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FreeBSD 6.0 Release Candidate 1 Is Available for Testing

The good people behind the open source FreeBSD Unix operating system are looking for guinea pigs to test the first release candidate of the future FreeBSD 6.0 operating system.

FreeBSD 6.0 RC1 is available for 32-bit X86, 64-bit Opteron, 64-bit Alpha, and 32-bit PC-98, and 54-bit Itanium processors. You can download the software at ftp://ftp.freebsd.org to give it a whirl. The Sparc version of FreeBSD 6.0 RC1 is not available yet, but the FreeBSD project managers say it will be available soon. They also warn of some known bugs that affect the aac(4) driver that can cause it to fail on some Dell machines; further, they say there are some issues with USB keyboards and IDE controllers on laptops. Aside from expanded peripheral and application support, FreeBSD 6.0 is expected to have much-improved SMP scalability compared to the existing (and still fairly new) FreeBSD 5.4 release. The 6.0 release is also expected to have improved support for wireless networks and the relatively new encryption algorithms for them. The project is working on porting the DTrace system tuning program from OpenSolaris to BSD and is also working on a new installer, but the former is still on the whiteboard and it is unclear if the latter will make it into the production release of FreeBSD 6.0. Another interesting goodie: FreeBSD 6.0 will be supported on Apple's G4 PowerMacs and Xserves; there will be broader support for Opteron and Athlon motherboards, too--many of which cannot support FreeBSD 5.4. FreeBSD 6.0 will also see the gutting of the VFS and UFS file systems that will help both uniprocessor and SMP servers double the I/O performance on RAID arrays.

FreeBSD 6.0 went into beta in mid-July, and was expected sometime in late August, but is taking a bit longer to come to market. Scott Long, the release engineer on FreeBSD 6.0, says that the performance and stability of the new release rivals that of the most widely used FreeBSDs out there, which are the FreeBSD 4 releases.

IBM Partners with Univa to Support eServers with Globus Grid Tools

IBM and open-source grid software developer Univa last week unveiled a new partnership that will bring new grid tools to the eServer platforms. As part of the agreement, Univa will deliver a commercially supported and enterprise-ready release of software built around Globus Alliance's open-source Globus Toolkit for use across pSeries, xSeries, zSeries, iSeries, and BladeCenter systems running AIX and Linux.

IBM also plans to use Univa's grid software for internal IT projects, and has taken to comparing the development of grid tools with Linux distros. "We will work closely with Univa on delivery of enterprise- ready implementations of Globus for IBM platforms in much the same way that IBM works with Red Hat and Novell to ensure Linux distributions on IBM platforms are at the forefront of the industry," says Ken King, vice president of grid computing at IBM. Univa was formed in 2004 to provide commercial software, technical support, and professional services for grid infrastructure based on open source Globus Toolkit. Univa's grid software is deployed at more than 1,000 sites around the world, comprising more than 40,000 CPUs and 10 TB of storage, which Univa says makes it the most widely used grid middleware on the market.

Sun Renews Storage Deal with Dot Hill

Sun Microsystems may have spent $4.8 billion to acquire tape and sometimes disk storage maker StorageTek, and it may want to make and sell all of its own gear, but for now, at least, Sun needs to rely on partners. Particularly in the entry disk array business. That's why Sun has re-upped its partnership with Dot Hill Systems, which has supplied entry disk arrays to Sun for a number of years, including the StorEdge 3000 arrays.

Sun has extended its OEM and co-development agreement with Dot Hill until 2011. Dot Hill has just inked another deal to sell gear to Network Appliances. Sun's initial OEM deal with Dot Hill started in 2002 and has been extended three times. Sun is apparently interested in storage and management controller technologies that Dot Hill has gotten ahold of through its acquisition of Chaparral Network Storage in early 2004. Why Sun doesn't just buy Dot Hill is clear: Sun is Dot Hill's biggest customer, and Sun can get exactly what it needs on an OEM basis without having to actually acquire Dot Hill.

Low Interest Rate Deal from Big Blue Gets a Little Less Low

That Low Rate Financing deal that IBM has been touting on and off for a few years to help it peddle hardware and software just got a little less low. In January 2005, IBM had lowered rates to stimulate demand, and in April and then again in July it pushed them a tiny bit above the levels rates were at before it dropped them in January and quite a bit higher than what Big Blue was charging in the summer of 2004.

The Low Rate Financing deal has let companies buying from $25,000 to $1 million in hardware finance it under what IBM calls low rates; those buying pSeries products get the same rates, but get a sweetened deal that can span up to $2 million in a single deal. The rate for pSeries, iSeries, zSeries, and xSeries servers and their associated storage is now 4.25 percent (up from 4.1 percent in April and up from 3 percent in May 2004). Software and consulting contracts from the Business Consulting Services line at IBM's Global Services group can be financed at 4.55 percent, with Integrated Technology Services financed at 5.05 percent. IBM is not selling PCs any more, so they are not in this deal. These low rates are only offered for qualified customers (meaning those with decent credit and solid financials), and they are only available on capital leases with a 24- to-36-month term with a $1 end-of-lease payout. This deal runs through December 31, and is retroactive to October 1.

IBM Debuts New Half and Quarter Racks for the i5s and p5s

Just because everybody loves rack-mounted servers these days does not mean that everyone needs a big 42U rack in their data center. And that is why IBM is introducing some smaller half and quarter racks for the iSeries and pSeries server lines. Specifically, feature 0554 is an 11U (24 inches) rack suitable for entry and midrange customers, while feature 0555 is a 25U (49 inches) rack. Both racks can be equipped with various i5 and p5 rack-mounted servers as well as power distribution units, disk arrays, and so forth. The 11U rack costs $1,129, while the 25U rack costs $1,999.

SSA Global Rejiggers Its Board, Adds Ex-IBMer and Ex-CEO of Siebel Systems

ERP software maker SSA Global has added some big guns to its board of directors. Mike Lawrie, who used to head up IBM's worldwide sales organization and who took the job as the CEO of Siebel Systems as that company was running against the rocks back in May 2004. After Siebel missed a few quarters, Lawrie stepped down from Siebel in April 2005, and it wasn't too long before Oracle's Larry Ellison stepped in and explained to former employee and Siebel founder Tom Siebel that he had an offer that Siebel--both the company and the man--couldn't refuse: $5.85 billion and Siebel gets eaten by Oracle.

Howard Cohen, formerly president and CEO of Gtech Corporation (NYSE), a $1 billion global information technology and infrastructure management company, has also joined the board. Cohen has also been president and CEO of Bell and Howell Corporation, Sidus Systems Corporation, and Peak Technologies, all high-tech firms. Lawrie and Cohen will replace SSA board members Bill Ford and Raymond Wechsler, who are resigning from the board because of pressing responsibilities with their own businesses.

Power.org Adds More Members

The Power.org community of hardware and software vendors that are building solutions based on IBM's Power architecture held a conference in Shanghai, China, recently, creating new working groups to foster the creation of Power-based solutions and adding eight new members to the organization.

Power.org is not a consortium, which would have the power to direct the development of the Power platform, but is rather a collection of Power enthusiasts who use their indirect influence with Big Blue to get it to push the Power architecture in specific ways and into specific markets. It is more like a political party than a ruling government in this regard. Nonetheless, it is a useful way for IBM to open itself up to the advice of partners as it seeks to push the Power architecture into new places.

The two most interesting new members of the community are Terra Soft Solutions and Genesi. Terra Soft is a commercial Linux distributor founded in 1999 that is focused solely on the Power platform with its Yellow Dog Linux, and has been one of the main benefactors of Apple's use of Power chips in its desktops and servers. But with Apple moving to Intel chips starting next year, Terra Soft needs to get its own platforms together. This is exactly what the company plans to do, and it is working with Mercury Computer Systems to deliver the XR9 rack-mounted server, which has two 2.4 GHz PowerPC 970FX processors in 1U and 4U form factors, running Yellow Dog Linux. The XR9 will use HyperTransport and PCI-X buses (which is interesting), with optional InfiniBand interconnections. It will also have two Gigabit Ethernet ports. Genesi is a maker of small form factor motherboards based on PowerPC processors (called PegasosPPC) and a Linux workstation based on these boards (called the Open Desktop Workstation). Genesi already sells products based on the PowerPC G4 processors, and said that it would be developing a product called the Open Server Workstation that will be based on two dual-core PowerPC 970MP processors. The other new Power.org members are CipherOptics (a provider of data security and encryption solutions), CriticalBlue (which creates special co-processors that embed the functions of software to create offload engines), Mentor Graphics (an electronic design automation software provider), Silicon Application Corporation (a semiconductor supply chain services provider), Tehuti Networks (a fabless semiconductor designer), and Virtutech (a developer of simulation software that emulates systems-level software on specific computing architectures). The latter is also interesting in that IBM was using Virtutech to simulate the running of its Virtualization Engine hypervisor on future Power6 processors--before they even went to first silicon.