Microsoft Announces New Cloud Opportunities for Partners

Press release:

Microsoft Announces New Cloud Opportunities for Partners

July 10, 2012

New guidance, training and programs for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Azure unveiled at Worldwide Partner Conference.

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TORONTO — July 10, 2012 — During the second day of Microsoft Corp.’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), top executives from the company announced new training, tools and other programs that enable partners to deliver compelling new cloud services to their customers. Satya Nadella, president of the Server and Tools Business, announced a community technology preview (CTP) of new technologies that enable hosting service providers to use their Windows Server data centers to deliver capabilities consistent with services running in Windows Azure. In addition, he announced a new program that gives partners guidance, training and software tools to help customers transition from VMware’s virtual infrastructure to Microsoft’s cloud.

“We’ve taken everything that we’ve learned from running data centers and services at a global scale to usher in the new era of the cloud OS,” Nadella said. “Microsoft offers partners modern yet familiar technology to meet customer demand on their path to the cloud.”

With the new CTP, hosting service providers can offer customers turnkey cloud services, including high-scale websites and virtual machine hosting with an extensible self-service portal experience. These capabilities, which run on Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft System Center 2012, will offer hosting providers some of the same experiences and services recently announced by Windows Azure. Go Daddy, the largest global Web hoster, is piloting these new capabilities to deliver new cloud services for customers.

“Customers view Go Daddy as an IT partner with which they can grow,” said Scott Brown, vice president of Product Development – Hosting at Go Daddy. “These new capabilities give customers a seamless path to expanding their online presence. In addition, the improved site performance, scalability and availability all lead to a more enjoyable experience for our customers and their visitors.”

In addition, the new program announced on stage, Switch to Hyper-V, will allow partners to grow their virtualization, private and hybrid cloud computing practices while also helping customers improve IT agility at a lower cost with Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure.

Already, partners are making significant progress in helping their customers with this transition. Microsoft Gold Certified Partner FyrSoft recently helped Iowa-based Pella Corp. migrate nearly 100 percent of its VMware infrastructure — nearly 700 VMware virtual machines — to Hyper-V, moving the company beyond virtualization to a private cloud solution. With the Microsoft private cloud, Pella has evolved its business while reducing IT costs and improving efficiencies. Server and Tools Business Corporate Vice President Takeshi Numoto further details partner opportunities in the era of the cloud OS on a blog published today, and more information can be found here.

In addition, in a keynote that further reinforced how Microsoft is working with its partners to transform businesses throughout the world, Microsoft Business Solutions President Kirill Tatarinov highlighted the incredible opportunity in the year ahead for partners focused on selling business solutions based on Microsoft Dynamics.

“Microsoft brings together technologies in a way that no other company can match,” Tatarinov said. “Microsoft Dynamics takes full advantage of the amazing innovations Microsoft is delivering, and we’re actively supporting our partners in developing and delivering a complete, modern, flexible and cloud-based business solution to grow their businesses. There’s never been a better moment to be a Microsoft Dynamics partner.”

With a renewed focus on building enterprise partnerships, Microsoft announced new global independent software vendors that are choosing or extending their solutions across Microsoft Dynamics. Companies such as Campus Management Corp., Cenium Inc., Cincom Systems Inc., PROS Pricing and Technosoft that are industry leaders in their markets are embracing the Microsoft Dynamics solutions to expand their offerings and in some cases as the core foundation on which to build their unique industry-focused solutions. For instance, global hospitality and hotel solution organization Cenium is extending its Microsoft Dynamics-based business offerings in areas such as property management, procurement, human resources and point of sale; and Campus Management, a leading provider of enterprise software solutions for higher education, is planning to expand global reach by leveraging Microsoft Dynamics AX and providing institutions of any size or complexity more choices when it comes to student information systems and enterprise resource planning solutions.

Other keynotes included the following news and momentum updates from Microsoft senior executives:

• Thom Gruhler, corporate vice president of Windows Phone Marketing, took the stage to demo Windows Phone 8 and highlight that Windows Phone is now a true extension of the Windows that 1 billion users worldwide know and use today.

• Laura Ipsen, corporate vice president of Worldwide Public Sector, provided an overview of Microsoft’s National Plan and citizenship efforts, including empowering youth and driving societal change through the proliferation of Microsoft technology.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

VMware Named a Leader in Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure

VMware News Releases

VMware Named a Leader in Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 29, 2012 – VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today announced that it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the Leaders Quadrant of the 2012 Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure. (1) 

According to Gartner, “Virtualization penetration has surpassed 50 percent of all server workloads, and it continues to grow.” The report continues: “The x86 server virtualization infrastructure market is the foundation for two extremely important market trends that relate and overlap: infrastructure modernization and cloud computing. Virtualization is a fundamental enabler to IaaS, and will be used to establish private cloud services, public cloud services and interoperable hybrid cloud services.”

"VMware customers of all sizes are leveraging a decade of virtualization investments to build cloud operations that will allow them to achieve the peak in automation, flexibility and efficiency," said Rick Jackson, VMware CMO. "We believe our placement in the Leaders Quadrant underscores that VMware has the vision, strategy and offerings to help customers transform IT and deliver on the promise of cloud computing."

Industry Momentum and Recognition

VMware vSphere® is the most widely deployed virtualization platform in the world, broadly utilized by enterprises, small and midsize businesses (SMBs), public cloud service providers and as a foundation for the growing virtual desktop (VDI) market.

• In the past year, VMware's customer base has grown to more than 350,000 customers worldwide, including 100 percent of the Fortune 100.
• There are now more than 125 verified VMware vCloud® public clouds across 26 countries.
• More than 2,000 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) support more than 3,600 applications running on VMware vSphere.

To access the 2012 Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure, go to:http://www.gartner.com/reprints/vmware?id=1-1B2IRYF&ct=120626&st=sg

About the Magic Quadrant
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About VMware
VMware is the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era. Customers rely on VMware to help them transform the way they build, deliver and consume Information Technology resources in a manner that is evolutionary and based on their specific needs. With 2011 revenues of $3.77 billion, VMware has more than 350,000 customers and 50,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.
# # #
VMware, VMware vSphere and VMware vCloud are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions.  All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

(1) Gartner “Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure,” by Thomas J. Bittman, George J. Weiss, Mark A. Margevicius, Philip Dawson, June 11, 2012

Press release from Dell.

Dell Unveils Programs to Enable the ARM-based Server Ecosystem and Accelerate Development and Testing of ARM-based Applications and Solutions

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Date : 5/29/2012

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• Dell enables customers and the developer community through:
  • Promoting open development environments and collaboration with remote-accessible clusters of ARM-based servers via Dell Solution Centers and partnership with Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), which will be available to developers worldwide
  • Delivering Dell ARM-based servers to select hyperscale customers and partners

Dell today announced it is responding to the demands of our customers for continued innovation in support of hyperscale environments, and enabling the ecosystem for ARM-based servers. The ARM-based server market is approaching an inflection point, marked by increasing customer interest in testing and developing applications, and Dell believes now is the right time to help foster development and testing of operating systems and applications for ARM servers. 

Dell is recognized as an industry leader in both the x86 architecture and the hyperscale server market segments. Dell began testing ARM server technology internally in 2010 in response to increasing customer demands for density and power efficiency, and worked closely with select Dell Data Center Solutions (DCS) hyperscale customers to understand their interest level and expectations for ARM-based servers. Today’s announcement is a natural extension of Dell’s server leadership and the company’s continued focus on delivering next generation technology innovation.

As part of this effort, Dell is enabling customers and partners to develop on ARM servers in three ways:

1. Continuing delivery of the Dell “Copper” ARM server to select customers and partners.
2. Delivering servers to key ecosystem partners such as Canonical and Cloudera, to support their development activities.
3. Enabling continued software and ecosystem testing and development by providing remote-accessible Copper server clusters deployed in Dell Solution Centers, and through its deep partnership with Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC).

Customers have expressed great interest in understanding ARM-based server advantages and how they may apply to their hyperscale environments. Dell believes ARM infrastructures demonstrate promise for web front-end and Hadoop environments, where advantages in performance per dollar and performance per watt are critical. The ARM server ecosystem is still developing, and largely available in open-source, non-production versions, and the current focus is on supporting development of that ecosystem. Dell has designed its programs to support today’s market realities by providing lightweight, high-performance seed units and easy remote access to development clusters. 

The Dell “Copper” ARM server seed unit program will support software development and verification with a small number of customers worldwide ranging from the leaders in the hyperscale industry to smaller customers in focused web environments. At present, the Dell “Copper” ARM server is not generally available. Dell will continue to help enable ecosystem development, and bring ARM servers to general availability at the appropriate time. 

Dell is working to enable software development for ARM-based server solutions, together with other leading industry partners such as Canonical and Cloudera. The partnership with these companies, and soon others in Dell’sEmerging Solutions Ecosystem, will help customers and the industry scope and test new applications.

Dell is staging clusters of the Dell “Copper” ARM server within the Dell Solution Centers and with TACC so developers may book time on the platforms. Dell also will deliver an ARM-supported version of Crowbar, Dell’s open-source management infrastructure software, to the industry in the future. 

Quotes“Dell has a long history of addressing customer needs by delivering relevant innovation across the server portfolio, and within its Data Center Solutions business. Today Dell is delivering this same innovation focus to the ARM server market, working hand-in-hand with customers and the community to enable development and testing of workloads for leading-edge hyperscale environments. We recognize the market potential for ARM servers, and with our experience and understanding of the market, are enabling developers with the right systems and access for the current state of the ARM server market maturity.”– Forrest Norrod, vice president and general manager, Server Solutions, Dell 

“Ubuntu is the prevalent OS for scale-out workloads such as Hadoop, Condor, Memcached and edge-of-the-network web servers. The latest release, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, is the first widely-certified enterprise platform with full support for ARM. That combination makes Ubuntu a great fit for the first generation of ARM servers. Canonical - the company behind Ubuntu - is delighted to support Dell in bringing hyperscale ARM server products to market.” – Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu and leader of Canonical product and design

"As the leader in Apache Hadoop and Big Data systems, we are continuously seeking new technologies that can help our Big Data platforms operate at the next level of efficiency. We are very excited about the ARM based server line from Dell, as this technology will allow our customers to pack more processing heft into a smaller data center footprint and do so with a significantly lower energy consumption profile." - Amr Awadallah, co-founder and CTO of Cloudera

“Within data centers, the need to improve performance per watt while decreasing power consumption will continue to be strong area of concern for data center developers, and forcing them to find ways of incorporating density optimized servers into the data centers. We saw Dell’s DCS division become an early innovator and subsequent market leader with customized server solutions stemming from deep engagement with hyperscale customers. Dell is smartly extending this strategy to help foster the ARM ecosystem while providing a robust, reasonably priced testing and development platform with its new Dell Copper ARM server.” - Matt Eastwood, Group Vice President, IDC Enterprise Platforms.

“We are excited to see the growing enthusiasm and demand in the customer and developer communities for energy efficient server solutions based on ARM processor technology. Dell’s program creates a platform for the industry that demonstrates the benefits of ARM processor based system-on-chips in servers, and also enables the opportunity to develop new applications and solutions to address the divergent requirements of cloud based computing. Given Dell’s extensive experience and expertise in the hyperscale market, we’re delighted to be partnering with them at the leading edge of energy efficient server innovation to make this a reality.”- Lance Howarth, EVP marketing at ARM

"Dell's approach to maturing the ARM server ecosystem is the right one, and Marvell is very pleased to collaborate with them. Today's data centers run the distinct risk of over-extension due to the rising popularity of connected lifestyles and the resulting explosion in unstructured data. A key component of Marvell's all-encompassing cloud-services platform, the Marvell(r) ARMADA(r) XP series of multi-core processors, represents a benchmark in security, scalability, performance and power conservation - ultimately offering a vast amount of headroom to cloud service providers looking to reinforce their capacities for the long haul." - Paul Valentine, vice president of marketing for the Cloud Services and Infrastructure (CSI) Business Unit of Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.

About DellDell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit www.dell.com.
 
Dell is a trademark of Dell Inc. Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.

Aboitiz Jebsen Adopts Microsoft SQL Server 2012 to Enhance Crewing System

Press release:

Aboitiz Jebsen Adopts Microsoft SQL Server 2012 to Enhance Crewing System

May 24, 2012

Aboitiz Jebsen gains access to Microsoft innovative technology and a wealth of experience.

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REDMOND, Wash. — May 24, 2012 — Aboitiz Jebsen Co. Inc. (Abojeb), dB Wizards Inc. and Microsoft Philippines recently announced a three-way partnership that will enable Abojeb to meet the needs of its organization and stay competitive in its field by enhancing its crewing system with Microsoft SQL Server 2012. 

This partnership is a renewal and extension of the relationship that started 10 years ago when Abojeb first tapped dB Wizards to develop its crewing system. After maximizing the usage of the system, both technically and functionally, Abojeb realized the pressing need to upgrade its crewing system to address the many changes in the business rules and its business models, as well as to stay competitive. This paved the way to the company’s most recent adoption of SQL Server 2012. 

“The company’s move from the existing platform to this sustainable system architecture offered by Microsoft Corp. allows for the accommodation of the complexity and additional functionality requirements in our operations,” said Bjorn Jebsen, chairman of the Board, Aboitiz Jebsen Co. Inc. “We evaluated various providers and applications and chose dB Wizards based on overall company stability, technical expertise and its relationship with Microsoft to allow us to use the company’s newest version of SQL Server.”

“We are happy that more and more Filipino companies such as Abojeb are realizing the value of making sound IT investments,” said John Bessey, managing director, Microsoft Philippines. “This is a major step for Abojeb and we, together with dB Wizards, are committed to ensuring that it maximizes this investment, ultimately making its operations more streamlined and its people more efficient,” 

Abojeb is a company that provides ship management, crew management, training and other fully integrated maritime services to shipping companies worldwide. Abojeb services the maritime industry by efficiently managing its shipping and crewing system, with the objective of answering the specific needs of its key stakeholders — its business partners, ship owners and managers worldwide as well as more than 7,000 Filipino seafarers. 

A key element most useful to the Abojeb partnership is the tight relationship with Microsoft. As solutions partner, dB Wizards designed the system on the Microsoft platform, taking advantage of SQL Server 2012 advancements in scalability, security and reporting, making possible the major enhancement to Abojeb’s crewing system. 

“With Abojeb being one of our first customers, we are delighted to be chosen once again by Abojeb as its partner of choice for this project,” said Pocholo Reyes, dB Wizards managing director. 

dB Wizards, a leading IT organization, provides world-class solutions and services to enable customers to achieve their business objectives. It takes pride in being a 100 percent Filipino-owned corporation, and an award-winning company, earning the title Systems Integrator Partner of the Year in 2011 and 2008. The value-add it brings to the partnership with Abojeb are its 13 years of experience in application development discipline, change management and SLA-based support via its manage service practice. All of these are valuable in its co-development effort to train Abojeb’s IT team. 

Through partnerships such as this, Microsoft is making its products and innovations more accessible and available to companies, organizations and corporations in the country. 

“With its successful track record of 10 years in information and communication technology, dB Wizards is a good choice of partner to work with,” Bessey said. “dB Wizards brings a wealth of experience to the table. And one important thing that Microsoft believes in is that we are dependent on our partners for our success.” 

More information on the partnership between the Aboitiz Jensen and Microsoft is available in theMicrosoft Customer Spotlight Newsroom.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services, and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Lenovo Expands Server Portfolio with New ThinkServers for Cloud and Virtualization Deployments

Lenovo Expands Server Portfolio with New ThinkServers for Cloud and Virtualization Deployments

Press Release : May 14, 2012

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HP Delivers Increased Performance, Automation with New HP ProLiant Gen8 Servers

New partner program, support offerings and financing available worldwide

Topics:Technology and Innovation, Converged Infrastructure

PALO ALTO, Calif., -- HP today extended its HP ProLiant Generation 8 (Gen8) portfolio with new servers that deliver increased performance, simplified maintenance and improved data center uptime.

HP also announced new financial, support and partner programs, including the HP ProActive Insight Architecture Alliance, which brings together some of the world’s leading technology companies to eliminate manual maintenance tasks and significantly improve data center efficiency.

With HP ProLiant Gen8 and its expanded ecosystem of programs, HP is helping organizations  transform technology silos to efficient, highly automated IT infrastructures that allow as many as 30 days a year to be reallocated from maintenance tasks to innovation that fuels growth.⁽¹⁾  

Delivering greater computing opportunities
The expanded HP ProLiant Gen8 line-up includes new servers based on the latest AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series processors, Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2400 product family and Intel® Xeon® processor E5-4600 product family. Optional enhanced HP PCIe Gen2 IO Accelerators that reduce data access latency enable clients to achieve accelerated application performance and improved compute cycles.

To address the growing requirements that span from small and mid-size businesses up to enterprise organizations, HP is offering new HP ProLiant Gen8 rack-and-tower servers and a new blade server with the Intel Xeon processor E5-2400 product family:

• HP ProLiant DL360e Gen8, a rack-optimized one-rack-unit (1U) server that delivers improved serviceability and supports a range of small, mid-size and enterprise organizations.
• HP ProLiant DL380e Gen8, a rack-optimized two-rack-unit (2U) design that provides improved compute and storage capacity for data center applications.
• HP ProLiant ML350e Gen8, an expandable two-processor (2P) tower that delivers enterprise-level performance to remote and branch office environments.
• HP ProLiant BL420c Gen8, a blade server ideal for midmarket and cost-sensitive enterprise customers, offering enhanced manageability for applications requiring high availability and performance.

HP also is adding AMD Opteron 6200 Series processor support to its HP ProLiant Gen8 line-up, with:

• HP ProLiant DL385p, a 2U performance-based rack server designed for virtualization, database and high performance computing workloads.
• HP ProLiant BL465c Gen8, the first server blade with 2,000 cores per rack for virtualization, database and high-performance workloads.

The HP ProLiant family of scale-up servers also will add support for the Intel Xeon E5-4600 processor in new, density-optimized form factors for both blade and rack servers. These will begin shipping in volume in the summer.  

An ecosystem that maximizes built-in intelligence, delivers leading performance
The HP ProActive Insight Architecture Alliance is focused on maximizing the built-in intelligence of HP ProLiant Gen8 servers. Alliance members are leaders in the memory, storage, input/output (I/0), power and infrastructure segments. They design technology that meets HP ProActive Insight Architecture standards to help analyze thousands of system parameters, and deliver high levels of automation, aiding in the reduction of data center downtime caused by manual errors.

Technology contributed by alliance members is intelligently integrated with HP ProLiant Gen8 to enable the communication of alerts, metrics and other critical system analytics to the HP Insight Onlinesupport portal. Clients that leverage HP’s service feature to troubleshoot issues and optimize performance can decrease their problem-resolution time by as much as 40 percent, reducing potential downtime.⁽²⁾

Additionally, HP is working with leading global software companies, such as Microsoft Corp, Red Hat, SAP and VMware to set industry-leading performance benchmarks with HP ProLiant Gen8 servers. Details on these breakthrough results can be viewed athttp://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/benchmarks/index.html.

Increasing client productivity with customer support and financing
HP Proactive Care provides clients comprehensive “direct to expert” support and services for problem resolution that is up to 66 percent faster.⁽³⁾ This eliminates the delay spent cycling through escalating levels of support and minimizes downtime.

Integrating server diagnostic data with automation tools in HP ProLiant Gen 8 servers provides clients an unmatched support experience for optimization, cost-effectiveness and problem prevention.

To help clients speed time to adoption and maximize their investments, a “ProLiant Gen8 Capabilities and Technologies” course is now available through HP Education Services.

The new HP Financial Services Refresh for Less program provides organizations with the opportunity to transition to HP ProLiant Gen8 without requiring capital budget so they can realize immediate operational savings. HP Financial Services can further ease customer transition from legacy servers with capabilities ranging from trade-ins and logistics, to renewal, remarketing and recycling services. 

HP Gen8 unlocks value for thousands of new customers 
HP has delivered HP ProLiant Gen8 servers to thousands of new clients, including Bitedefender, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Garanti Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Purdue University, Raytheon, University Hospitals Leuven and Verint. 

“As a leader in scientific research to improve patient care, we require a technology infrastructure that can help us evaluate medical advances while eliminating costly, time-consuming manual operations,” said Reinoud Reynders, IT manager, Infrastructure and Operations, University Hospitals Leuven. “The intelligent technologies built into the HP ProLiant Gen8 servers automate most of these tasks, saving us hours of administration time and decreasing operational expenses.”

Pricing and availability⁽⁴⁾The new HP ProLiant Gen8 platforms are expected to be available through HP and worldwide channel partners beginning in June. Pricing will range from $1,600 to $3,500, and varies based on model and configurations.

HP’s premier client event, HP Discover takes place June 4-7 in Las Vegas

---

(1)Based on HP internal testing and development over a two-year period and other competitive materials, including the “Cost of Downtime Tool,” developed by IDC for HP.
(2)Based on internal HP engineering and comparative data.
(3)Based on internal HP engineering and testing.
(4)Estimated U.S. street prices. Actual prices may vary.

Intel and Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. AMD is a trademark of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

News release:

Red Hat and IBM Achieve Top Security Certification for KVM Hypervisor on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and IBM Servers

Raleigh

NC, Global, May 9, 2012

Organizations requiring high levels of security to benefit from open virtualization technology

Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with the KVM hypervisor on IBM Systems has been awarded Common Criteria Certification at Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ (EAL4+). The Common Criteria is an internationally recognized set of standards used by the federal government and other organizations to assess the security and assurance of technology products. This security certification is the first of its kind for an open source virtualization solution.

With this new certification, the KVM hypervisor on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and IBM x86 servers now meets government security standards allowing open virtualization to be used in homeland security projects, command-and-control operations, and throughout government agencies that previously were limited to proprietary virtualization technologies. This security certification paves the way for governments, financial institutions and other security-conscious agencies to create secure, open virtualized IT environments and private clouds.

Open virtualization offers organizations, including government agencies and financial businesses, the opportunity to reduce costs and increase choice with the enterprise-grade KVM hypervisor.

“This certification highlights the combined power of SELinux and KVM and we expect it to pave the way for broader adoption of private cloud computing infrastructure in government agencies,” said Paul Smith, general manager and vice president, public sector operations, Red Hat. “SELinux addresses common government agency concerns about implementing virtualization because it provides for virtual resources to run in separate containers and protect each one individually in case of intrusion.”

“Security is critically important to all our clients as they share workloads and data through virtualization and in the cloud – and especially so to our government and financial customers around the world”, said Jean Staten Healy, director of Linux, IBM. “Today's announcement confirms that open virtualization and KVM are ready for business and are able to offer high levels of security certification on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and IBM Systems.”

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 features Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux), a joint project developed by the National Security Agency (NSA) and Red Hat. This Common Criteria certification allows producers to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with the KVM hypervisor with confidence as they host many tenants on the same machine, knowing that their virtual guests will be separated from each other using Mandatory Access Control technology developed by the NSA.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux with the KVM hypervisor on IBM Systems was certified by BSI, Germany's Federal Office for Information Security. To facilitate this certification, Red Hat and IBM worked with atsec information security, a U.S. government and BSI accredited laboratory, which tested and validated the security, performance and reliability of the solution against the Common Criteria Standard for Information Security Evaluation (ISO/IEC 15408) at EAL4+.

The certification of KVM and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 applies to IBM System x, BladeCenter and iDataPlex servers.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 with the KVM hypervisor is officially “In Evaluation” for Common Criteria certification at EAL4+.

For more information on IBM visit: www.ibm.com/systems or www.ibm.com/linux.

For a full roster of Red Hat’s certifications and accreditations, visithttp://www.redhat.com/solutions/industry/government/certifications.html. For more information on Red Hat, visit www.redhat.com. For more news, more often, visit www.press.redhat.com.

About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open source solutions and an S&P 500 company, is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, with more than 70 offices spanning the globe. Red Hat provides high-quality, affordable technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with cloud, virtualization, management, storage and service-oriented architecture (SOA) solutions, including Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and JBoss Enterprise Middleware. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide. Learn more: www.redhat.com.

About atsec information security
atsec information security corporation is a U.S. Government accredited laboratory, based in Texas, which tests information assurance (IA) and IA-enabled commercial off the shelf (COTS) information technology.

Combining all of our technology security experience and expertise, atsec information security corporation additionally provides strong consulting skills for: network penetration testing; embedded systems and hardware security testing and analysis; the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA); Information Systems Security Management Systems (ISMS); and independent security assessments based on your individual needs.

atsec also operates Government accredited laboratories in Germany and Sweden.

MindTree Strengthens Its Roots Using Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

MindTree Strengthens Its Roots Using Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

May 07, 2012

MindTree consolidates content management, improves employee productivity with a custom unified corporate intranet portal using Microsoft’s business collaboration platform.

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MUMBAI, India — May 7, 2012 — Tasked with managing a plethora of intranet applications and portals that were developed over time with varying technologies and user interfaces, global IT and product engineering services firm MindTree Limited has developed a unified corporate intranet portal — PeopleHub — using Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. The result has been a single access point to all application content, transactions and information sources along with social networking capabilities that have promoted cross-unit collaboration and helped create a sense of community.

“With SharePoint Server 2010, we have an intranet solution that supports enterprise content management, application development and collaboration — all in one,” said Sudhir Kumar Reddy, vice president and chief information officer, MindTree. “In my opinion, it will enable at least 15 minutes, if not more, of productivity improvement per person, per day at MindTree.”

PeopleHub was integrated with two FAST Search servers, which has made it possible for its employees to find information stored in different content sources. It is fine-tuned to not only bring up the best hits in a logical order but also create groupings of multiple results. PeopleHub is robust enough to facilitate an average of 3,000 hits daily (up from 2,250 in a span of six months), 2,000 blogs, 1,300 active discussion threads and growing, 100 wikis, and 60 communities while employees have increasingly made it their landing page.

“We now have a unified platform across the board for transactions, content and social networking,” said NS Parthasarathy, chief operating officer, MindTree. “The new environment encourages information sharing through its user-friendliness, boosts efficiency and has resulted in higher employee satisfaction.”

Supporting the use of social networking tools, such as blogs and wikis, has also encouraged employees to connect with each other and create their own sense of community.

“Our goal was to bring employees together using various modes of communication,” said Sagar Paul, chief knowledge officer, MindTree. “The social networking tools in SharePoint Server 2010 mean better sharing of information, which in turn helps save time and money, and furthers innovation.”

More information on MindTree’s integration of SharePoint Server 2010 with PeopleHub is available in the Microsoft case study and Microsoft Customer Spotlight News Center.

More information about Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 is available athttp://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center athttp://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed athttp://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.