Developer Explains Choice of the Open Source Platform
The financial management system of the state Tocantins in Brazil is based on the NetBeans platform. Recently, Geertjan Wielenga interviewed developer Paulo Canedo who worked on the application and shares information about its purpose, features, and the benefits derived from the NetBeans platform.
Delivers Fully Transparent and Automated Encryption Solution
Sun StorageTek T10000B tape drive has received the FIPS 140-2 Certification at Security Level 2 - a federal data security standard published and maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). With this certification on Sun’s eco-efficient tape drive, federal customers are ensured the Sun solution meets the FIPS-validated requirements for product purchase, while other end-users can rest assured that it meets stringent security standards. Sun reports that it is the first and only tape drive vendor to achieve Federal FIPS Certification at Security Level 2.
Bill Vass Says This is the Year for Adoptions
Bill Vass, president and COO of Sun Federal, sees light at the end of the tunnel, and that light will soon dawn on the federal government opening itself to the improved security, procurement speed, quality and reduced cost available with open-source solutions. He announces in a recent blog that he expects all of this to happen during 2009.
The Savings and Performance Will Surprise You
There have been some recent success stories involving the federal government’s use of virtual desktop solutions, writes Sun Microsystems Federal CTO Mark Perkins. His conclusion is that virtual desktop solutions are proving their worth to the federal agencies that have adopted them.
Solutions for Databases, Software, Security, and Service
According to Mark Perkins, CTO, Sun Microsystems Federal, business can use Sun’s blueprint for “architecture-based solutions” to help organizations achieve high-quality implementations and get to market faster. The architecture was developed from Sun and OEM technologies, people, and processes and includes solutions in the following areas: datacenter, software, security, and specialty, which includes service components.
Urges Obama Administration to Appoint Cabinet Level CIO
Open source is very much more than just another business model, Scott McNealy maintains in a continuing effort to persuade the federal government to move toward wider adoption of open source solutions. He further urges the appointment of a cabinet-level CIO, whose office could coordinate federal IT policy in a more comprehensive manner than a federal CTO can. Patrick Thibodeau reports on McNealy’s campaign in a recent Computerworld article.
The new Barack Obama administration has requested Scott McNealy, Sun co-founder and currently chairman of Sun’s Board of Directors and Sun Federal, Inc., prepare a paper on open source technologies and products.
Speaking to Maggie Shiels with the BBC, McNealy said the secret to a more secure and cost effective government is through open source and he wants to ensure the government does not get “locked in” to one specific vendor or company.
“The government ought to mandate open source products based on open source reference implementations to improve security, get higher quality software, lower costs, higher reliability - all the benefits that come with open software,” McNealy said.
The Open Source Initiative (OSI), noted stewards of the Open Source Definition (OSD) and the community-recognized body for reviewing and approving licenses as OSD-conformant, support McNealy’s efforts. McNealy and OSI contend that the benefits of open source technologies are one of the main solutions the new President cannot afford to ignore.
“Scott is absolutely correct about the benefits which have been demonstrated time and again,” said OSI President Michael Tiemann, who is also the vice president of Red Hat, an open source technology solutions provider.
“This is the kind of change we need if we are ever going to see the government reform its operational capabilities and cost basis,” continued Tiemann.
Throughout President Obama’s election campaign there has been a referred commitment to an open philosophy.
“The concept of open source is going to become an undercurrent to almost everything this administration does,” predicts Tiemann. “I think what we will see now is a maturation in America and around the world of an understanding of the open source model.”
Sun will be heading a research project on microchip interconnectivity funded by the Department of Defense to the tune of $44.29 million. The 5 1/2 year project will begin with $8.1 million provided to Sun Microsystems’ Microelectronics and Laboratories divisions which will be focusing on microchip interconnectivity via on-chip optical networks enabled by Silicon photonics and proximity communication.
The project will be working to develop supercomputers through interconnecting an array of low-cost chips. Sun’s program combines optical signaling with Proximity Communication, its key chip-to-chip I/O technology, to construct arrays of low-cost chips in a single virtual “macrochip.” Such an aggregation of inexpensive chips looks and performs like a single chip of enormous size, reports Sun. It also avoids soldered chip connections to enable lower total system cost. Long connections across the macrochip leverage the low latency, high bandwidth and low power of silicon optics. Sun and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will be researching technologies to further reduce the cost of these optical connections.
Dr. Jag Shah, program manager in DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office, commented, “DARPA’s UNIC (Ultraperformance Nanophotonic Intrachip Communications) program will demonstrate high performance photonic technology for high bandwidth, on-chip, photonic communications networks for advanced (≥ 10 trillion operations/second) microprocessors. By restoring the balance between computation and communications, the program will significantly enhance DoD’s capabilities for applications such as Image Processing, Autonomous Operations, Synthetic Aperture Radar, as well as supercomputing,”
By providing unprecedented high bandwidth, low latency and low power interconnections between the parallel computing chips in such an array, this research project could help other companies and organizations utilize applications with high compute and communication requirements, such as energy exploration, biotechnology and weather modeling.
“Optical communications could be a truly game-changing technology - an elegant way to continue impressive performance gains while completely changing the economics of large-scale silicon production,” said Greg Papadopoulos, CTO and executive vice president of research and development for Sun.
