Enterprises need solutions that help them leverage their existing equipment and tools securely and efficiently, asserts Opengear, provider of critical infrastructure management solutions. This should occur, Opengear adds, without myriad logins and security procedures when accessing multiple devices. This philosophy underpins Opengear's new CM7100 Console Server, a state-of-the-art appliance that offers dramatically simplified console management, high reliability and strong security for maximizing the uptime of enterprise networks. The CM7100 is a 16–48 port serial console server that enables network administrators to manage sprawling and complex infrastructure of switches, routers, PDUs, firewalls, servers, UPSes and other critical data-center equipment from a wide array of vendors securely and efficiently. Other key product features include enterprise-grade security with FIPS 140-2 certified SSL, SSH and VPN; dual LAN ports for main and secondary networks; and audit/trail logging to 4GB local storage or a remote log server.
The new Icinga Exchange is a central repository for plugins, files, programs and add-ons that extend Icinga and compatible projects like Nagios, Shinken or Naemon. The repository allows users to search, store and rate Icinga-compatible extensions easily and connect with the people behind them. The project's Solr-based search engine and navigation tags ensure that searches are quick and easy. Users can choose from manual upload or an automated GitHub sync, the latter “taking the fuss out of maintaining a second project site”, notes the Icinga Project. Currently more than 500 projects are available on Icinga Exchange, many of which migrated to the new repository with the previously established Monitoring Exchange repository. The Icinga Project also emphasizes its openness to plugins and add-ons that are compatible with related monitoring tools.
The network software and appliance specialist, Untangle, Inc., recently announced a faster, more agile version 11 of its Untangle NG Firewall software. Untangle claims that its NG Firewall product brings a combination of enterprise-grade capabilities and consumer-oriented simplicity to the management of every aspect of network control. Most notably, version 11 of the solution adds performance gains to the Virus Blocker to address the ever-present and growing threats of malware and to the Spam Blocker to keep unwanted e-mail at bay. In addition, besides an updated kernel, Untangle further added new technologies from the company's IC Control product, improving both HTTPS processing and Captive Portal.
Since news of the Shellshock Bash vulnerability broke, revelations about the impact of the bug have grown, including reports of lost or stolen Secure Shell (SSH) keys being used to access sensitive information covertly. In reaction to Shellshock, SSH Communications Security announced the release of Secure Shell HealthCheck, a solution for discovering major risk and compliance violations related to all aspects of SSH in data-center environments. SSH HealthCheck helps to reduce the risk of failed audits and cyber-security breaches from hackers or malicious insiders. SSH Communications Security, whose chief innovation officer is SSH inventor Tatu Ylönen, recommends properly scanning and managing SSH keys, including comparing and auditing them against approved keys. The company claims that only its tools can achieve this.
The NE-ONE solution was developed by iTrinegy to confront the demands that come from users' accessing applications across myriad devices and mixed networks. NE-ONE enables businesses to understand, predict and manage the performance of applications across today's diverse networks, keeping the performance of networks and applications at their best. iTrinegy says that with NE-ONE, it has eliminated the complexity of dealing with the ecosystem of public, private, cloud, mobile and virtual networks. NE-ONE also offers a modular design, so customers use just the solutions they need, when they need them. NE-ONE comes in two variants: Edge is the ready-to-go hardware-based solution, and Flex is the agile virtual appliance-based solution that can be deployed quickly wherever it's needed on to a network.
The topic of DIY robots is so us, fellow Linuxers. Publishing house Que says that author John Baichtal's new book Robot Builder: The Beginner's Guide to Building Robots will help readers learn the craft of robot building from the ground up in an easy, fun and hands-on way. As the subtitle implies, absolutely no experience is needed. Baichtal has been a veteran author in the DIY [insert geek toy] space for many years and has helped many an intrigued-by-robot geek get started with robotics. Baichtal and Que have brought together a wealth of practical robotics know-how into “one incredibly easy tutorial”. Hundreds of full-color photos guide readers through every step and skill and get them building the first working robot (of 30 total) in the very first chapter. Throughout the book, skill building grows to expert level, and readers will find themselves powering motors, configuring sensors, constructing a chassis and even programming low-cost Arduino microcontrollers.
In classic Linux style, the new Rockstor Network Attached Storage solution from the team at Rockstor, Inc., is free, open-source and versatile. Supporting all popular file-sharing protocols, including NFS, Samba/CIFS and SFTP, Rockstor is available as a complete Linux distribution in ISO file format or a USB image and can be installed on bare metal or as a virtual machine. Rockstor's underlying Linux distro is CentOS and the supported filesystem is BTRFS. A pluggable Smart Probe mechanism and a growing list of smart probes provide detailed on-demand information about the various aspects of storage infrastructure. Rockstor supports advanced features for businesses of all sizes ranging from small to large enterprises—for example, snapshots, fast cloning, thin provisioning, dynamic volume management and replication over WAN. The solution comes with a clean, user-friendly Web UI to manage storage operations conveniently.
Eltechs hopes to lure ARM-based mini-PC users to try its ExaGear Desktop, which the company says can run virtual Intel x86 apps 4.5 times faster than competitor QEMU. Eltechs ExaGear Desktop is a virtual machine that implements a virtual x86 Linux container on ARM-based mini PCs, enabling the direct and simultaneous running of both x86 Linux and native applications. In addition, MS Windows applications can be run via the Wine emulator. The current version does not support applications that require kernel modules nor does it support 3-D hardware.