New Products

Ellen M. Dahl

Issue #78, October 2000

64-Bit PCI-Wide/Ultra160 SCSI, ClusterWorX v1.2 and more.

64-Bit PCI-Wide/Ultra160 SCSI

The 64-bit PCI-Wide/Ultra160 SCSI RAID controllers with optional clustering support are available from ICP vortex. These controllers join ICP's powerful RN series, supporting RAID levels 0, 1, 4, 5 and 10. The ICP GDT7523RN, GDT7543RN, GDT7563RN models offer 2, 4 or 6 Ultra160 channels and support data transfer rates of 160MB/sec per channel, with up to 15 devices attached to each channel on cables up to 12 meters in length. They feature 64-bit architecture for high data transfer rates. The controllers are PCI 2.2 compliant with full bus mastering capabilities. They can be equipped with one 16MB, 32MB, 64MB or 128MB standard unbuffered PC100 DIMM module, with or without ECC. Other features include automatic cache RAM detection, multi-level delayed write and read-ahead cache with intelligent self-adjusting management. ICP controllers support Linux and are all intelligent input/output-ready.

Contact: ICP Vortex Corporation, 4001 E. Broadway, B-20, Phoenix, AZ 85040, 602-414-0414, 602-414-0444 (fax), sales@icp-vortex.com, http://www.icp-vortex.com/.

ClusterWorX v1.2

ClusterWorX version 1.2 provides users with a GUI featuring both command line and HTML. Management tools include remote access, disk cloning and serial access to nodes, including remote monitoring and resetting of individual nodes without affecting the uptime of the entire system. Features are architecture-independent with support for any standard ATX or XATX motherboard. ClusterWorX software is distributed with Linux NetworX cluster systems and is not yet offered as a separate software package.

Contact: Linux NetworX, 8689 South 700 West, Sandy, UT 84070, 801-562-1010, 801-568-1010 (fax), sales@linuxnetworx.com, http://www.linuxnetworx.com/.

FacetTerm for Linux

FacetTerm provides multiple sessions on PCs with terminal emulation and on character terminals. The multi-session and productivity software works with all character-based UNIX applications (without change) and all text terminals or PC terminal emulators. FacetTerm Version 3 is compatible with Red Hat, SuSE, Caldera OpenLinux and TurboLinux, and is supported on all other versions of Linux with the glibc version 2 runtime libraries.

Contact: FacetCorp, 1820 Preston Park Blvd., Suite 1000, Plano, TX 75093, 972-985-9901, 972-612-2035 (fax), info@facetcorp.com, http://www.facetcorp.com/.

LifeKeeper for Linux 3.0

SteelEye Technology Inc. announced its LifeKeeper for Linux 3.0, an automated, high-availability clustering solution, commercially available on Red Hat Linux, that ensures continuous availability of business and mission-critical applications and data as well as 24 x 7 system uptime. LifeKeeper is suited for web-centric enterprise applications as it provides IT and system managers with the ability to implement fail-over and system back-up solutions that support round-the-clock availability of applications, data and Linux servers in enterprise e-commerce environments.

Contact: SteelEye Technology, 2660 Marine Way, Suite 200, Mountain View, CA 94043, 650-318-0108, 650-938-4291 (fax), info@steeleye.com, http://www.steeleye.com/.

MachZ PC-on-a-Chip

The ultra-low-power MachZ PC-on-a-Chip is available from ZFLinux Devices. MachZ Integrated Development Systems include Red Hat Linux 6.2, LynuxWorks BlueCat Linux and LynuxWorks development tools for creating compact, customized Linux embedded applications. The MachZ consumes less than two watts of power and runs at temperatures low enough to make cooling fans unnecessary. The software suite integrates a Phoenix BIOS and customized Linux implementation or VxWorks RTOS tailored to the MachZ's hardware features, including PCI, ISA and Access (I2C) buses, serial and parallel I/O, floppy and hard disk controllers. The chip is a .25 micron technology device in a 388BGA, 35mm by 35mm package.

Contact: ZFLinux Devices, Inc., 1052 Elwell Court, Palo Alto, CA 94303, 650-965-3800, 650-965-4050 (fax), info@zflinux.com, http://www.zflinux.com/.

MediaXpress

MediaXpress is a knowledge and content management solution allowing delivery of external news to a larger management system as an easy “snap in” to most any system. The corporate portal solution utilizes powerful XML technology to sort, customize and deliver real-time news and other digital content from over 400 media sources directly to a customer's web server.

Contact: WAVO Corporation, 3131 East Camelback Road, Suite 320, Phoenix, AZ 85016, 877-834-6397 (toll-free), 602-468-5790 (fax), salesinfo@mediaxpress.com, http://www.mediaxpress.com/.

Gateway Guardian

Gateway Guardian offers an affordable, advanced security software solution. The Linux-based firewall products are available in Personal and VPN editions, designed to protect networked computers with a quick software install on a PC, and also in a Professional edition.

Contact: NetMaster Networking Solutions, Inc., 46165 Yale Rd., #317, Chilliwack, BC V2P 2P2, Canada, 888-335-3638 (toll-free), 604-792-0911 (fax), info@netmaster.com, http://www.netmaster.com/.

NETspider-U PCI 128K ISDN Card

Traverse Technologies released the NETspider-U ISDN card for Linux. The NETspider is a fully integrated internal modem card providing high-speed ISDN access to the Internet, intranets and on-line services. It eliminates the need for an external ISDN router/modem, and allows a Linux machine to be a router/firewall/gateway with connectivity at 64, 128 or 256KBps. Benefits are its fast and efficient HTML sessions; downloads and file transfers supporting PPP, ML-PPP and RAW IP protocols; support of the US NI-1 ISDN switch protocol; easy installation and low cost. NI-1 HiSax drivers are available for Linux 2.0.36 and 2.2.x kernels.

Contact: Traverse Technologies, 652 Smith St., Clifton Hill, Victoria 3068, Australia, +61-3-9486-7775, +61-3-9482-7754 (fax), info@traverse.com.au, http://www.traverse.com.au/.

BestAcct Accounting Software

BestAcct is a suite of corporate business accounting programs, designed exclusively for the Linux desktop. BestAcct meets rigorous financial accounting standards and includes the following modules: General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, One-Step Check-Writer and Sales Invoicing/Receipts. A free evaluation copy of the programs may be downloaded from the web site.

Contact: Proven Software, Inc., info@BestAcct.com. http://www.BestAcct.com/.

qCF for Linux

Quadron's qCF for Linux is a software development toolkit for ARTIC communication cards installed in Linux servers or workstations. It enables users to create an exact solution for their communication requirements. They can run async, bisync, HDLC or custom variations on a Linux/ARTIC system. The ARTIC card has its own on-board processor, making it a dedicated programmable communications computer that resides within the Linux computer system. The toolkit comes with a real-time analysis tool for debugging and gathering performance data, as well as communication statistics gathering facilities for error detection and correction. Three PCI-bus ARTIC cards are available for qCF for Linux: ARTIC186 8-Port PCI Adapter, ARTIC186 Model II ISA/PCI Adapter and ARTIC X.25 ISA/PCI Adapter.

Contact: Quadron Corporation, 209 East Victoria St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101, 805-966-6424, 805-966-7630 (fax), info@quadron.com, http://www.quadron.com/.

SMP for PowerPC

Synergy Microsystems announced support for Linux with Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) on all its PowerPC-based multiprocessor boards. This is the first release of Linux SMP for VME and CompactPCI PowerPC boards and includes Yellow Dog Linux Champion Server 1.2. Linux SMP runs on all of Synergy's multiprocessor PowerPC G3/G4 boards, including the dual-CPU VGM5 and quad-CPU VSS4 for VME, and the dual-CPU KGM5 for CompactPCI. The OS is fully compatible with the Synergy Scientific Subroutine Library (SSSL).

Contact: Synergy Microsystems, Inc., 9605 Scranton Rd. Ste. 700, San Diego, CA 92121, 888-479-6374 (toll-free), 858-452-0060 (fax), sales@synergymicro.com, www.synergymicro.com/linux.html.

tRAID

tRAID provides users with a scalable and robust enterprise-class storage solution at an open-systems price. The BigStorage tRAID can be configured to hold over two terabytes of usable storage per subsystem, and it can chain two additional 3U JBOD units to the controller unit. Available in both UltraSCSI and FibreChannel versions, the tRAID offers reliability with top-notch controller design, hot-swap SCA drives and power supplies, and high-airflow layout. The tRAID is backed by BigStorage's 24/7 Live Response customer support system to guarantee maximum client uptime.

Contact: BigStorage Inc., 19 Heron St., San Francisco, CA 94103, 800-846-3789 (toll-free), 415-252-1521 (fax), info@bigstorage.com, http://www.bigstorage.com/.

Digital Image Processing

Wolfram Research announced the release of Digital Image Processing, a new Mathematica application package with a collection of fundamental and advanced image processing tools. Its functionality is integrated into Mathematica, allowing users to perform much more sophisticated analyses with it than with standard image processing software. With Digital Image Processing, one can import and export more than 15 standard image formats; use grayscale, RGB, HSV, and CMYK color models; apply dozens of predefined filters and filter-design algorithms; perform region-of-interest processing over arbitrary polygonal regions; and smooth and sharpen images and reduce noise. Digital Image Processing is designed for use with Mathematica 4 or later versions and is available for several platforms, including Linux (PC).

Contact: Wolfram Research, Inc., 100 Trade Center Dr., Champaign, IL 61820-7237, 800-965-3726 (t0ll-free), 217-398-0747 (fax), info@wolfram.com, www.wolfram.com/products/applications/digitalimage.

e-smith 4.0

e-smith announced the newest version of their Linux-based communications server for small and growing businesses. e-smith server and gateway 4.0 offer reliability and simplicity in e-mail, web access and other essential on-premise, network-based services at a fraction of the cost of other alternatives. Based on the latest version of Red Hat Linux, the e-smith server and gateway automates installation and integrates reliable open-source technology such as Apache Web Server, Qmail Mail Transport Agent, ProFTPd FTP Server and Squid Internet Object Cache. The system can be administered from any desktop using a standard web browser.

Contact: e-smith, inc., 150 Metcalfe St., Suite 1500, Ottawa, ON K2P 1P1, Canada, 613-564-8000, 613-564-7739 (fax), sales@e-smith.net, http://www.e-smith.com/.