM Release 8.0 Platform Sizing and Performance Program (PSPP), and single node SPECjAppServer2004.

The SPARC Enterprise T5440 server is available today directly from Sun and Fujitsu and their authorized resellers starting at $44,995 (U.S. List). Sun and Fujitsu are also offering a number of promotions on the new SPARC Enterprise T5440 server.

Sun and Fujitsu also provide a full suite of services to help customers maximize their infrastructure investments. Services from both companies include consolidation, virtualization, maximizing data center efficiency and migration to Solaris 10.

Sun Microsystems

NComputing Wins Massive Contract in India

October 13, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

NComputing, provider of low-cost computing solutions, today announced that it was chosen to supply a massive 5,000-school educational computing initiative in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, per VentureBeat. The initiative will provide computing access to 1.8 million children throughout the state. The win marks the largest single deployment of NComputing’s solution in India.

By leveraging NComputing, the government expects to save $20 million in up-front and ongoing costs. The government will also use 90% less electricity compared to a traditional all-PC solution.

The NComputing solution is based on a simple fact: today’s PCs are so powerful that the vast majority of applications only use a small fraction of the computer’s capacity. NComputing technology creates multiple virtual desktops on a single PC so that many users can tap the unused capacity and share it as if each person had their own computer. Andhra Pradesh chose the NComputing X300 solution, which enables up to seven users to simultaneously share one PC.

The computing labs will be used to teach computer skills and office productivity (spreadsheets, word processing) as well as subjects like reading and math. The entire system will run on the Microsoft Windows Server operating system and use Microsoft Office Suite.

The project is based on an innovative outsourcing model. The Andhra Pradesh government will outsource the entire project for five years to leading educational IT companies, including Educomp, Everonn, NIIT, and Social Computers. The model is referred to as Build, Operate, and Transfer (BOT) and requires the companies to install, staff, and manage the labs. This arrangement helps ensure that the labs are installed quickly and performance benchmarks are met. The five-year period also enables school staff to develop their own competencies in managing the labs and computer-aided teaching.

NComputing’s technology is used by 20,000 organizations in more than 90 countries. In the United States, NComputing has been deployed by over 4,000 school districts in classrooms, computer labs, and libraries. Although smaller in scale than Andhra Pradesh, school districts in North America face many of the same challenges including tight budgets, demand for wider computing access, limited IT support staff, and a desire to use “green” technology.

NComputing

Clavister Releases Secure OS CorePlus 9.10, Adds Virtualization Support

October 13, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

IP-based security and unified threat management (UTM) specialist Clavister has recently launched the latest version of its network security operating system. Clavister CorePlus 9.10 delivers support for virtualization and improved traffic optimization to its UTM security portfolio.

Companies now have the option to buy Clavister Security Gateways supporting virtualization using VMware ESXi 3 as a virtual appliance or as conventional hardware or software appliances to suit their networks requirements.

The continued growth of enterprise applications such as VoIP, and the addition of them to the network, means that companies are experiencing increased levels of traffic on the network. This introduces new security challenges and can lead to uncontrolled bandwidth consumption. Clavister’s new operating system brings with it a number of features for traffic optimization including gigabit traffic shaping, IDP traffic shaping, route load balancing and SLB server monitoring.

In addition to traffic management and optimization and support for virtualization CorePlus 9.10 also features:

VoIP/SIP enhancements – A number of new features gives much more flexibility in terms of network setups, such as SIP proxy placement, SIP extensions and security enhancements.
SSL/TLS termination – Supports TLS/SSL termination and the transformation of HTTPS traffic to HTTP traffic, providing the possibility to perform deep content inspection of the traffic. It also offers a single source for managing all certificates for all servers.
LDAP authentication – Provides support for direct connectivity between Clavister Security Gateways and LDAP directory services such as Microsoft Active Directory.

CorePlus 9.10 is available through the Clavister Partner Network and via their website. Existing customers with an active Clavister Software Maintenance Agreement will be able to upgrade for free.

CorePlus 9.10 is an important upgrade to the core operating system that lies at the heart of Clavister’s product portfolio that can be configured and fine tuned to produce exactly the right level of protection.

Cisco Teams Up With QLogic to Offer End-to-End Virtualization Technology

October 13, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

QLogic today announced it has set up a partnership with Cisco to offer end-to-end virtualization technology, using Qlogic adapters that allow end-users to realize the benefits of quality of service capabilities in standards-based virtual fabric environments. Virtual fabrics provide storage administrators with an industry-standard method for improving storage area network or SAN security, scalability and performance by segmenting physical SANs into multiple virtual SANs.

Qlogic said its quality of service capability enables IT administrators to tie virtual machines to virtualized fabric environments such as Cisco VSANs using NPIV technology, which has been enabled in QLogic adapters since 2006.

Cisco Systems

VMware Creates GoVirtual.org, Community Site for Virtualization Academics and Researchers

October 13, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

VMware has created a new community site specifically for virtualization researchers and academics, dubbed GoVirtual.org. The website contains technical papers, courseware, software, and other tools needed to facilitate global knowledge-sharing around the topic of virtualization.

According to VMware, the new community site is intended to provide research and instruction on virtualization-related topics by enabling the sharing of ideas, results, materials, and tools among its members. The site is described as a comprehensive resource and knowledge base where members of academia can go to find the latest research and interact with leading researchers.

The community supports blogs and discussion forums for members to communicate with each other. It also provides a list of academic- and research-oriented virtualization conferences. To help educators and students with their virtualization research projects, the site includes a download section with source code and software tools. And it also includes a collection of several technical papers as well as freely available courseware. The 25 free courses currently being made available include concepts such as the basics of virtualization, interpretation and binary translation, I/O architectures of virtualization, and binary optimization.

Universities such as Carnegie Mellon University, Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne (EPFL), Georgia Tech, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and University of California at Berkeley are said to be already benefiting from the VMware Academic Program.

VMware