IBM recently announced the new z114. As the newest member of the IBM System z family, the z114 with Linux offers new levels of freedom and a whole new world of capabilities for a broader set of businesses, delivering the scalability, flexibility, and breakthrough performance you need-at a lower capacity and attractive entry price point for small and mid-sized organizations.

The Open Virtualization Alliance, which was announced in May by technology leaders IBM, Red Hat, SUSE, BMC Software, Eucalyptus Systems, HP, and Intel, continues to gain momentum, with over 100 member companies already signed up.

Last month, Linux Executive Report presented an interview with Jean Staten Healy, director for Cross-IBM Linux and Open Virtualization. A longtime supporter of Linux and open source technologies, IBM has also become a leading proponent of Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and is a founding member of the recently-formed Open Virtualization Alliance.

LinuxCon North America, the industry's premiere Linux conference, will be held in Vancouver, at the Hyatt Regency August 17-19. This year, the annual technical conference will host the celebration of the 20th anniversary of Linux, in which Linux creator Linus Torvalds will take part. In addition, Torvalds will participate in an interview-style keynote and discuss the technical advancements and challenges related to the Linux kernel with kernel developer and maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman.

In light of Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems, enterprise customers on the Sun SPARC-Solaris platform face uncertainty in ongoing support and development, and should consider alternatives, according to a new Cabot Partners white paper sponsored by IBM and Intel.

SUSE has announced the availability of SUSE Studio Version 1.2. The latest update to the award-winning development platform is intended to help customers more easily build, update and manage application images across x86, public cloud and IBM System z deployments, reducing the overhead associated with managing a heterogeneous IT environment.

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) supports enterprise-class performance and scalability to run mission-critical Windows and Linux workloads. Because KVM is open source, it is flexible and cost-effective.

Virtualization combined with Integrated Service Management helps you use your resources effectively, manage your infrastructures efficiently, and gain the flexibility to meet ever-changing business demands.

LinuxCon North America, the industry's premiere Linux conference, will be held in Vancouver, at the Hyatt Regency August 17-19. This year, the annual technical conference will host the celebration of the 20th anniversary of Linux, in which Linux creator Linus Torvalds will take part. In addition, Torvalds will participate in an interview-style keynote and discuss the technical advancements and challenges related to the Linux kernel with kernel developer and maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman.

GOSCON and Innovation Nation 2011 will be held jointly in Washington, D.C. on August 23. The government open source conference will take place at the D.C. Convention Center, Washington D.C.

Last month, LinuxLine presented an interview with Jean Staten Healy, director for Cross-IBM Linux and Open Virtualization. A longtime supporter of Linux and open source technologies, IBM has also become a leading proponent of Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and is a founding member of the recently-formed Open Virtualization Alliance. With 2011 marking IBM's centennial, as well as the 20th anniversary of Linux, Staten Healy reflected on the ways each has contributed to the other, and the promise offered now by open virtualization to help customers ensure cost efficiency and avoid vendor lock-in in virtualized environments.

The Open Virtualization Alliance, which was announced in May by technology leaders IBM, Red Hat, SUSE, BMC Software, Eucalyptus Systems, HP, and Intel, continues to gain momentum, with over 100 member companies already signed up.

IBM recently announced the new z114. As the newest member of the IBM System z family, the z114 with Linux offers new levels of freedom and a whole new world of capabilities for a broader set of businesses, delivering the scalability, flexibility, and breakthrough performance you need-at a lower capacity and attractive entry price point for small and mid-sized organizations.

The rise of big data has garnered much of the attention in the data management arena lately. But it is not simply the sheer volume of data that is challenging data professionals. Many new types and brands of DBMSs are also popping up across organizations, bringing new problems for the data professionals who are tasked with managing them, and also giving rise to scores of "accidental database administrators" with no formal DBA training, a new Unisphere Research study reveals. The results of the survey are explained in a report titled "Data Cross-Currents: 2011 Survey on Cross-Platform Database Administration," now available from Quest Software.

In our previous issue of 5 Minute Briefing: Data Center, we disclosed the federal government's plans to close up to 800 of its 2,000 data centers. A new survey, conducted by Juniper, suggests that these efforts may end up costing just as much as running the separate centers.

The SHARE conference is taking place this week in Orlando. In this interview with 5 Minute Briefing: Data Center, SHARE President Janet Sun outlines what SHARE means to its members, as well as the industry at large. "We can't be everything to everybody. But we can be everything to the mainframe community, and we can provide a lot to all the other communities, as well," says Sun.

GT Software, a provider of mainframe integration and data access solutions, today announced at the SHARE conference that its flagship product, Ivory Service Architect, now enables developers to build web services that natively access CA IDMS programs and data. By providing native access, Ivory Service Architect enables developers to more rapidly access and extend business applications. "With this enhancement, it's even easier to achieve seamless, secure, high performance access to valuable mainframe applications provided by CA IDMS," according to Steve Able, chief technology officer for GT Software. "CA IDMS developers now have a better way to enable web services."

EMC Corporation today announced that it intends to ship its next-generation mainframe virtual tape library (VTL) this September. Designed for use in IBM z/OS environments, the new EMC DLm6000 boasts more rapid throughput, the vendor says.

Symantec Corp. has announced the availability of Enterprise Vault 10, the new version of its email and content archiving software that now features Symantec's data loss prevention technology. In addition, the latest version of Enterprise Vault 10 offers the ability to archive all social media interactions. "We have seen companies get used to the idea of archiving their email, files, instant messaging, and SharePoint sites, and this is really the next wave," Trevor Daughney, senior manager of product marketing for Enterprise Vault, tells 5 Minute Briefing.

IBM and Security First Corp., a data high availability and security company, have announced a joint development agreement aimed at delivering increased performance, security, and high data availability to storage and cloud-based computing customers.

The rise of big data has garnered much of the attention in the data management arena lately. But it is not simply the sheer volume of data that is challenging data professionals. Many new types and brands of DBMSs are also popping up across organizations, bringing new problems for the data professionals who are tasked with managing them, and also giving rise to scores of "accidental database administrators" with no formal DBA training, a new Unisphere Research study reveals.

Gluster, a provider of scale-out, open source storage solutions, has introduced the Gluster Connector for OpenStack, which provides scalable and highly-available VM storage functionality for OpenStack. "The Gluster Connector for OpenStack enhances the storage options that are available for OpenStack," John Kreisa, vice president of marketing at Gluster, tells 5 Minute Briefing. By enabling users of the OpenStack framework to now use GlusterFS as the primary storage model, OpenStack users can have both file and object in one common storage model, explains Kreisa.

CA Technologies has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Watchmouse B.V. (WatchMouse), a provider of SaaS-based monitoring for cloud, mobile and traditional web applications. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. "As companies extend more applications to their customers through the web and smartphones, the performance of those applications is having a greater impact on revenue, customer loyalty and brand value," says David Dobson, executive vice president, CA Technologies.

Less than one year following its acquisition of Sybase, SAP AG is opening up mobile solutions from the Sybase portfolio to partners within the global SAP ecosystem. This marks the first time that SAP value-added resellers (VARs) that are currently authorized to sell SAP BusinessObjects and SAP Business All-in-One solutions get the opportunity to sell select Sybase-branded enterprise mobility apps and solutions for application development, device management and security. "Making Sybase solutions available through our existing reselling partners around the world allows us to reach a wider array of customers, both large and small, and allows customers to team up with the best partners to meet their distinct mobility needs," said Friedrich Neumeyer, senior vice president, Volume Reseller and Service Partners, Global Ecosystem and Channels, SAP.

Sybase, an SAP company, has announced the general availability of Sybase IQ 15.3, which aims to help enterprise IT departments overcome the scalability limitations of many data warehouse approaches. By implementing a business analytics information platform that allows sharing of computing and data resources through the new Sybase IQ PlexQ technology, the company says enterprises can break down user and information silos to increase analytics adoption throughout their entire organization. There is a lot of talk about big data, but how to manage it and analyze it is only half the problem, observes David Jonker, senior product marketing manager of Sybase IQ. "The other half is how do you make it more pervasive throughout the enterprise and from our perspective that is where a lot of the existing data warehousing solutions fall down."

SafeNet, Inc., a provider of information security solutions, has announced that Sentinel Cloud is now supported by the Dell Boomi AtomSphere cloud integration platform, enabling cloud service providers to easily connect SafeNet's licensing and entitlement management services with their existing on-premise or cloud-based back-office systems.

IBM announced a new zEnterprise System - the z114 - intended for adoption in small to medium-size businesses, and designed to consolidate workloads from hundreds of x86 servers. The new machine, with a base price of $75,000, offers significant improvements over the IBM z10 BC system, the company says. In addition, IBM also announced the ability to integrate and manage workload on select IBM System x servers running Linux as part of the zEnterprise System. Support for Microsoft Windows on select System x servers will follow, IBM says.

CA Technologies' Mainframe Security Management products have met the requirements of Common Criteria, an independent security certification recognized by governments in more than 26 countries, including the United States. "CA ACF2 and CA Top Secret are widely used by enterprise level customers, both government and commercial customers, and it's incumbent on us to be diligent in keeping the products current with the most rigorous global security standards," Mark Combs, distinguished senior vice president, mainframe at CA Technologies, tells 5 Minute Briefing.

SUSE, an enterprise Linux operating system provider and division of The Attachmate Group, says it is shipping the latest update to its development platform for building, updating and managing application images across x86, public cloud and IBM System z deployments. SUSE Studio Version 1.2 is designed to provide the ability to assemble, build and maintain complete portable application stacks quickly across a range of platforms. SUSE Studio also is intended to bridge x86 microprocessor architectures and mainframes by simplifying the creation, testing, maintenance and deployment of software applications on the mainframe. The toolset supports hundreds of mission-critical Linux images on mainframes, accessible by an interface for building mainframe workloads.