A Reuters report at ZDNET says “Microsoft senior vice president Joachim Kempin is stepping down
from his high-profile job managing Microsoft’s relations with
computer makers, the Wall Street Journal reported in its
electronic edition Monday.”

Newsforge reader Heather Araskiewicz sent in this press release: “Mission Critical Linux, Inc. today announced the immediate availability of Convolo Cluster Version 1.2, which fully supports Network File System (NFS) failover.”A prominent innovator in Linux cluster technology, Mission Critical Linux, Inc. launched the first Linux-specific cluster solution that provided high availability while guaranteeing data integrity. Convolo Version 1.2 is being released on the heels of the first version, and signals the continued strong commitment the company is making to high availability Linux solutions for the enterprise. Full NFS failover support, including support for NFS locking protocols and the complete set of authentication and privileges, addresses the stringent requirements of Linux deployments, which require continuous network filesystem access.

The Convolo cluster is built from the ground up on Linux, and is certified on all major Linux distributions. The shared storage architecture supports SCSI and Fibre Channel, complete Quorum-based data integrity, active-passive and active-active failover configurations, highly available NFS and Apache services and out of the box database applications such as Oracle, DB2, MySQL, and NFS. In addition, Mission Critical Linux, Inc. has qualified their cluster on the IA-32 and IA-64 architectures.
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“The demand for NFS support has been quite overwhelming, and it has been an exciting challenge,” said Brian Stevens, Chief Strategy Officer at Mission Critical Linux, Inc. “We are extremely pleased to be able to deliver a fast response to our customers, thus enabling them to fully deploy high-availability NFS solutions in their large scale networked infrastructure. This continues with our vision of moving Linux to the enterprise.”

Availability

Convolo Cluster Software Version 1.2 is available now from Mission Critical Linux, Inc., and is priced at $ 1,990 for a two-node cluster. Existing customers will receive Version 1.2 under their 90-warranty. Online ordering is available at www.missioncriticallinux.com/products/convolo. The software is delivered in RPM and DEB formats, ready for fast and easy installation or upgrade on any supported Linux distribution. A graphical, browser-based management interface for day-to-day operations and a command-line management interface for scripting of regular operations is included with the package. A 30-day evaluation CD is available through sales@missioncriticallinux.com.
About Mission Critical Linux, Inc.

Mission Critical Linux, Inc. offers enterprise-ready Linux professional services to help plan and deploy efficient and highly available Linux systems; custom engineering for specific development needs; and 24/7 support to ensure maximum systems availability and performance. By combining these services with ground-breaking Linux technologies such as Secure Service Technology and Convolo Cluster Software, the Company provides commercial Linux users with the tools needed to maximize the performance of their IT infrastructure. Headquartered in Lowell, Massachusetts, with offices in Santa Clara, California and Europe, Mission Critical Linux, Inc. can be reached at www.missioncriticallinux.com or at +1 877.625.4689 toll free or +1 978.606.0200.
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“The GNU General Public License typically does not apply to web applications because they are not actually distributed. We need a
new license to ensure our code remains truly free in the face of server-based applications.” From Advogato.org.

“If any of you have been with us throughout the years and dozens of staff members, you’ll know that one of our first motherboard reviews was the Soyo SY-5EHM.
Well, we were reviewing it when it wasn’t crashing, that is.” From the DukeOfUrl.org.

Lou Grinzo posted this commentary at LinuxToday: “Is Linux starting to converge on a desktop standard, and if so, is that necessarily a good thing? I’ve been
pondering these issues for quite some time, and some recent market survey information that’s come to my
attention has shed at least a few stray photons in their general direction. At this time in Linux’s lifespan these
are both Big Topics, so I’ll talk about the ‘is it happening’ issue this time around, and leave ‘is it a good thing’
for the next Lou’s Views.”

Newsforge regulars from LinuxNews Team offer this tidbit: “Turn message into spam and back into message? Now you can use ‘spam encryption’ in countries where real encryption is illegal 😉 Pretty smart 🙂
Check out sample spam .”

LinuxToday has the scoop on the latest pre-release version of 2.4.

The Standard reports that, between its antitrust case appeal and a slumping PC market, the year 2001 will be a tough one for Microsoft, which saw its stock tank on an earnings warning – taking down the market with it.

Setting the stage for an even more competitive processor market in 2001, Intel plans to expand its new Pentium 4 chip into wider markets by lowering prices, while also moving the chip’s core technology into its server-class processors, Intel officials said. From PCWorld IDG.

From ZDNET: “Linux and open source: The news here is much more
favorable. We supported a number of important
open-source initiatives this year and continue to be
encouraged by the growing maturation, manageability
and interoperability of open-source software. While the
boosterism surrounding open source often generates
more heat than light, anything that provides more
choices and keeps IT in the driver’s seat will always get
our backing.”