Product Previews, 8/16/2004

Novell brings updated kernel to enterprise Linux Timed to coincide with this year’s Linuxworld expo, Novell has announced SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9. Though Novell’s SuSE division has marketed a commercial Linux distribution based on the v2.6 kernel, this is the first to be granted the more stringently qualified “enterprise” designation. Besides kernel-level improvements and the usual collection of updated software packages, this release offers improved fail-over, clustering, and resource management and comes bundled with Novell’s ZENworks configuration management software for Linux. The company claims that its AutoBuild system allows it to offer identical configurations for a variety of platforms, including x86 (both 32- and 64-bit), Itanium, IBM POWER, and IBM mainframes. Free evaluation downloads are available now and maintenance subscriptions start at $349 per dual-CPU server. SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, Novell/SuSE

Cross-platform visibility Managing complex, heterogeneous IT environments can be difficult and costly, but Indicative hopes to ease some of those woes with the latest version of its enterprise IT management software. Indicative 6.0 ships with templates for managing performance and availability of a variety of assets, including Windows, J2EE, and BEA WebLogic environments, allowing managers better visibility into the entire infrastructure. It’s priced according to usage, starting at $50,000 including implementation and first-year support. Indicative 6.0, Indicative

BPM with the works Support for BPEL isn’t the only new feature in e-Work 6.5, the BPM suite from Metastorm. The new version includes an Advanced Rules Module based on the Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 Rules Engine, a configurable executive dashboard that allows real-time monitoring and adapters for message queues including IBM WebSphere MQ, Microsoft MQ, and JMS (Java Messaging System). Contact Metastorm for pricing. e-Work 6.5, Metastorm

Pay-as-you-grow array When scaled to as much as 2.3TB, Winchester Systems’ SC-4400 FlashDisk RAID array can connect to five independent, heterogeneous hosts. If connected to three or fewer hosts, the same array can scale to 4.6TB with an expansion module. The unit includes dual, redundant 64-bit RAID controllers and hot-swappable components. Also bundled is the FlashConsole management appliance and one year of Winchester’s FlashAlert remote monitoring and notification service. Priced starting at $23,450. SC-4400 FlashDisk, Winchester Systems