Search and data aggregation tools, some life science-specific IBM bundled servers, and software to help run and deploy new applications were among last week’s new IT and informatics product announcements.
Citrix announced the Citrix NetScaler Application Switch Standard Edition, a version of its application delivery product aimed at small and medium businesses. The Standard Edition offers many of the features, such as high-speed load balancing and application acceleration, that have been available to large organizations through the company’s Enterprise Edition. Features in the Standard Edition include application optimization, application security, layer 4-7 load balancing, and secure socket layer (SSL) offload capabilities.
Citrix also announced the first 64-bit version of its application virtualization offering. Citrix claims the new Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition delivers significant performance and scalability advantages over 32-bit systems. Specifically, Citrix claims the 64-bit version can support up to three times more users on a server than 32-bit systems.
Verity announced Verity Search, a new family of search tools for businesses. Using Verity Search, a single query can be tried against a variety of sources. The search tool aggregates the findings and provides unified results from multiple, simultaneous searches. To that end, Verity claims that Verity Search integrates desktop search with either general or specialized search applications. For example, Verity Search can be configured to simultaneously search a user’s desktop, e-mail, corporate databases, and public, intranet, and subscription-based websites.
Mitrionics announced the general availability of its Mitrion Platform, which is software that helps researchers more easily use high-performance computer systems with field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The Mitrion offering includes a Virtual Processor and Software Development Kit that lets researchers program FPGAs in a C-like language, rather than in the more complex (and usually less well known) Hardware Description Language, which has been the norm with FPGAs. (For more details about the Mitrionics software, see: Mitrionics Plans Life Science FPGA Push.)
IBM announced the IBM Express Storage Platform for Medical Imaging, a solutions package within its Express Portfolio line of industry-specific products for mid-sized companies. The system is aimed at clinics that work on as many as 100,000 imaging studies per year. The Medical Imaging system helps clinics store, retrieve, and secure medical images from Picture Archival and Communications System (PACS) applications. IBM also announced the IBM Express Life Sciences Solution, a system that combines IBM server hardware with SAP’s mySAP software.
ArcSight, an enterprise security management (ESM) company, announced ArcSight ESM 3.5, a new version of its software designed to safeguard and meet compliance requirements associated with important corporate data. Enhancements in the 3.5 release include new self-monitoring capabilities and improved workflow and incident response capabilities to limit the impact of potential vulnerabilities. Version 3.5 also offers improved tools to help identify insider security threats. For example, new features give managers the ability to define normal usage patterns for applications and systems based on a person’s business role. Additionally, ArcSight has adapted its Web-based management console so that in addition to providing information for security managers, now information relevant to network and compliance managers is also readily available. When making this announcement, the company also announced new security analytics applications.
Composite Software released Composite Information Server (CIS) 3.6, a new version of its enterprise information integration (EII) software. A key new feature in this release is a modeling wizard that helps put data from disparate hierarchical and relational data sources into XML format. This capability is often needed when building dashboards that take raw data from various sources, put that data into XML format, and then display the information in an organized way within a dashboard.
Adaptec announced a family of internal Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) products designed to deliver higher performance, improved reliability, and more-scalable storage systems. The products include an Adaptec SAS Host Bus Adapter (HBA), two SAS RAID controllers (one for PCI-X and one for PCIe servers), a four-bay internal storage enclosure, and the Adaptec Data Protection Suite. The company also announced two external SAS storage subsystems.
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