HP, Sun boost Unix OS security

By Mark Fontecchio, News Writer 18 Dec 2006 | SearchDataCenter.com

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Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) and Sun Microsystems Inc. have added security features to their Unix operating systems.

HP announced a free upgrade to the HP-UX 11i operating system today that supports encrypting data as it is being stored. Ron Luman, security architect for HP-UX, said the encryption is done at the expense of performance but that overhead "is only going to be around the 10% range, sometimes less sometimes more, depending on the loads."

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Another feature of the HP-UX upgrade is an optional embedded chip for HP Integrity servers that holds security keys to encrypt and decrypt sensitive data, an approach that the company said is less vulnerable than software-based options. Finally, HP-UX can now allow system administrators to isolate data in compartments and apply security settings for each group.

Meanwhile, Sun has upgraded security on Solaris 10 with a feature called Trusted Extensions that allows levels of security to be applied to each object in the operating system environment. In this manner, information can be shared between two levels of security, but only if the object receiving the information has a higher security tag.

The Solaris security features will be included in its commercial and open source versions.

APC offers $150,000 data center guarantee

American Power Conversion Corp. (APC) announced a guarantee today that will reimburse certain customers up to $150,000 if their equipment is damaged because their data center got too hot.

The guarantee is for customers using APC's InfraStruXure Hot-Aisle Containment System, which aims to prevent mixing of hot and cold air in the data center.

To qualify for the guarantee, customers must agree to have APC assess their current power and cooling situation in the data center, design (if they haven't already done so) a high-density InfraStruXure system, use APC's Hot-Aisle Containment System, monitor the data center at all times and undergo a review assessment twice a year.

Data center efficiency bill passes Senate

A data center efficiency bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives this summer has now gained the approval of the U.S. Senate and awaits a decision by the president.

The data center efficiency bill calls for a six-month study on data center efficiency by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The bill lays out nine areas where the study should focus, including the proliferation of servers in federal government and how much energy they consume, potential cost savings of more energy efficient servers and how to encourage manufacturers to build energy efficient equipment.

The EPA, through its Energy Star program, is already supporting a server efficiency standard, which was finalized last month.

Symantec allows encryption on backup servers

Symantec Corp. announced Veritas NetBackup encryption for media servers that will be available starting next month.

The NetBackup Media Server Encryption Option allows data center managers to push the encryption from the backup and recovery software onto a backup server. Encryption was previously done on the application server, which consumed precious processing power needed to the backup application itself.

Neverfail helps keep ACORD insured

The Neverfail Group, a high availability and disaster recovery company, has announced that the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD) will use its software to maintain uptime on its exchange and file server applications.

ACORD, a nonprofit insurance association, provides hundreds of standard insurance forms to its members. It said that Neverfail's software allows its users to go about their business without a hitch while systems failover and switchback to and from a primary and disaster recovery site.

Splunk integrates with Tivoli

Splunk Inc., which created software that acts as a search engine for IT data, has announced a feature that allows its product to integrate with IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus software.

Netcool/OMNIbus monitors a data center network's events in a Tivoli environment. With the Splunk integration, users can now search for those events to help understand what's going on in their networks.

Let us know what you think about the story; e-mail: Mark Fontecchio, News Writer.

Tags: HP Integrity server, Itanium servers and HP-UX,  Sun Solaris Unix and Sparc server platforms,  VIEW ALL TAGS

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