The 3-year-old Mozilla project has finally stopped adding major new changes as its developers prepare a final 1.0 version of the software. Previous beta, or test, versions have been circulating for years.”
Category:
Hollings’ bill, formerly referred to as the SSSCA (Security Systems Standards and Certification Act) but now dubbed the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA), would require any device that can ‘retrieve or access copyrighted works in digital form’ to include a federally mandated copy protection system.”
Category:
KDE has a tradition of quality development
According to the Web site definition, KDE is “a network transparent contemporary
desktop environment” that is completely free and open. It is also a development
framework that makes it much easier to create software that runs with a
graphical user interface (GUI).
KDE got its start back in 1996, and the first beta was released one year later
in October 1997. KDE 1.0 appeared in July, 1998. Today, the cvs repository
contains about 1.5 million lines of code, and the project boasts hundreds of
developers working voluntarily to continually improve that code by fixing bugs
and adding new features.
KDE development tends to move at a more rapid pace than other Open Source
projects, perhaps because of adherence to the project’s stated philosophy:
Until recently, students and professors who wanted to harness the processing power of the Beowulf clusters — one of which uses 20 Dell servers, the other 20 IBM Netfinity systems — had to modify the programs they were using to run in parallel. That, says Prof. Martin Schultz, of Yale’s computer science department, requires having access to the program’s source code, and using a low-level tool such as Message Passing Interface (MPI) to modify it — not always a simple task. “MPI has over three hundred commands,” Schultz says. “It’s not easy to master.”
Thanks to Turbolinux’ Enfuzion, which Yale is now running on both Beowulf clusters, that’s no longer the case. Enfuzion, says Schultz, is easy to use, because it takes care of distributing programs across the various nodes in the cluster, so they run without having to be modified. Researchers and students at Yale can now take advantage of the super-computing level of power provided by the clusters, without having to do any special programming.
The importance of that “can not be overestimated,” says Schultz. “If scientists have to spend time making changes to their software program, it can take a long time to get their research up and running. When you’re competing with other researchers, you don’t want a system that takes a long time to use, you want to crank out results.”
Now that it’s possible to run programs on the Beowulf clusters without spending lots of time to modify them for parallel computing, Schultz plans to assign projects involving cluster computing to his classes. Several dozen other professors and graduate students, both in and out of the computer science department, will be using Enfuzion to run programs as well.
Eventually, Schultz expects lots of departments on campus to use the clusters. For example, the Yale medical school and the university’s biology departments do a lot of computationally-intensive research. “I expect Enfuzion will play a big role there,” Schultz says. Since Enfuzion can easily manage clusters consisting of thousands of computers, Schultz anticipates no problems expanding the clusters to handle the load.
But the clusters may not have to grow at all. Yale is taking advantage of Enfuzion’s unique ability to harness idle CPU cycles on computers outside the cluster. The university will use Enfuzion to distribute programs to 20 other computers, which sit on the desks of students and professors in the department. Enfuzion’s load balancing facilities will automatically run programs on these systems when they’re not otherwise in use. “If you don’t use them, these CPU cycles disappear,” say Schultz. “It’s not a resource you can store up. But with Enfuzion, these machines will be in use nights and weekends, or whenever someone is not actually sitting at the keyboard using them. It lets us make maximum use of our computing resources.”
About Turbolinux EnFuzion
Turbolinux EnFuzion clusters all available computing resources on a corporate network to create a powerful “virtual supercomputer” and, as a result, allows companies to reduce time and costs associated with computationally demanding data processing jobs. Traditionally, these jobs – such as complex financial calculations – have been handled by expensive high-end servers. With the growing need to process increasing volumes of complex jobs in a shorter time period, the cost of traditional solutions becomes prohibitive. To learn more please visit www.turbolinux.com.
Category:
Category:
In the agreement, IBM Global Services and SuSE will collaborate on support
and professional services. IBM will package and support turnkey
implementations of SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), backed by SuSE’s
expert development, maintenance, and support teams. In addition to this
complete services offering, the two organizations will also collaborate on
customer engagements and supplement each other’s skills to provide a
formidable Linux services delivery capability for corporate customers.
“We are happy to partner with SuSE because it is an industry leader in
delivering Linux enterprise products and services that corporate customers
require. IGS’s global reach and comprehensive portfolio of services and
solutions, combined with SuSE’s advanced Linux offerings, are the complete
Linux solution for corporate enterprise customers,” said Patricia Gibbs,
Vice President, IBM Global Services, Linux Services.
The agreement provides for IBM and SuSE to jointly offer a full range of
Linux services for the enterprise, including:
System Integration/Customization services
Rollout and implementation services
System Management services
24 x 7 Worldwide Maintenance and Support Services
“With the new IBM and SuSE worldwide service alliance, corporate customers
benefit from the availability of enterprise Linux solutions combined with a
broad range of joint support and service offerings anywhere in the world.
This is a major step to make Linux corporate computing a reality,” said
Gerhard Burtscher, CEO of SuSE Linux.
About SuSE
SuSE Linux AG, Nuremberg/Germany, is one of the world’s leading providers
of complete solutions based on the Open Source operating system Linux.
In addition to operating systems and application software for private
customers, SuSE Linux AG offers software solutions and complete systems
for the deployment of Linux in companies.
SuSE supports its enterprise customers with a comprehensive range of
qualified consulting, training, and support services. The company, which
hosts the world’s largest development team for Open Source solutions, has
made its unique project and support know-how accessible via the Internet
in the largest existing Linux knowledge database. For further information
on SuSE, please visit www.suse.com
About IBM Global Services
IBM Global Services is the world’s largest information technology
services provider, with approximately 150,000 professionals serving
customers in 160 countries and annual revenue of more than $35 billion
(2001). IBM Global Services integrates IBM’s broad range of
capabilities — services, hardware, software and research — to help
companies of all sizes realize the full value of information technology.
For more information, visit: www.ibm.com/services
IBM and Linux distribution company SuSE have announced a “first-of-its-kind” partnership in which the two companies will jointly provide support and professional services for big-business customers using or switching to Linux. It’s billed as an agreement that “will make Linux the confident choice of enterprise customers.”This week was the case of the dueling Linux enterprise announcements, as Red Hat announced its enterprise server product in addition to the SuSE announcement. Look for even more choice for big-business customers as IBM plans to expand its support partnerships with other Linux companies in addition to SuSE.
Really, the IBM/SuSE partnership is an expansion of a working agreement IBM and SuSE already have. But Peter Nielsen, Linux offering executive for IBM Global Services, says the partnership will extend the reach of both companies as they’re pitching Linux to big businesses. SuSE benefits from IBM’s global reach, while IBM benefits from SuSE’s market penetration in Europe and from offering a more complete Linux package to customers.
“IBM and SuSE believe that the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts,” says the PR pitch that came with the press release.
Adds Gerhard Burtscher, CEO of SuSE Linux: “With the new IBM and SuSE worldwide service alliance, corporate customers benefit from the availability of enterprise Linux solutions combined with a broad range of joint support and service offerings anywhere in the world. This is a major step to make Linux corporate computing a reality.”
What this means for customers, according to Nielsen, is a more seamless level of support and services when enterprise customers are using the SuSE Linux Enterprise Server in combination with support and services offered by IBM Global Services. The two companies will provide services, though a joint project office, including system integration and customization, and rollout and implementation services.
“Enterprise customers have expectations of a very high level of support,” Nielsen says. “By really offering the combination of the maintenance which comes with the SuSE Enterprise Server, along with Global Services’ support line, we think that gives a more complete enterprise level of service for Linux.”
That will mean a close tie between support organizations at both companies, in which IBM Global Services can ask SuSE for fixes, can provide fixes, and can act as an agent for selling the SuSE Linux Enterprise Server,” he says.
While SuSE is the first Linux distributor to enter into this level of partnership with IBM, look for more such agreements between IBM and other Linux companies. IBM PR people are fond of quoting a recent IDC report predicting 2002 will be a “breakout” year for Linux, with predictions that Linux will grow by 37% in the corporate IT market, while Windows NT will grow by just 6%.
“This is the most comprehensive agreement we have with a distributor,” Nielsen says. “We’re interested in relationships with any Linux services companies our customers are getting engaged with. This is just the first.”
Stacey Quandt, a Linux and Open Source analyst with Giga Information Group, notes that the expansion of the SuSE and IBM partnership should have an impact on enterprise adoption of Linux. “Since service and support remains among the
top five selection criteria for end-users choosing a Linux distribution the
fact that SuSE and IBM have formed a closer relationship is significant,” she says.
