Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Zimbra Collaboration Server

Zimbra Collaboration Server is the most capable open source email and collaboration suite available today. Far outstripping what is possible with simple open source mail servers, Zimbra provides organizations major productivity boosts with global address lists, shared calendars and document management on the web or offline with Zimbra Desktop. Support for standard protocols enables use of virtually any desktop client or device for added end user flexibility.
Installation and administration is straightforward; all the interdependent components required by Zimbra are packaged within the server, eliminating any integration work by the administrator and management of the system is easily performed using the rich AJAX Admin Console. A vibrant community of IT experts, who are capable of handling most technical questions, supports Zimbra Collaboration Server Open Source Edition.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

OpenVBX

The open-source nature of OpenVBX can be a little confusing. Like WordPress, OpenVBX is a downloadable software package that you upload to your own server and are free to tweak as much as you’d like. However, unlike WordPress, which offers a hosted solution at WordPress.com, Twilio isn’t offering a hosted service yet (though it’s quite obvious that they’re working on launching one in the future). For the time being you’ll have to host it yourself, though Lawson notes that Dreamhost currently has a 1-click install setup, which should make things pretty simple.
Of course, OpenVBX relies heavily on Twilio’s service, tapping into Twilio SMS and telephony APIs. When you use OpenVBX you’re charged Twilio’s normal rates, which run $1 per phone line per month ($2 for a toll-free number) with usage charges of 3 cents per minute (or SMS). Lawson says that it is technically feasible for someone to use OpenVBX with a backend other than Twilio, but that it would take quite a bit of configuration.
Twilio has always been focused on catering to developers, and OpenVBX isn’t any different. While the product will obviously appeal to businesses, Twilio is encouraging developers to take the technology and make it their own by integrating tweaks and plugins. For example, an enterprising developer could tweak OpenVBX so that it’s perfect for restaurants, and then resell it as their own service. Twilio still gets paid through their per-minute and phone line charges, and the developer can charge a hefty premium on top of it.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Free BSD Unix

Free BSD Unix is an advanced operating system for x86 compatible (including Pentium and Athlon), amd64 compatible (including Opteron, Athlon64, and EM64T), UltraSPARC, IA-64, PC-98 and ARM architectures. It is derived from BSD, the version of UNIX developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It is developed and maintained by a large team of individuals. FreeBSD offers advanced networking, performance, security and compatibility features today which are still missing in other operating systems, even some of the best commercial ones.

Dynebolic Linux

Dynebolic Linux is shaped on the needs of media activists, artists and creatives as a practical tool for multimedia production: you can manipulate and broadcast both sound and video with tools to record, edit, encode and stream, having automatically recognized most device and peripherals: audio, video, TV, network cards, firewire, usb and more. You can employ this operating system without the need to install anything, and if you want to run it from harddisk you just need to copy a directory. It is optimized to run on slower computers, turning them into full media stations: the minimum you need is a pentium1 or k5 PC 64Mb RAM and IDE CD-ROM, or a modded XBOX game console - and if you have more than one, you can easily do clusters.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Elive Linux Operating System

Elive Linux is a complete operating system for your computer. It's the perfect choice for replacing your proprietary, high-cost system. It is built on top of Debian GNU/Linux and customized to meet your needs for a complete operating system while still offering the user eye-candy, with minimal hardware requirements. It will help to turn your old computer into a high-powered work-station again, with an Interface that dazzles everybody that sees it. Elive comes with a full suite of applications for your work and leisure time needs. It offers everything from a full Office suite to games and Multimedia. You can enjoy watching movies or listening to music. You can even make your own DVD movies with menus, music and it works. Elive gives you the ability to make 3D animations, or compose your own movies in a real-time non-linear video editor from simple videos taken with your video camera. You can edit and manipulate audio and image files for better quality, effects, or design. Elive is a very stable system that will continue to run day after day without problems. The Enlightenment desktop is ultra-fast and perfectly stable with no random errors or surprises. There are no viruses, trojans, spyware, adware, or any similar things. Elive is a secure and serious system.

Debian Linux

Debian Linux is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an operating system), but most of the basic OS tools come from the GNU project; hence the name GNU/Linux. Debian will run on almost all personal computers, including most older models. Each new release of Debian generally supports a larger number of computer architectures. Almost all common hardware is supported.

Open Source Operating Systems

Suse Linux is a worldwide community program sponsored by Novell that promotes the use of Linux everywhere. The program provides free and easy access to openSUSE. Here you can find and join a community of users and developers, who all have the same goal in mind — to create and distribute the world's most usable Linux. openSUSE also provides the base for Novell's award-winning SUSE Linux Enterprise products. The goals of openSUSE project are to make openSUSE the easiest Linux distribution for anyone to obtain and the most widely used open source platform. Provide an environment for open source collaboration that makes openSUSE the world's best Linux distribution for new and experienced Linux users.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Windchill OpSim

Windchill OpSim (formerly Relex OpSim) provides reliability block diagram and phase diagram tools, together with powerful optimization and simulation techniques, that are necessary for advanced system modeling and analysis. Intuitive graphical tools and a wide selection of maintenance-related calculations let you model complex system configurations, determine optimal values for spares, and calculate preventive maintenance and inspection intervals while accounting for multiple facets of component maintenance.

Features & Benefits

Calculate system metrics, including Failure Rate, MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures), MTTF (Mean Time to Failure), Reliability, and Availability
Model your complete operational profile using phase modeling
Specify a calculation goal, such as minimize costs, maximize reliability, or maximize capacity
Supported configuration types include series, parallel, redundant, load-sharing, standby, and k-out-of-n
Simulation log visually represents failures over time as each simulation is performed
Analyze your diagram to determine the best approach: analytical solutions, simulations, or both

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

OpenERP

Key Features of OpenERP:

Open Source : OpenERP is committed to Open Source Business Model. The software is published under the AGPL licence.
Complete : OpenERP is a comprehensive suite of business applications including Sales, CRM, Project management, Warehouse management, Manufacturing, Financial management, Human Resources just to name a few. More than 700 openERP modules are available on Launchpad.
Modular : OpenERP unique modular approach allows customers to start with one application and to add other modules later on. Customers keep the benefits of an integrated software but avoid a “big bang” project.
Flexible : OpenERP allows you to customize the user interface and manage your business processes in only a few clicks

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

AdaptCMS 2.0 Released

Insane Visions has announced the major release of AdaptCMS 2.0, available now for download!

Although, unfortunately, many delays the biggest version since the very first version of AdaptCMS features a whole new look, completely re-written and brand new features. The template system was one of the major changes, introducing smarty to power the system instead of the in-house setup. This enables template caching, more tagging and an overall better experience.

Another major overhaul over 1.5 was the media, formerly known as "Gallery", feature. The admin side of things it looks completely different but is organized in a much user friendly way, but has even more functionality than before. In the frontend media features like videos is possible as well as on the fly slideshows.

There's really too much new and improved things to mention here, but among a few of the big ones is a very nifty File Release system, letting you download the latest AdaptCMS files right from your administrative panel. Not only that, but you can select from multiple releases and see notes on a file being updated - important for security or bugs. Social is also a major new feature in AdaptCMS featuring things like messages, a friends list, a personal blog, twitter-like status and more.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, but in traditional AdaptCMS fashion 2.0.0 continues and achieves it better as a CMS that can be used for any website with customization in every aspect so you can create the website you want.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Open Source Ecology Network

Open Source Ecology is a network of farmers, engineers, and supporters that has been imagining and creating the Global Village Construction Set, an open source, low-cost, high performance technological platform. These DIY-fabricated industrial machines can be used to build a sustainable civilization with modern comforts. The GVCS lowers the barriers to entry into farming, building, and manufacturing. It is a life-size lego-like set of modular tools that can create entire economies

Sunday, August 7, 2011

New In iTunes

iTunes in the Cloud beta gives you new ways to get your music, TV shows, apps, and books from one device to another — wirelessly and without syncing. And the iBookstore comes to iTunes on your Mac or PC for an unabridged browsing and shopping experience. With iTunes, even getting your entertainment is entertaining.

Say your coworker just recommended a new song. You download it on your computer at work, but on the ride home, you’re wishing you had that song on your iPod touch, too. Regardless of where you click or tap Buy, iTunes can automatically download your new songs, apps, and books to all your other devices over Wi-Fi or 3G. It even works with the new iBookstore on your Mac or PC. So you can browse and purchase books on the big screen and start reading them right away on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

When you buy a song, TV show, app, or book, iTunes lets you access your purchase history so you can download what you want, from any device you want. That way, if you don’t want your iPad to automatically download everything you buy on your iPhone, just choose the things you do want to download — song by song, episode by episode, app by app, or book by book.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Open Source FlexMonkey Testing Tool

The open source FlexMonkey is the most widely used tool for testing Adobe Air and Flex applications. It has become the de facto standard in the market. It is good to see an open source tool stake claim to this standard.

FlexMonkey is just one of the tools in the testing suite which Gorilla Logic brings to market as open source. Along with FlexMonkey they have recently released version 5 of FoneMonkey which provides similar testing tools for iPhone and iPad development.

FlexMonkey 5 has a long list of major improvements over previous versions. Among them are:

A new console interface
A new test execution model based on FlexUnit 4
New SetProperty, StoreValue, and CallFunction commands providing increased power and expressiveness without modifying Actionscript
A new test-code generation model, friendlier to customization of generated code
Plus hundreds of other changes driven by real-world feedback from the FlexMonkey community and Gorilla Logic’s customers

Libreoffice 3.4.2 Open Source Office Suite Released

The Document Foundation (TDF) has announced LibreOffice 3.4.2, the third version of its 3.4 family, targeting both private individuals and enterprises. LibreOffice 3.4.2 fixes the majority of the most-important bugs identified by users in the previous version, and TDF says it can be deployed for production needs by most enterprises.

LibreOffice is a comprehensive, professional-quality productivity suite that you can download and install for free. There is a large base of satisfied LibreOffice users worldwide, and it is available in more than 30 languages and for all major operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Suse, …). You can download, install and distribute LibreOffice freely, with no fear of copyright infringement.
LibreOffice is a feature-packed and mature desktop productivity package with some really great advantages:
• It’s free – no worry about license costs or annual fees.
• No language barriers – it’s available in a large number of languages, with more being added continually.
• LGPL public license – you can use it, customize it, hack it and copy it with free user support and developer support from our active worldwide community and our large and experienced developer team.
• LibreOffice is an Open Source community-driven project: development is open to new talent and new ideas, and our software is tested and used daily by a large and devoted user community; you, too, can get involved and influence its future development.
LibreOffice gives you high quality:
• The roots of LibreOffice go back 20 years. This long history means it’s a stable and functional product.
• Thousands of users worldwide regularly take part in beta testing of new LibreOffice versions.
• Because the development process is completely open, LibreOffice has been extensively tested by security experts, giving you security and peace of mind.
LibreOffice is user-friendly:
• You get a simple-to-use yet powerful interface that is easy to personalize – Microsoft Office users will find the switch easy and painless, with a familiar look and feel.
• Compatible with all major competitors’ file formats. You can easily import files from Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint and many other formats, and can easily save to Microsoft Office and other formats when needed.
• LibreOffice is supported by a big worldwide community: volunteers help newcomers, and advanced users and developers can collaborate with you to find solutions to complex issues.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Panasonic Partners With indoorDIRECT To Provide In-Store Television Solution To Quick-Service Restaurants

Panasonic Professional LCD displays Running indoorDIRECT's Restaurant Entertainment Network Provides QSRs with a reliable, quality television system

Panasonic Solutions Company, provider of collaboration, information-sharing and decision-support solutions for government and commercial enterprises, recently announced it has partnered with indoorDIRECT to create a reliable, quality in-store television system for quick-service restaurants (QSRs). The solution combines two Panasonic 42" LF20 professional LCD displays and one 32" LRU20 with indoorDIRECT's Restaurant Entertainment Network, which features a magazine-style show with short bites of sports, music, entertainment and lifestyle segments from more than 100 content providers including the NFL Network, VH1 and G4. The system is currently located in over one thousand quick –service restaurants nationwide including Taco Bell, Wendy's, Carl's Jr., Denny's, Hardee's, KFC, and Arby's with 13 million ad exposures per month, making it the largest quick-service restaurant television network in the United States.

All new and replacement installations will include Panasonic professional LCD displays, with two in the main dining area with audio capabilities as well as one screen adjacent to the point of sale area. indoorDIRECT chose to partner with Panasonic for its world class professional LCD displays, design and installation services and ongoing real-time monitoring and support. The comprehensive solution gives indoorDIRECT a single partner committed to quality products, total accountability and excellent service. The custom-designed indoorDIRECT solution for QSRs promises to drive incremental revenues—both in higher ticket sales within QSRs and increased advertising revenues.

"The combination of our reliable, high-quality professional LCD displays with this services package will set the in-store television standard for the QSR industry," said Rick Albert, VP Sales, Professional Display Solutions, Panasonic Solutions Company. "The potential for growth for in-store television is significant. However, this growth clearly rests on the reliability of the technology. A blank screen will not impress a customer nor does it drive advertising revenue. This Panasonic-led solution will deliver the highest availability and uptime to indoorDIRECT's thousands of quick-service restaurants."

Michael Winton, president and co-founder of indoorDIRECT, stated "working with Panasonic for both screens and installations provides us with a partner with vast installation experience and insures that we are able to install, maintain and service our rapidly expanding national Network."

Over the next twelve months, The Restaurant Entertainment Network, featuring Panasonic professional LCD displays, will be installed in an additional 1,500 quick-service restaurants, located in the top 20 DMAs. This will bring indoorDIRECT's number of locations to more than 2,500 nationwide and over 30 million monthly ad exposures.

About indoorDIRECT
indoorDIRECT is the owner of The Restaurant Entertainment Network, a powerful in-store television network that delivers Internet-based entertainment and advertising to more than one thousand major brand quick-service restaurants nationwide. The Restaurant Entertainment Network entertains more than 150 million consumers annually at Taco Bell, Wendy's, Denny's, Carl's Jr., Hardee's and Arby's in America's top DMAs. indoorDIRECT is privately held and based in Dallas, with additional offices in New York and Los Angeles. For more information, visit www.indoordirect.com.

About Panasonic Solutions Company
Panasonic Solutions Company empowers people whose jobs depend on reliable technology. The company delivers collaboration, information-sharing and decision-support solutions for customers in government, healthcare, education and a wide variety of commercial enterprises. Products and services within the company's portfolio include Panasonic Toughbook mobile computing solutions, projectors, professional displays (including both plasma and LCD), and HD and 3D video acquisition and production solutions. As a result of its commitment to R&D, manufacturing and quality control, Panasonic is known for the reliability and longevity of its products. Panasonic Solutions Company is a Division of Panasonic Corporation of North America, which is the principal North American subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation. For more information, visit www.panasonic.com/business-solutions.

SOURCE: Panasonic Solutions Company

Axis Introduces Flexible, Cost-Effective Analog To IP Migration Solution With Five New Video Encoders

Four to 16-channel AXIS M70 and P72 Series Video Encoders Offer up to 15 and 30 frames per second H.264 video in D1 resolution across all channels with options for audio and local storage

Axis Communications, the global leader in the network video market, today introduces AXIS M70 and AXIS P72 Video Encoder Series with the market's most comprehensive set of network video surveillance capabilities. These new products, which are being showcased at the NRF-LP tradeshow in Dallas, booth #1425, enable cost-effective migration from analog CCTV to a powerful IP-based video surveillance system.

The new Axis encoders offer one of the most cost-efficient solutions on the market, with $125 per channel for H.264 video encoding at 15 fps, and $155-$175 per channel for H.264 video and audio at full frame rate (30 fps), both in full D1 resolution (720x480). This makes AXIS M70 and AXIS P72 Series ideal for small and medium sized locations, such as retail outlets, gas stations, convenience stores and small offices.

The expansion of Axis' existing video encoder portfolio with five new products from the AXIS M70 and AXIS P72 Series provides a superior alternative to competitive offerings thanks to a combination of price, flexibility and extensive functionality. The encoders, which range from four- to 16-channel models, include: AXIS M7014 Video Encoder ($499) – four-channel video encoder;AXIS M7010 Video Encoder ($1,999) – 16-channel rack-mountable video encoder;AXIS P7214 Video Encoder ($699) – four-channel video encoder with audio;AXIS P7224 Video Encoder Blade ($699) – four-channel video encoder blade with audio;AXIS P7210 Video Encoder ($2,499) – 16-channel rack-mountable video encoder with audio.

All video encoders in AXIS M70 and AXIS P72 Series provide dual H.264 and Motion JPEG streams for flexibility, support for Power over Ethernet (IEEE 802.3af) that allows one network cable to deliver both power and video, and pan, tilt and zoom support to enable control of analog PTZ cameras. Furthermore, the encoders all have a microSDHC (high capacity) memory card slot for local storage, except for the blade-based AXIS P7224 model.

AXIS M70 Series provides dependable, efficient and affordable integration of existing analog installations in order to gain the benefits of network video technology at 15 fps. AXIS P72 Series offers versatile and advanced network capabilities with great video performance at full frame rate (30 fps) and excellent audio quality.

"There are still millions of analog CCTV cameras that, with the help of encoders, can benefit from all the advantages of IP technology, such as better scalability, higher data security and usage of common off-the-shelf computing and storage equipment," said Fredrik Nilsson, general manager, Axis Communications Inc. "With today's release of AXIS M70 and P72 Series, we now offer a range of 16 different video encoders to help guide surveillance end-users into the digital age while protecting their existing analog investment. Encoders offer a great migration strategy, especially in segments like retail where there is a longstanding history of using analog surveillance."

These products are supported by AXIS Camera Station video management software as well as the industry's largest base of application software through Axis' Application Development Partner program. They also support the ONVIF specification for interoperability of network video products and AXIS Video Hosting System (AVHS) with One-Click Camera Connection. The video encoders will be available in September 2011 through Axis' distribution channels at the following MSRPs: AXIS M7014 for $499; AXIS M7010 for $1,999; AXIS P7214 for $699; AXIS P7224 for $699; and AXIS P7210 for $2,499.

For more information about Axis at NRF-LP, please visit: http://www.axis.com/nrflp/.

About Axis Communications
Axis is an IT company offering network video solutions for professional installations. The company is the global market leader in network video, driving the ongoing shift from analog to digital video surveillance. Axis products and solutions focus on security surveillance and remote monitoring, and are based on innovative, open technology platforms. Axis is a Sweden-based company, operating worldwide with offices in more than 20 countries and cooperating with partners in more than 70 countries. Founded in 1984, Axis is listed on the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm, under the ticker AXIS. For more information about Axis, please visit our website at www.axis.com.

SOURCE: AXIS Communications

Frost & Sullivan Recognizes Cypress Communications For Offering An Advanced, Highly Differentiated Hosted Unified Communications Solution

Cypress' C4 IP service provides unique value to businesses looking for flexible, cost-effective solutions.

Based on its recent analysis of the hosted IP telephony and unified communications (UC) services market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Cypress Communications with the 2011 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Product Differentiation Excellence of the Year for its C4 IP service offering that delivers a comprehensive set of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and UC capabilities.

"Although hosted service providers have sought to deliver greater customer value through bundles of communications and collaboration applications, few have been able to differentiate through end-to-end UC service packages offering unique features and capabilities to end-users," said Frost & Sullivan Program Director Elka Popova. "With its highly differentiated hosted UC solution, providing the combined benefits of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model and advanced functionality such as VoIP, presence, mobility and collaboration capabilities, Cypress Communications delivers unique value to businesses looking to gain a competitive advantage."

Cypress' C4 IP solution is based on GENBAND's carrier-grade C20 and A2 platforms, offering a robust set of communications and collaboration capabilities that enable businesses to boost efficiency and productivity.

Microsoft Outlook integration and a robust desktop client, providing a single point of access to multiple communications applications with integrated telephony and online presence, help users save time and more efficiently manage their contacts and communications activities. By extending PBX, presence and messaging functionality to mobile devices, C4 IP enables mobile professionals to remain connected and productive on the go. Advanced contact center functionality including secure call recording, recordings sharing and search delivers compelling value to customer-care agents.

Furthermore, Cypress Communications delivers greater value to its business customers through end-to-end solution management including platform and applications management, as well as customer premises-based equipment (CPE) management. Unlike many hosted IP telephony and UC providers, the company engages in a rigorous assessment, upgrades and continuous management of the customer's underlying IP infrastructure in order to guarantee superior quality of real-time IP communications.

"Compared with most other hosted IP telephony and UC platforms in the market today, the combined C20 and A2 solution offers a superior set of features for users relying on effective collaboration for their most mission-critical tasks," said Elka Popova. "This architecture offers an advanced browser-based web client as well as a desktop client with web conferencing integration. It is also a more robust standalone telephony application than other UC clients deployed by Cypress Communications' competitors."

By using the C20 and A2 GENBAND platforms, which are part of the same technology family, Cypress Communications eliminates the complexity and interoperability challenges faced by businesses integrating multi-vendor platforms on the premises or carriers looking to integrate multi-vendor solutions on their network.

Besides being flexible and modular, the price and features of the C4 IP solution vary based on the type of user or endpoint. Cypress Communications does not force the end-to-end solution onto its customers from day one. It helps customers migrate one site at a time, ensuring proper integration with existing infrastructure and services at other locations. For businesses looking for more basic voice, data and Internet capabilities the company offers its C1, C2 and C2 Enhanced, and GO!VBX service packages.

About 70 percent of Cypress Communications' clients come from the professional services vertical including legal, financial and accounting services, business services, management services and real estate firms that can leverage its mobility feature along with advanced conferencing and collaboration capabilities. The C4 IP service is also gaining traction in the biotech, medical services, IT and retail verticals.

"With more than 30,000 installed seats, Cypress Communications' C4 IP service is one of the most successful hosted IP telephony offerings today," said Popova. "The fact that 50 percent of those are high-end UC seats provides further evidence that Cypress Communications has accurately identified the needs of its target customers and is offering them a compelling value proposition."

Based on these factors, Frost & Sullivan is proud to present the 2011 North American Product Differentiation Excellence of the Year Award in hosted IP telephony and UC services to Cypress Communications. Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has developed a product with unique features/functionality to provide high-quality service to customers with complex needs. The award lauds the degree of product customization and its ability to address evolving market trends.

Frost & Sullivan's Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.

About Cypress Communications (A Broadvox Company)
Broadvox is a worldwide leader in providing integrated managed VoIP services and hosted Unified Communications to SMB, Enterprise, and carrier customers. It has deployed one of the largest, full-featured, global VoIP networks, and is trusted by more than 300 telecommunications carriers, ASPs, ISPs, and more than 10,000 businesses to transport more than 12 billion minutes annually. The Network Operations Center, operating 24 hours a day, seven days per week, provides the reliability, security and quality of service necessary for the world's most discriminating customers. Broadvox offers SIP Trunking, SIP origination and termination services, and award winning hosted Unified Communications solutions, including broadband and virtual PBX provisioning. Beginning in 2006, Cypress revolutionized the communications industry with its hosted VoIP and hosted Unified Communications solution, C4 IP, offering productivity-enhancing technology such as integrated audio and web conferencing, multimedia collaboration tools, presence, chat, Microsoft Outlook integration and more. C4 IP has received numerous awards and accolades for excellence and innovation to date. Broadvox is a privately held company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. For more information, visit www.broadvox.com and http://www.cypresscom.net.

About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation, and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages 50 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 40 offices on six continents. For more information, visit http://www.awards.frost.com.

SOURCE: Frost & Sullivan

Zebra Technologies Introduces Next Generation QLn™ Mobile Printer For Retail And Healthcare Industries

Industry-first Ethernet device management and Zebra-exclusive smart battery technology enable customers to reduce operational expenses and improve efficiencies

Zebra Technologies Corporation a recognized global leader in bar code, kiosk, card and RFID printers as well as real-time location solutions, today announced the release of its new QLn ™ mobile printer family. According to research released by VDC in 2011, the mobile worker population exceeded one billion in 2010 and with an increasingly mobile and distributed workforce, is expected to grow by over 10% over the next three years. Zebra addresses this growing workforce with the QLn, the third generation of the QL printer, Zebra's all-time best selling direct thermal mobile line.

The QLn builds off of the success of over 700,000 QL printers shipped to date by squarely addressing the primary request made by Zebra's customers: lower the cost of operation. The QLn does this by including the industry's first Ethernet connection for mobile printers. By enabling remote status collection and better device management, the printer helps reduce service time and maximizes printer uptime, delivering a greater return-on-investment.

"Demand for mobile printers continues to scale," says Tom Wimmer, Director of the AutoID and Transaction Processing Practice at VDC. "At the same time, total cost of ownership has become a leading purchase consideration for enterprises evaluating mobile devices. Knowledgeable users are increasingly focused on reducing productivity losses associated with hardware failure, and managing spiraling IT support costs. Leading mobile device suppliers like Zebra understand these requirements and are responding with smarter products designed to address them."

The QLn is also the first printer with Zebra's new Power Smart Print Technology™. This new feature delivers faster processing and throughput with lower power drain, giving mobile workers better quality printing and more uptime on the job. Zebra's ‘smart battery' technology on the QLn displays charge and overall battery health, which minimizes downtime due to older, poor-performing batteries that don't last entire shifts.

"Historically the QL printer line has provided our customers with the productivity and durability required to keep their businesses functioning efficiently," said Scott Lane, product manager, Zebra Technologies. "The innovation and expanded features of the QLn are a result of Zebra's deep industry understanding. We have worked with our customers to identify their pain points and meet their evolving needs as the mobility market changes."

The QLn also improves on the previous QL models by offering: Easier Integration: Backwards compatibility with the QL and QL Plus printers lets users upgrade to the QLn without changing media or label formats, network and other infrastructure. Global reach: Zebra's Unicode ™ UTF-16-compliant Global Printing Solution offers right-to-left printing capabilities, giving companies around the world the option to print in many languages. (available August, 2011) Improved user interface: Larger, easier to read display with 5-way navigation, help menus and alerts gives users greater control, enables faster operation.

The QLn320™ for 3-inch-wide printing is now available in the United States and will be available in Europe later this month, Asia Pacific in July and in Latin America later this year. The QLn220 ™ for 2-inch-wide printing will be available in Q3 of this year. For more information www.zebra.com.

About Zebra Technologies
Zebra Technologies Corporation gives customers visibility of critical assets, people and transactions through a broad range of printing and location technologies. Our bar code, card, kiosk and RFID printers as well as real-time location solutions have made us a recognized global leader in providing enabling solutions that identify, track, and manage critical assets, people and transactions for improved business efficiencies. For more information, visit http://www.zebra.com.

SOURCE: Zebra Technologies Corporation

Leading Global Supplier To Original Equipment Manufacturers Selects Kofax For Its Invoice Processing Solution

IRVINE, CALIF.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Kofax plc (LSE: KFX), the leading provider of document driven business process automation solutions, today announced it will provide an invoice processing solution to a leading global supplier to original equipment manufacturers and their aftermarkets. The value of the contract to Kofax exceeds $500,000.

The customer, which provides products and services to manufacturers in the automotive, commercial vehicle, marine and other industries, will implement Kofax Capture, Kofax Transformation Modules and Kofax Front Office Server to capture, validate and extract information from over 900,000 invoices it receives annually. By enabling the company's front office employees to automatically scan invoices, the Kofax solution will help the company reduce costs and accelerate its invoice approval and payment processes while maintaining optimal relationships with its myriad of suppliers.

"Manufacturers receiving invoices from numerous vendors benefit from a unified capture solution that reduces the costs and errors associated with manual invoice processing," said Alan Kerr, Executive Vice President of Field Operations at Kofax. "Capturing invoices in a consistent manner as they are received allows our customers to immediately initiate their back office accounts payable processes, leading to improved efficiency and significant cost savings."

Kofax Capture provides industry leading scan-to-archive capabilities by scanning documents and forms to create digital images, extracting index data for retrieval purposes and delivering the images and associated data to a variety of repositories and applications. This can significantly reduce retrieval costs while improving better regulatory and compliance efforts. Kofax Capture is flexible and scalable, enabling customers to define where and how images are captured and indexed, whether in a home office, remote branch or back office data center.

Kofax Transformation Modules (KTM) adds document and form classification, page separation, challenging data extraction and validation capabilities to Kofax Capture to drive robust scan-to-process applications. By automating what were previously labor intensive, error prone and time consuming tasks, Kofax Transformation Modules can significantly reduce labor costs, improve information quality and accelerate business processes.

Kofax Front Office Server extends existing Kofax Capture business processes to customer facing employees seeking to initiate transactions, workflows and capture processes at the earliest point of contact to leverage existing resources in remote or branch offices. This office automation solution reduces process latency and eliminates the time and cost of shipping documents to centralized processing centers.

About Kofax

Kofax plc (LSE: KFX) is the leading provider of document driven business process automation solutions. For more than 20 years, Kofax has provided award winning solutions that streamline the flow of information throughout an organization by managing the capture, transformation and exchange of business critical information arising in paper, fax and electronic formats in a more accurate, timely and cost effective manner. These solutions provide a rapid return on investment to thousands of customers in financial services, government, business process outsourcing, healthcare, supply chain and other markets. Kofax delivers these solutions through its own sales and service organizations, and a global network of more than 700 authorized partners in more than 60 countries throughout the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.kofax.com.

"Kofax" is a registered trademark in the US, the EU and other regions. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

New Challenges Emerging As Virtualization And Private Clouds Go Mainstream

Symantec survey reveals discrepancy between project goals and reality; calls for tighter collaboration within organizations

Symantec Corp. recently announced the findings of its 2011 Virtualization and Evolution to the Cloud Survey which examined how organizations plan to move business-critical initiatives to virtual and hybrid cloud computing environments. The survey highlighted topics including server, client, and storage virtualization, storage-as-a-service, and hybrid/private cloud technologies; and the results uncover disparities between expectations and reality as enterprises deploy these solutions. CEOs and CFOs are concerned with moving business-critical applications into virtual or cloud environments due to challenges including reliability, security, availability and performance. The survey is based on more than 3,700 respondents from 35 countries worldwide.

"Cloud computing represents a major shift within IT – changing from a traditional IT delivery to a service-provider model. Moving to the cloud is a complex evolution for many companies and it's essential that IT and executives are aligned on initiatives," said John Magee, vice president of virtualization and cloud solutions, Symantec. "Virtualization is an enabler for private and hybrid clouds and our survey shows that planning a seamless move is critical to achieving all the simplicity, affordability and efficiency that these environments have to offer."

Gaps Between Expectations and Reality Reveal Market Evolution
Adoption of server virtualization is widespread, and more than 75 percent of organizations are discussing private and hybrid cloud deployments. Of the technologies evaluated in the survey, server and storage virtualization are the most mature with 45 and 43 percent of enterprises implementing. Private Storage-as-a-Service is the least mature with 36 percent adopting.

Early investments have revealed gaps between expectations and reality which indicate that organizations are still learning what these technologies are capable of and how to overcome the new challenges they bring with them. We asked respondents about initial goals in server, storage, and endpoint virtualization; private Storage-as-a-Service; and hybrid/private cloud. We then asked those who have already implemented which goals they actually achieved. The difference between the two answers revealed an expectation gap. Server virtualization projects were most successful, with only a 4 percent average gap between expected and realized goals. The biggest gaps occurred in scalability, reducing capital expenditures and reducing operating expenditures. The average shortfall in storage virtualization was 33 percent, with disappointments coming in agility, scalability and reducing operating expenditures. Respondents reported an average gap between expected and realized goals of 26 percent with endpoint/desktop virtualization. They cited disappointments in new endpoint deployment, application delivery and application compatibility. Seventy-seven percent of organizations are considering private Storage-as-a-Service, but these projects are challenging to implement and fall short of expectations by 37 percent. For example, complexity reduction was a goal for 84 percent of respondents, but reached by only 44 percent.

These gaps are a hallmark of early stage markets where expectations are out of step with reality. As the virtualization and cloud markets continue to mature, we expect to see those gaps close.

Increasing Focus on Business-Critical Applications
Organizations investing in virtualization and hybrid/private cloud technologies tend to follow a similar path, starting by virtualizing less critical applications such as test and development environments and progressing to more important applications such as email and collaboration; line of business; eCommerce and supply chain; and ERP/CRM.

The survey shows that organizations are leveraging virtualization for business-critical applications. Of enterprises who are implementing virtualization, more than half (59 percent) plan to virtualize database applications in the next 12 months. Fifty-five percent plan to virtualize web applications, and 47 percent plan to virtualize email and calendar applications. Forty-one percent plan to virtualize ERP applications.

We found that organizations are more slowly leveraging hybrid/private cloud technologies for business-critical applications. An average of just 33 percent of business-critical applications such as ERP, accounting and CRM are in hybrid/private cloud environments. Respondents stated concerns over account, service, or traffic hijacking; authentication vulnerabilities; access vulnerabilities; disaster recovery; and encryption.

Quality of Service Challenges Emerge as Top Priorities
As virtualization and private cloud technologies become more widely adopted, the cost and performance of storage is becoming increasingly top of mind. More than half of respondents (56 percent) said storage costs somewhat or significantly increased with server virtualization. Of those in the process of virtualizing storage, the top three reasons for deployment include reducing operating expenses (55 percent), improving storage performance (54 percent), and improving disaster recovery readiness (53 percent).

Seventy-six percent of enterprises who have implemented server virtualization indicated that security was a somewhat/extremely large factor in keeping various constituents from being more confident about placing business-critical applications on virtualized servers. Sixty-three percent listed security as a significant/extreme challenge to implementing server virtualization.

Performance issues are a factor for the majority of organizations. Seventy-six percent of those who have implemented server virtualization stated that performance was a somewhat/extremely large factor in keeping various constituents from being more confident about placing business-critical applications on virtualized servers. Seventy-two percent of organizations that have implemented hybrid/private clouds cited performance as a significant/extreme challenge.

Among enterprises that have implemented server virtualization, reliability was the number one concern. Seventy-eight percent said it was a somewhat/extremely large factor in keeping various constituents from being more confident about placing mission-critical applications on virtualized servers. Of those who have implemented storage virtualization, 83 percent stated uptime and availability as an important goal.

IT and Business Executives Out of Synch on the Potential
According to the survey findings, 46 percent of CFOs who are implementing hybrid/private clouds are less than "somewhat open" to moving business-critical applications into those environments. Forty-four percent of CEOs are cautious about moving these applications.

Main concerns cited about virtualization and hybrid cloud deployments are reliability (78 percent), security (76 percent), and performance (76 percent).

In practice, many C-level concerns are unfounded based on responses from IT. For example, concerns about performance are a top reason cited for caution, yet 78 to 85 percent of those who deployed server virtualization achieved their goals related to performance.

Recommendations
Enterprise IT's evolution to the cloud has a fair share of challenges, but also compelling rewards. Despite concerns, most enterprises are implementing virtualization and moving to a cloud computing future. For these enterprises, Symantec offers recommendations to help make the journey as smooth as possible. Ensure alignment between IT and executives in virtualization and cloud initiatives: It is important to show that you can address C-level concerns such as security and availability. Show that their concerns, while important, can be successfully overcome by leveraging existing best practices and robust solutions that ensure valuable information and critical applications are protected and highly available. Don't operate in a silo when it comes to cloud computing: Virtualization and cloud initiatives are most successful when implemented as mainstream, comprehensive IT initiatives. Because they involve all aspects of IT (servers, storage, network, applications, etc.) they can fail when managed as siloed "special projects." Rather, treat cloud as an IT-wide initiative with all departments included in planning and implementation. Leverage and modernize your existing infrastructure: Before you're ready to implement hybrid/private cloud, make sure you are leveraging the existing infrastructure to achieve the same efficiencies and then modernizing it as needed. Convert static servers, storage and networking into a virtualized pool of resources. Replace static provisioning with self-service provisioning, and make sure to implement monitoring and metering to demonstrate value to the business. Set realistic expectations and track your results: Remember that despite the hype, cloud is a new and still maturing market. Do your homework to set expectations that are realistic, then follow up and track results to identify ways to improve project efficiency going forward.

Symantec's Virtualization and Evolution to the Cloud Survey
Symantec's Virtualization and Evolution to the Cloud Survey is the result of research conducted in April 2011 by Applied Research, which surveyed IT and C-level professionals responsible for computers, networks and technology resources at small, medium, and large enterprises (defined as 1,000-2,400, 2,500-4,999, and 5,000+ employees). The report was designed to gauge how organizations plan to move mission-critical initiatives to virtual and hybrid cloud computing environments. The survey included more than 3,700 respondents from 35 countries in North America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Asia Pacific and Latin America.

About Symantec
Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world. Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. For more information, visit www.symantec.com.

SOURCE: Symantec Corp.

Honeywell Revolutionizes Mobile Computing With Scanphone Introduction

Dolphin 6000 delivers converged communications, computing and scanning technologies to the mobile information worker

Honeywell recently announced the introduction of the Dolphin 6000, a new class of mobile device that bridges the gap between consumer mobile phones, industrial mobile computers and bar code scanners, empowering mobile information workers to connect, collect and communicate at the point of customer service. The compact, yet durable Dolphin 6000 Scanphone automates the data collection process and delivers real-time access to business data, leading to improved productivity, more informed decision making and lower operating costs.

"We've seen an increase in the use of consumer-grade smartphones for enterprise applications as more functionality is added to mobile phones. However, these devices are not specifically designed for enterprise use and do not meet the bar code scanning needs of mobile information workers," said Taylor Smith, director of product management, Honeywell Scanning & Mobility. "The Dolphin 6000 fills this gap – delivering more reliability, more powerful scan performance and greater line of business application support than any smartphone on the market."

In addition to its basic mobile phone functionality, the Dolphin 6000 offers advanced productivity features geared towards today's vertical enterprise, including field service, field sales, and retail and logistics operations. An integrated scanner provides fast and accurate bar code scanning, greatly simplifying data entry tasks, while Honeywell's Remote MasterMind for Mobility device management software allows users to manage, update and remotely diagnose all Dolphin 6000 devices within a network from one centralized location, lowering development and maintenance costs.

Utilizing the Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional operating system, the Dolphin 6000 was also designed for easy integration with enterprise-grade software applications, such as Pocket Inventory from independent software vendor (ISV), pcAmerica.

"We have been working with Honeywell for many years developing software solutions for the enterprise," said David Gosman, CEO, pcAmerica. "Although we recognize the functionality of smartphones, we do not believe they meet the hardware needs of our enterprise customers for use cases such as inventory tracking and receiving. As such, our Pocket Inventory application is designed to work more seamlessly on enterprise-grade devices such as the Dolphin 6000."

More rugged than a smartphone, the IP-rated Dolphin 6000 is resistant to moisture and particle intrusion, making it suitable for use in adverse conditions, such as those encountered by a field service or logistics worker. The device comes equipped with a long-lasting battery, allowing for uninterrupted productivity throughout an entire shift. The Dolphin 6000 also has an integrated megapixel camera and is optimized for voice communication, eliminating the need to carry a separate digital camera and mobile phone. Multiple wireless options, including GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, help users stay connected in a variety of environments.

The Dolphin 6000 is available with Honeywell's Service Made Simple service offering, which provides comprehensive coverage on normal wear and tear, as well as accidental breakage for up to three years, providing a level of support, reliability and longevity that is not available with a consumer device. Further, the device supports low failure rates and unlike a smartphone, has a 3 year life cycle with 5 years of post production support, helping businesses keep mobile device acquisition costs low.

About Honeywell International
Honeywell International is a Fortune 100 diversified technology and manufacturing leader, serving customers worldwide with aerospace products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes and industry; automotive products; turbochargers; and specialty materials.

SOURCE: Honeywell

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

New OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSD Achieves Record

OCZ set a new benchmark of 1 million 4K write IOPS this week at Computex.

Tuesday at Computex, OCZ claimed that it set a new benchmark of 1 million 4K write IOPS and 1.5 million read IOPS with a single Z-Drive R4 88-equipped 3U Colfax International Server.

Based on a Supermicro platform, this specific server solution is considered to be the fastest on the market and features 7.2 TB of MLC storage. OCZ's PCIe-based SSD is a beast all in itself, packed with eight SF-2281 controllers in a RAID 0 configuration and mounted on a PCIe x8 card. However, this particular demo utilized several Z-Drive R4 88s to reach the record IOPS.

"We have been working closely with OCZ to create a ready to deploy server solution with both exceptional performance and reliability, all within a compact and energy efficient footprint," said Gautam Shah, President and CEO of Colfax International. "OCZ's Z-Drive PCIe SSDs add considerable performance and we are thrilled to achieve this significant 4K Write IOPS benchmark, as well as making this industry leading total solution available to our enterprise clients."

On its own, the Z-Drive R4 88 features reads up to 2.9 GB/s and writes up to 2.7 GB/s. Additional reports reveal that it will also arrive in two flavors: the C Series which lacks polymer capacitors for power loss protection and has less provisioning, and the R Series which will come equipped with sudden power loss protection and extra NAND set aside as a spare area.

"The Z-Drive R4 enables our data center clients to maximize performance in the industry standard 4K file size, and this achievement with Colfax International demonstrates the raw performance benefits and latency reductions that OCZ PCIe SSDs can deliver over multi-terabyte device densities in a single 3U server," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology Group. "We are proud to enable our clients to deliver servers and storage arrays which provide the highest performance, maximum capacity, and lowest latency available to data centers today."

OCZ said that the server demoed during the show will be available for pre-order from Colfax International in multiple built-to-order configurations, and will ship in the coming weeks following the Computex event.

Monday, June 6, 2011

OCZ Reveals Agility 3, Solid 3 SSDs

OCZ revealed two new SSD lines featuring the SandForce SF-2200 processor and an SATA 6 Gbps interface.

Tuesday OCZ announced two new SSD lines catering to speed-seeking enthusiasts in search of the best value for performance. Called the Agility 3 and Solid 3, both new SSD lines use the same MLC NAND Flash while taking advantage of SandForce's SF-2200 processor and a SATA 6 Gbps interface to provide super-zippy read and write speeds.

"With increased availability of SATA III platforms, the demand for the latest generation SSDs has grown rapidly," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ technology Group. "We are addressing this demand with new products that offer both the best performance and value for consumers."

The OCZ Agility 3 arrives in three capacities: 60 GB, 120 GB and 240 GB. The drives offer read speeds up to 525 MB/s across the board, write speeds up to 475 MB/s on the 60 GB version and write speeds up to 500 MB/s on the 120 GB and 240 GB models. Both the 60 GB and 120 GB drives feature a random write 4KB (aligned) of 50,000 IOPS and the 240 GB performs slightly lower at 45,000 IOPS.

The OCZ Solid 3 arrives in only two capacities: 60 GB and 120 GB. The performance of these drives are slightly lower than the Agility 3 line, providing read speeds up to 500 MB/s, write speeds up to 450 MB/s, and a random write 4KB (aligned) of 20,000 IOPS. But like the Agility 3 line, the Solid 3 drives feature a 2.5-inch form factor, a seek time of 0.1ms, RAID support, native TRIM support and a MTBF of 2 million hours.

Depending on the retailer, the Solid 3 60 GB and 120 GB drives cost around $152 and $267 respectively. The Agility 3 60 GB, 120 GB and 240 GB drives cost around $158, $268 and $509. Both solutions come backed by a 3-year warranty for ultimate customer satisfaction and peace of mind, OCZ said.

Seagate Reveals HDD With 1 TB Platters

The Seagate Barracuda XT 3 TB HDD will be the company's first to use 1 TB platters.

For those who still can't give up the tried-and-true method of serving up data on a silver platter, Seagate has revealed a new flagship 3.5-inch hard drive with an areal density of 625 Gigabits per square inch using 1 TB platters. The drive, slated as the "world's first" for the general consumer, will be added to the company's GoFlex Desk line sometime in mid-2011 and eventually offered in four storage capacities: 3 TB, 2 TB, 1.5 TB and 1 TB.

"Organizations of all sizes and consumers worldwide are amassing digital content at light speed, generating immense demand for storage of digital content of every imaginable kind," said Rocky Pimentel, Seagate Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing. "We remain keenly focused on delivering the storage capacity, speed and manageability our customers need to thrive in an increasingly digital world."

Seagate said that the first model-- the Barracuda XT 3 TB HDD-- will have enough storage to house up to 120 HD movies, 1,500 video games, thousands of photos and virtually countless hours of digital music. Compatible with both PC and Mac, the drive will also come packed with an NTFS driver for Mac, allowing it to store and access files from both Windows and Mac OS X computers without reformatting. Rotational speeds and other hardware specs were not provided.

Although Seagate is the first HDD manufacturer to bring the new high-density drives to the market, Samsung was actually the first to break the barrier on storage capacity for hard drives using one-terabyte-per-platter areal density. The tech was shown at CeBIT 2011 and will be used to create 2 TB HDDS using only two platters, the company said.

Beyond PMR: 3D Tower Hard Drives

Researchers at Spintec claim to have found a way to push the boundaries of traditional magnetic hard drive recording technology once again.

An approach called 3D Towers is believed to reach to a density level well beyond 1 Tb per square inch.

The original Winchester magnetic recording technology was generally believes to hit a density of about 250 Gb (per square inch), but the move to perpendicular magnetic recording open the way to about 1 Tb, which will be reached with two to three years, according to industry expectations. At that point, the hard drive industry may have to move to further enhancements, such as heat-assisted recording technologies.

However, it appears that scientists have found another way to avoid the expensive move to heat-assisted approaches one more time. Spintec demonstrated "several magnetic layers" to move beyond today's PMR hard drives.

"Our new approach involves using bit-patterned media, which are made of arrays of physically separated magnetic nanodots, with each nanodot carrying one bit of information," said Jerome Moritz a researcher with Spintec. "To further extend the storage density, it's possible to increase the number of bits per dots by stacking several magnetic layers to obtain a multilevel magnetic recording device." From the press release:

"Moritz and colleagues were able to demonstrate that the best way to achieve a 2-bit-per-dot media involves stacking in-plane and perpendicular-to-plane magnetic media atop each dot. The perpendicularly magnetized layer can be read right above the dot, whereas the in-plane magnetized layer can be read between dots. This enables doubling of the areal density for a given dot size by taking better advantage of the whole patterned media area."

The researchers released an image of two-bit-per-dot patterned media, but there was no information when such storage media could actually be produced.

SanDisk Buying SSD Developer Pliant Tech

Sandisk is buying enterprise SSD developer Pliant Technology for $327 million.

Typically when SanDisk comes to mind, it usually means a memory card or USB storage. Most consumers aren’t aware than SanDisk offers a few solid state drives, one with 60 GB and the other with 120 GB. The business sector has an even wider variety, adding the P4 line featuring various ways to interface including SATA, micro SATA, mSATA, LIF and BGA, and the iSSD line of integrated drives that are used in tablets, smartbooks, ultra-thin PCs and more.

But SanDisk's position in the enterprise market may get a turbo-charged boost, as the company has announced an agreement with enterprise SSD developer Pliant Technology. According to the agreement, SanDisk will acquire the company by forking over approximately $327 million in cash and provide certain "equity-based incentives." The deal is expected to close by the end of SanDisk's second fiscal quarter.

SanDisk is obviously after Pliant's technology. The latter company sells ultra-high performance enterprise solid state drives based on the SAS protocol and MLC NAND Flash memory. It also has plans to release PCIe-based solutions for high-performance compute servers. The lower cost of MLC is a key enabler for the broad adoption of SSDs in the enterprise market, the company said in a statement.

"Flash memory is making significant inroads into the enterprise by dramatically increasing application performance and reducing power consumption," said Sanjay Mehrotra, SanDisk president and chief executive officer. "We believe that the combination of Pliant's innovative technology and enterprise-level system expertise with SanDisk's high-quality, large-scale MLC memory production is a winning value proposition for customers."

"Our advanced flash technology roadmap and flash management capability will complement Pliant's strengths and allow us to lead the way in reliability and performance in the Enterprise SSD market," Mahrotra added.

Intel Announces New 320 SSD Series

Intel's new line of SSDs is based on 25-nm NAND flash memory and offers up to 600 GB of storage.

Monday Intel officially launched a new line of 2.5-inch solid-state drives (SSDs) called the 320 Series. The new line replaces and builds upon Intel's current high-performing X25-M SATA SSDs, offering better performance and reliability.

According to Intel, the 320 SSDs are based on 25-nm Intel NAND Flash Memory which should offer a 30-percent price reduction compared to second-generation drives. That also means consumers will see larger storage capacities of up to 600 GB thanks to the 25-nm processing and lower manufacturing costs.

"Intel designed new quality and reliability features into our SSDs to take advantage of the latest 25nm silicon, so we could deliver cost advantages to our customers," said Pete Hazen, director of marketing for the Intel Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) Solutions Group.

Targeting mainstream consumers, corporate IT or PC enthusiasts looking for a performance boost over HDDs, the 320 Series arrives with 40 GB, 80 GB, 120 GB, 160 GB, 300 GB and 600 GB versions. Surprisingly, all six will use the SATA 3.0 Gb/s interface (rather than the speedier SATA 6.0 Gb/s), but that also means the drives will be supported by "more than 1 billion" SATA 3.0 Gb/s PCs already sitting in homes and businesses worldwide.

On the technical front, Intel's 320 Series produces up to 39,500 input/output operations per second (IOPS) random reads and 23,000 IOPS random writes on its highest-capacity drives. They also provide up to 220 MB/s sequential writes and up to 270 MB/s sequential reads. Intel also threw in 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard capabilities on every drive, to help protect personal data in the event of theft or loss.

"Already one of the most solid-performing SSDs over time, Intel continues to raise the bar on SSD reliability in the way it has architected its third generation, using proprietary firmware and controller, to further demonstrate that not all solid-state drives are created equal. In this rendition, Intel creatively uses spare area to deploy added redundancies that will help keep user data protected, even in the event of a power loss," the company said.

Although consumer pricing wasn't provided, tags for retailers purchasing the new SSDs in quantities of 1000 are $89 for the 40 GB version, $159 for 80 GB, $209 for 120 GB, $289 for 160 GB, $520 for 300 GB and $1,069 for 600 GB.

Intel SSDs can be purchased in the United States from such retailers as Best Buy or Fry’s Electronics, plus a variety of resellers, retailers or Internet e-tailers such as Newegg.com or Amazon.com worldwide.

G.Skill's New Phoenix EVO SSD Uses 2xnm NAND

G.Skill is launching an affordable SSD utilizing 2x-nm NAND flash and SandForce-s SF-1222 controller.

Friday G.Skill announced an upcoming SATA II-based solid-state disk called the Phoenix EVO. The new 2.5-inch SSD will feature 2x-nm MLC NAND flash (likely 25-nm) and the SandForce SF-1222 controller, providing read speeds of up to 280 MB/s and write speeds pf up to 270 MB/s.

"Keeping pace with the flash manufacturers’ transition from 3xnm to 2xnm, G.Skill has utilized 2xnm flash chips for its award winning SSD, Phoenix family," the company said. "To ensure the best performance and reliability during the transition, G.Skill has teamed up closely with SandForce and has run G.Skill Phoenix EVO through a wide range of rigorous tests with the latest firmware. All Phoenix EVO drives only use strictly selected original flash chips from key suppliers to guarantee the top reliability and stability."

Although pricing is unknown at this point, the tag should be relatively cheap compared to G.Skill's other offerings like the Phoenix PRO and Phoenix II SSDs. The EVO will only offer 115 GB of storage and connect via a SATA 3.0 Gbps interface, but will arrive with a reliable MTBF (mean time before failure) of 1 million hours, a three-year warranty and built-in EDC/ECC functions. The drive doesn't provide any DRAM cache.

As for a delivery date, G.Skill said the Phoenix EVO will be available through authorized distributors within the next few weeks (early April). In the meantime, the company is offering benchmarks on the product page (CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64, ATTO Disk Benchmark, AS SSD) so that consumers can "easily choose the right product according to their desire and budget." Transparency is an epic win for everyone.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

OCZ's Hybrid SSD/HDD PCIe Card Spotted

OCZ is showcasing its HDD/SSD PCIe-based hybrid this week at Computex.

This week during Computex, OCZ is showcasing a unique storage solution called the RevoDrive Hybrid, a marriage of mechanical and solid-state storage technologies on a single PCI Express x4 card. OCZ has yet to determine final configurations, but expects to release a base model featuring a 500 GB HDD and a 60 GB SSD. There's also talk of a second model which may sport a beefier 1 TB HDD and a 120 GB SSD.

According to hands-on reports, the hybrid drive will use a 2.5-inch HDD provided by a third party although OCZ is still trying to determine whether it wants to use a 5,400-RPM or a 7,200-RPM model. The SSD component actually serves as a cache, and can even use multiple SandForce controllers arranged in a RAID 0 array. This unique caching scheme will allow the slower 5,400-RPM drive to be used without sacrificing performance.

OCZ said that the Hybrid's cache will be managed by Nvelo's Dataplex software which is capable of caching both read and writes up to 120 GB of solid state storage. According to Nvelo, Dataplex actually demonstrates better performance in PCMark Vantage results than the Smart Response caching scheme available with Intel's Z68 Express chipset.

OCZ also provided a spec sheet claiming that the Hybrid drive has sustained read speeds of 575 MB/s and sustained write speeds of 500 MB/s. It also reportedly has a random 4KB write rate of 30,000 IOPS. That could be tweaked even further before the PCIe-based drive is expected to hit the market this July. OCZ hasn't officially released a ship date or pricing, but the base model is expected to retail for around $350.

Currently OCZ is offering two RevoDrive models without the HDD riding piggyback: the original RevoDrive PCIe SSD and the RevoDrive X2 PCIe SSD.

Kingston Reveals its First SandForce-based SSD

The Kingston HyperX will use the SandForce SF-2281 controller for sequential read speeds up to 525 MB/s.

This week at Computex, Kingston revealed its very first 2.5-inch SSD using a SandForce controller targeting enthusiasts, gamers and performance users. Dubbed as the Kingston HyperX, the SSD is based on SandForce SF-2281 controllers and a SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and ships next month in 120 and 240 GB capacities.

"This launch is very exciting for us at Kingston," said Ariel Perez, SSD business manager. "The SandForce controller allows us to deliver the high-end performance that is needed for power-users, gamers, and enthusiasts. Integrating a final production quality controller and firmware, and undergoing extensive testing has been an exacting process, but well worth the wait. By pairing SandForce’s latest controller with Intel 25-nm compute NAND (P/E 5K), we have built an SSD that meets the requirements set by true enthusiasts.”

As stated, the SF-2281 controller is paired with Intel's 25-nm Compute NAND (P/E 5K), allowing for sequential read/write throughputs of 525/480 MB/s and IOPS of 40,000/60,000 (240GB). SandForce DuraClass Technology provides best in class endurance whereas Advanced Wear-Leveling technology ensures that flash memory blocks are consumed at a very balanced rate. Additional features include TRIM and S.M.A.R.T. Support, and user-configurable over-provisioning for tweaking performance to suit the user's individual needs.

"Enthusiasts have long known the Kingston HyperX brand as the industry leader in cutting edge memory," the company said. "The new HyperX SSD continues this tradition of innovation and high performance by pairing the latest SandForce controller with Intel® 25nm compute NAND (P/E 5K) to provide the performance and endurance that the most demanding users require."

Both Kingston HyperX SSDs are expected to ship on July 11, 2011. They'll be backed by a three-year warranty and Kingston's 24/7 tech support.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Use xsel to copy text between CLI and GUI

Takeaway: The simple and versatile xsel utility bridges the gap between the Unix pipeline and the clipboard functionality of the X Window System.

The concept of a “clipboard” in common operating system usage is tied to graphical user interfaces (GUI), where a form of temporary storage makes it easier to duplicate or move text. Its use is pretty simple, though the details may vary between implementations. For instance, on MS Windows the usual way to copy text from a webpage to a text editor is to click and drag the mouse to highlight a block of text on the webpage and press Ctrl-C to copy, then click where you want to insert the text in your text editor and press Ctrl-V to paste. In the X Window System, meanwhile, a different approach is more common; click and drag the mouse to highlight the block of text in the browser that you want to copy, but do not click Ctrl-C, then use the mouse to point where you want to paste in the text editor and, without moving the mouse anywhere, click the middle mouse button.

In the world of the Unix command line interface (CLI), copying text around is generally much quicker and easier to automate. There is rarely any need to use the clipboard as a middle-man; simply use the Unix pipeline to stream text from one place to another. For instance, to copy the fifth paragraph from one text file and attach it to the end of another text file, one might use a command like the following:

head -n 5 foo.txt | tail -n 1 >> bar.txt

The head and tail commands can take the -n N option, where “N” is a number, to specify a number of lines of text that should be selected from either the beginning (head) or end (tail) of a file. By piping the output of head (in this case, the first five lines of text from a file) through tail (to select only the single last line of its input in this case), a specified chunk of text is essentially copied out of the middle of the file. The append redirect, >>, takes whatever is sent to it and attaches it to the end of the file whose name is specified to the right of the redirect.

For a more dramatic example, examine the case of copying the contents of two text files into a third, new file. To accomplish this in the graphical user interface, one would have to first open a text file, highlight its contents (using either Ctrl-A or a click-and-drag action with the mouse), and copy them, then open the new file and paste that text into it using Ctrl-V or a context menu. Next, open the second existing file, highlight, and copy — then paste that into the new file after the text you had already pasted there. This involves either having multiple files open at once or opening and closing files an awful lot along the way, and takes some time on the user’s part at every step.

To accomplish the same at the Unix shell, a simple command will suffice:

cat foo.txt bar.txt > baz.txt

The cat command was designed for the purpose of simply and easily concatenating two or more files’ contents together. By default, that information is sent to standard output, but a truncating redirect, >, takes that output as its input and writes it to a file — overwriting the contents of the file if it already exists, or creating the file from scratch if it does not already exist.

Ultimately, the process of copying and pasting is fairly simple to grasp whether using the Unix pipeline and CLI tools or using the standard, clipboard-based GUI approach of MS Windows and the X Window System. Given the computing environments in which most open source software users spend a lot of their time, both approaches are necessary parts of the toolsets at their disposal. There is one more case where yet another approach to copying text is needed, moving it between the CLI and the GUI.

Before continuing, a basic understanding of how clipboard-like functionality is handled in the X Window System is helpful. The X server supports an arbitrary number of selections, but the two most commonly used are the Primary Selection and Clipboard Selection. The Primary Selection is by default used to track currently selected text, while the Clipboard Selection is used as temporary storage when an application explicitly copies something to that selection.

The xsel tool, copyfree software available via the software management systems of most open source operating systems, is a simple utility meant to serve the need to copy text between the CLI environment and the GUI environment. It effectively acts as a pipeline-like interface between the CLI and the GUI clipboard. Anything that can be piped to a CLI utility or redirected to a file can be sent to the clipboard by way of an xsel command. For instance, to copy the contents of two files into the primary selection, this command suffices:

cat foo.txt bar.txt | xsel -i

The -i option, which simply directs xsel to read from standard input, is likely to be the most common way one would use the xsel utility, making it easy to load the contents of text files into the Primary Selection so they can be pasted into a GUI application with a middle click of the mouse. It acts like a truncating redirect, in that it replaces any current contents of the Primary Selection with whatever is piped to xsel -i. To cause xsel to behave more like an append redirect, use the -a option instead.

Those familiar with log monitoring with the tail utility will understand how xsel -f works. The manpage describes it thusly:

-f, --follow append to selection as standard input grows. Implies -i.

At the other end of clipboard functionality is getting data out of one of the system’s selections. To “paste” from the Primary Selection, actually writing the contents of it to standard output (thus allowing it to be sent through the Unix pipeline), you can use xsel -o. Thus, to write the contents of the Primary Selection to a new file: xsel -o > foo.txt

This allows the data to flow in the other direction — entered into the Primary Selection by selecting text in a GUI application and “pasting” into the Unix pipeline via the xsel utility.

The xsel utility also gives access to more than the Primary Selection. The Primary, Secondary, and Clipboard Selections can be accessed by use of the -p, -s, and -b options, respectively. The -p is generally unnecessary, though, because the Primary Selection is the default target of the xsel utility.

xsel offers other options, of varying levels of usefulness. The xsel tool as a whole, though, is of tremendous use for those who work extensively with both the command line and graphical user interfaces.

This article was written using the Vim editor, and formatted using Markdown syntax. A command line filter utility I wrote in Ruby translates the Markdown formatted text of the article to HTML formatting; its output is piped to xsel. The command looks something like this: muit filename.txt | xsel -i

Following that, I middle click to paste into the form used to submit the article for publication at TechRepublic. Every time I submit an article to TechRepublic (these days, generally fourteen times a month), I use xsel, in addition to my other uses of the tool.

Chad Perrin is an IT consultant, developer, and freelance professional writer. He holds both Microsoft and CompTIA certifications and is a graduate of two IT industry trade schools.

How GNOME 3 is besting Ubuntu Unity

Takeaway: Jack Wallen was jonsing for GNOME 3 and discovered the best route to this new desktop was Fedora 15 beta. Can you image how surprised Jack was to find out that GNOME 3 blows away Ubuntu Unity? Read on to find out more.

In lieu of the release of Ubuntu 11.04 and the default Unity desktop, it seems GNOME 3 (aka GNOME Shell) has fallen out of the spotlight. Most GNOME-based distributions have been sticking with classic GNOME and, well, there’s Ubuntu. And since GNOME 3 doesn’t play well at all with Ubuntu 11.04, it’s in a bit of a situation. Unless you’re willing to give Fedora 15 beta a go.

I decided I needed to do just that, since I am ever so quickly becoming disillusioned by Unity. Believe me, I wanted to like Unity — and I did, at first. It seemed very slick, efficient, and just what the stale desktop needed. But then, after a few weeks of use, I realized there were many annoyances. It was time for something completely different, and that something was GNOME 3.

I’ve tried GNOME 3 plenty of times, even in its early stages, and I was impressed back then. The fastest route to GNOME 3 that I found was the beta release of Fedora 15. I knew, going into this, that I would be dealing with beta software and this (Fedora 15) marked the first release Fedora has offered with GNOME 3 as the default. But I was ready to dive in and see what GNOME 3 was looking like these days. Fortunately, I was not disappointed.

Now, I should say that this is not a review of Fedora 15. It is in beta and that would be unfair of me to review a piece of beta software. So, the point of this open-source entry is to really illustrate to you just what the Fedora developers are doing with the GNOME 3 package and how this desktop is coming along.

Figure A

One of the first drastic improvements I noticed (one that Unity should take serious advantage of when they finally migrate to the GNOME 3 libraries) is the launcher and pager. When the mouse moves up to the upper left-hand corner (or hitting Alt-F1), the launcher and pager appear (see Figure A). What’s immediately noticable is that the pager has undergone some serious reworking. Prior to this release, the pager simply displayed however many desktops were configured when the launcher was opened. Now the pager shows up mirroring the launcher where individual desktops can be selected. This image shows the pager expanded. By default, only the left edge of the pager will show. When you hover the mouse over that edge, the full pager will pull out and the specific desktop can be chosen.

This also brings to light one of the shortcomings of the current release. As it stands, there’s a profound lack of configuration tools for GNOME 3. In fact, many configuration options can only be handled through the GConf Editor or by editing .xml files. On the plus side, these configuration tools are in the works.

Outside of the lack of configuration, GNOME 3 is set up quite nicely — sleek and efficient — which are the same properties I offered up to Unity. Only this time, it’s real. GNOME 3 is not suffering from the odd crashes and annoying menu behaviors that were near deal breakers in Unity. There are also some other things that help GNOME 3 easily trump Unity.

Take, for instance, the GNOME 3 search. Built into GNOME 3 is a GNOME Do-like search/launch. You can call up the search window by opening the launcher (move the mouse to the upper left corner or hit Alt-F1), and then type a search string in the search field (see Figure B). If you want to search for something outside of your desktop, you can enter the search string and then click either Google or Wikipedia, and your default browser will open with the search results.

But don’t think these to major revisions to the GNOME 3 desktop are the sole reasons you should give it a go. One of the most impressive feats accomplished by the GNOME 3 developers is how incredibly fast and reliable the desktop has become. GNOME 3 blows away Ubuntu Unity (on similar hardware) in the speed and reliability categories. I have yet to have an issue with GNOME 3 (on a beta release), whereas I have encountered plenty of issues on Ubuntu Unity.

Will GNOME 3 overtake the desktop by storm, making everyone rush to have the latest iteration of that famous desktop? Probably not. But if you want a fresh take on the desktop, and you’ve found Unity to be less than… well, unifying, GNOME 3 should do the trick. It’s fast, it’s stable, it’s very well designed, and Fedora 15 is doing it serious justice.

I’d like to drop some props to the Fedora 15 team, as they’re doing an absolutely incredible job with this bleeding-edge Linux distribution. Fedora 15 and GNOME 3 is a serious win-win from my perspective. Give it a go, and you might find that you agree!

A writer for over 12 years, Jack's primary focus is on the Linux operating system and its effects on the open source and non-open source communities.

Introduction to SELinux: Don't let complexity scare you off

Takeaway: Vincent Danen acknowledges that some of the complexity of SELinux is intimidating, but if you spend some time with it, the payoff is heightened security and better control of your system.

Most people who know Linux have at least heard about SELinux. SELinux, or Security-Enhanced Linux, was originally developed primarily by the NSA (U.S. National Security Agency), as an implementation of the Flask operating system security architecture. Flask implements MAC (Mandatory Access Control), a means of designating what processes have access to what resources (be they network ports, files, and so on). A lot of work has been done to make SELinux as easy to use as possible, although at first glance it does look hideously complex.

Since 2003, SELinux has been integrated into the mainline Linux kernel, and is fully supported in distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Fedora, CentOS, Debian (disabled by default), Ubuntu, openSUSE, Hardened Gentoo, and others. On Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora, SELinux is enabled at installation.

There is a lot of information out there on SELinux; a lot of it, if you look at it quickly, may scare you off of SELinux. Don’t feel bad, it did the same to me as well. When I was developing Annvix, I opted to use AppArmor instead of SELinux because it seemed like the easier of the two and offered nearly the same end-result functionality. If I had to make that choice again, today, I would choose SELinux, however.

From a security standpoint, distributions and Linux vendors today do a herculean job of keeping Linux operating systems safe. This is good news for anyone using Linux; however, the bad news is that a lot of this is reactive security. If there is a vulnerability in Apache, the vendor will typically backport a fix and release an update. However, there is a window of vulnerability between when the fix is released and when the problem is made public; there may be an even larger window of vulnerability if this is something that hasn’t necessarily been made public, but is already being exploited (the so-called 0-day flaws). SELinux and tools like it are designed to protect you from these flaws by offering proactive security mechanisms.

For instance, if there were a flaw in Apache that allowed an attacker to make it display arbitrary files, this could be used to display the contents of files like /etc/passwd. This in turn makes it easier for an attacker to brute force SSH accounts by knowing in advance the account names to target.

Typically, Apache doesn’t serve this content, so under normal circumstances (unless there is a flaw in a PHP application, etc.) this information would not be disclosed. If SELinux were installed and in enforcing mode, access to this file would be denied because the SELinux policy would prevent it (since these files are of the wrong type for Apache to access).

So while you may be running a vulnerable version of Apache, or a web application with a flaw in it, SELinux would prevent that disclosure because Apache has no rights to that file (of course, SELinux will happily allow Apache to display files that it does have the rights to access). In this instance, SELinux is a mitigation that would prevent a fairly serious confidentiality breach until such a time as a patched Apache could be installed. In a situation such as this, you really only have four choices:

Turn Apache off to prevent the flaw from being exploited (generally, this would be considered bad for business)Continue to run Apache in a vulnerable state and pray for a quick update from the vendorRoll your own update to fix itUse something like SELinux, AppArmor, or some other MAC system for the proactive system hardening and security features it provides.

Speaking of features, SELinux has a number of features that make it compelling: It allows applications to query the policy, so they aren’t fully hidden from view, unlike with some other MAC systems.It allows in-place policy changes; this means you can change the policy without having to reboot in order to activate the changes (I well remember having to do this with RSBAC).It has control over process initialization, inheritance, and program execution — this gives you the ability to write very flexible policies to suit your needs.It has control over file systems, directories, files, open file descriptors, as well as sockets (such as TCP, UDP, etc.), messaging interfaces, and network interfaces.

Using SELinux, you can fully tweak your system for any kind of operation, be it a web server, file server, print server, even a desktop system can be suitably secured with SELinux.

Of course, all of this comes at a price, and this is what puts most people off. SELinux is complex, and it becomes even more so when you have to write your own policies. Fortunately, distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora come with very comprehensive policies to cover a variety of situations. The policies are quite cookie-cutter, but if you want to change them to accommodate your own system (such as a web directory that exists in a place other than /var/www/html), you can easily do so.

Finally, SELinux offers three modes: enforcing, permissive, and disabled. Most distributions that support SELinux out-of-the-box will have it set to permissive mode first. This tells SELinux to log violations, so that you can use your system and use the reports to build a suitable policy. In permissive mode, a violation is logged, but the access is granted. In enforcing mode, a violation would be logged and the access denied. Disabled, of course, allows access but does not provide any information on what would have been denied. So before disabling SELinux, consider keeping it in permissive mode. You may get a number of alerts, particularly on a desktop system, but these can be used to tweak policy, reducing the number of alerts you will receive later.

Next time, I will look at some basics of SELinux and tweaking the policies, as well as identifying some of the tools that are used to monitor violations and modify policy.

Vincent Danen works on the Red Hat Security Response Team and lives in Canada. He has been writing about and developing on Linux for over 10 years.