Hewlett-Packard announced several additions and enhancements to its
Linux offerings at the LinuxWorld conference this week.
The Disaster Tolerant Solution for Linux is a system for backing up
and recovering data over a metropolitan-area optical link - up to
100km in length - to aid in recovery from a disaster.
It achieves these distances through DWDM (Dense Wavelength-Division
Multiplexing). The solution consists of the HP MC/ServiceGuard 2.0
software and the HP StorageWorks XP disk array portfolio.
HP Servicecontrol Manager 3.0, a new version of HP's software for
managing multiple servers at once, adds a graphical user interface
and support for XML (Extensible Markup Language).
Administrators now will be able to write scripts in XML to invoke
management actions by the ServiceControl software. ServiceControl
has tools for fault monitoring, configuration and workload
management. It is offered free with Proliant servers. Version 3.0
will become available in the fourth quarter, according to HP Linux
Business Strategist Mike Balma.
HP has expanded its Linux certification program for Compaq Evo
commercial desktop PCs to include all models in the line. It has
certified Red Hat, SuSE Linux, MandrakeSoft and TurboLinux
distributions of Linux to run on the machines.
The HP Print Server Appliance 4200 introduces an updated version of
Print Server Appliance software that runs a new version of the
Samba open-source file and print server. The 4200 model can support
as many as 350 users and 50 printers and is available now for
around $1,999 (£1,303).
A new service, the HP Software Porting Assessment Express Service,
allows users of Unix platforms, including Sun Microsystems, Solaris
and IBM AIX, to migrate to Linux easily for a preset fee.
Version 2.0 of HP Secure OS software for Linux is enhanced with the
inclusion of several open-source applications, including Sendmail.
Each of these applications can be run in a protected software space
through the compartmentalising system in Secure OS. The price of
Secure OS has been reduced to $600 (£391) per machine from the
previous price of $3,000 (£1,956) per machine. Version 2.0 will be
available later this year.