amiga-news.de - Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release

04.Dec.2003
Genesi (E-Mail) Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release
Genesi today announced a new, PowerPC®-based, modular MicroATX mainboard release that brings flexibility and efficient processing power to performance-intensive applications, including desktops, workstations, servers, and communications products.

This latest MicroATX board is the most powerful and cost-effective hardware foundation for Genesi's popular Pegasos platform, with over 1,000 users in 34 countries around the world.

The new motherboard features an IBM PowerPC 750CXe microprocessor and supports industry standards software such as Open Firmware, and multiple operating systems including distributions of Linux and BSD.

"Genesi's new PowerPC-based computer brings effective and flexible processing power to the desktop, low-end server, firewall and pervasive space at an affordable price", said Bill Buck, CEO of Genesi.

Looking forward, Mr. Buck also revealed that Genesi would be working closely with IBM to release a 64-bit Pegasos workstation in 2004, based on the new IBM PowerPC 970 microprocessor.

"Today's Pegasos release is a starting point that will enable all the operating systems developed for the PowerPC environment to begin to move in this direction with confidence and purpose", he explained.

The new Pegasos platform is also the core for Genesi's first commercial product designed to support the increasingly-important security infrastructure requirements of Fortune 1000 companies and large institutions.

The Pegasos Guardian provides: border protection of networks; proactive protection of network assets; and logging and auditing of suspicious network traffic.

"IT Managers must know exactly what is happening on their networks, and why", said Buck. "The Guardian gives you a very high level of control and the new MicroATX board provides the performance platform for them to achieve this."

Choice of the PowerPC environment enhances the security that Guardian offers: "Much of the office and network IT infrastructure in use today is x86-based", explained Buck. "The Guardian runs on a different processor platform and is not as susceptible to the common buffer overflows that are the main entry point for security breaches." Any element of security begins with people, procedure and enforcement, but with tools such as the Guardian IT Managers can audit and build their own code. Customers need a total security posture, and this is one component of a total security system.

Genesi developed the Guardian with partners ShopIP (www.shopip.com) and Diginexus (www.diginexus.com). The interface design and border-level protection is based on the acclaimed ShopIP Crunchbox.

Proactive protection is based on the security scanning features of Nessus (www.nessus.org) and the internal invisible IDS scanning features were developed and contributed by Diginexus.

Buck added, "this collaborative effort is an example of the partnerships we expect to develop in the months ahead and indicative of the many and varied potential uses for an open, powerful and efficient hardware platform."

"IBM has worked closely with Genesi and its partners to ensure that the Pegasos platform can be configured to cover the rich variety of applications over multiple operating systems that Genesi and its partners are developing", said Ray Bryant, Director PowerPC Products at IBM Microelectronics. "The integration of the IBM PowerPC 750CXe offers developers further opportunities to extend Pegasos' use into the evolutionary path we have chartered for the PowerPC."

Based on industry standards, such as Open Firmware, the Pegasos supports multiple operating systems including varieties of Linux and BSD. The Pegasos platform also comes with Genesi's own non-UNIX, Quark-based MorphOS. Recent releases supported on the Pegasos include OpenBSD 3.4 and Debian-Installer Beta 1.

Buck added, "in the meanwhile, the strategic value of moving to a Linux Desktop is becoming increasing clear and a migration to Linux has begun. Every major commercial or non-commercial version/distribution of Linux on the market today runs on the Pegasos, including SuSE and the Novell® Nterprise Linux Service package. Getting on the network with the Pegasos Guardian and on the desktop with the Pegasos, now and in the future with the PowerPC 970, places Genesi at the forefront of these major market developments."

Genesi has served the computer hobbyist since the first Beta release of the Pegasos in 2002. Trialed and tested by over 1000 users in 34 countries, enthusiasts have configured the Pegasos in variety of fashions with over a dozen different operating systems. The Pegasos was awarded the Amiga Award 2002 by Falke Media Verlag and recently, the Pegasos was acclaimed as the future home of the Linux desktop by German Linux site PPCNUX.

The Pegasos-Guardian will make its public debut with ShopIP and Diginexus at Infosecurity 2003, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York, December 8-11, Booth 126 and be distributed by Pegasos Resellers worldwide through the IBM Global Solutions Directory.

Genesi's "Ready for IBM Technology"-validated Pegasos systems signal the advancement of the IBM 750CXe PowerPC microprocessor family into the broader global marketplace for embedded industrial controls, military, multimedia, consumer electronic appliances, blade servers, thin client systems, storage, networking, firewalls, and communication applications. With leading edge CPU bus speed capabilities and enhanced AGP, PCI-X, SDRAM and DDR support, the combination of the Marvell Discovery II chipset and IBM PowerPC 750CXe processors offers a most desirable solution to the performance-intensive applications marketplace.

Genesi is an IBM Business Partner and carries the Ready for IBM Technology mark on five of its products, the Pegasos Guardian, Pegasos, PegXLin, MorphOS, and OpenBSD for Pegasos. The basic Pegasos featuring the IBM PowerPC processor can be purchased online for 299 Euros at http://www.pegasosppc.com while the Pegasos-Guardian is priced between 5000 and 15000 Euros depending on the configuration and the associated service contract. Genesi is based in Luxembourg and can be found on the Web at http://www.genesi.lu. Details on the Pegasos Guardian are presented at http://www.pegasosppc.com/guardian.php. (snx)

[News message: 04. Dec. 2003, 19:07] [Comments: 0]
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