Welcome to the March 27th edition of the "Linux Product Insider", our weekly round-up of new products and services in Linux and open source.

Here is what's been announced this week:

Hyperic's Hyperic HQ
If you are managing high-volume Web infrastructures, you may wish to look into the upgraded Hyperic HQ from Hyperic Inc. HQ is an open-source solution offering “hands-free monitoring and management for Web-scale systems”. HQ supplies performance and event data, product coverage and the functionality operations teams need to discover, diagnose and deliver a solution in a single tool. The new release centers on a new plugin framework, HQU. HQU provides easy access for operations to script and automate tasks so that they can better organize and manage their infrastructure with no downtime. Included is a Groovy-based script-control console that leverages templates to simplify manual, error-prone tasks through automation. Web Services integration allows Hyperic to syndicate key data across all systems that manage IT infrastructure.
http://www.hyperic.com

Super Talent's FSD56GC25H Solid State Drive
'Thin is in' is the motto of Super Talent, maker of the new FSD56GC25H Solid State Drive, which the firm claims to be the "world's slimmest 256 GB" device of its kind. The FSD56GC25H uses an industry-standard 2.5-inch hard drive form factor and a SATA-I interface, making it 100% interchangeable with conventional 2.5-inch SATA hard drives. Super Talent says that the device utilizes a patented stacking technology to pack a large amount of solid state storage into an exceptionally small and slim case. It measures 12.5mm thick, which the producer says is "40% thinner than any other 256GB SSD available." The FSD56GC25H drive further supports 0.1 ms access times, a maximum of 65 MB/sec sequential read speed and 50 MB/sec sequential write speed. It can withstand up to 1600G of shock and 16G of vibration, "which is about five times greater than typical hard drives" says the company.
http://www.supertalent.com

C4i's Radio Interface Unit With Twisted Pair Technology
The firm C4i, known for its Radio Interface Unit (RIU) radio-gateway solution, has added Twisted Pair Solutions' WAVE software technology to the product. RIU is billed as "a highly compact and flexible solution to tactical radio integration with an IP network" and a "solution that is ideally suited to defense and public safety deployments where size, weight and energy considerations are important, such as in mobile communications vehicles and emergency fly-away kits." Twisted Pair states that its open-standards-based WAVE technology "outperforms hardware-based unified communications products by allowing a multitude of traditionally disparate communications systems such as radios, analog and new IP phone systems, PCs, PDAs and proprietary devices to all interoperate seamlessly without the burden of additional, typically proprietary and costly hardware.
http://www.twistpair.com
http://www.c4i.com

Sun Microsystems' CommunityOne Conference
Little by little Sun is becoming ever more an open-source company, further sparked by the continuation of its CommunityOne Conference. CommunityOne, which will take place May 5, 2008 at Moscone Center in San Francisco, is a free, one-day event that allows developers and students to benefit from the innovation and choice of the free and open source ecosystem. It will offer more than 70 sessions led by contributors and committers of more than 30 different open source and community projects; from chip design to operating systems, to Web servers and databases, to scripting languages and tools. There will also be 'unconference' sessions, led by the analysts from RedMonk, in which participants will determine the topics they wish to discuss, exchange ideas and identify best practices. In addition, Sun will host its fifth Sun Startup Camp(SM) event May 4-5, 2008, as part of CommunityOne.
http://developers.sun.com/events/communityone
http://www.startupcamp.org/sc5sanfran_register.html

Likewise's Open Spring '08
In yet another sign of how the non-Windows world does heterogeneity so much better, Likewise Software just released Likewise Open Spring '08 - an open-source community offering that provides fast and easy integration of Linux, UNIX and Mac systems with Microsoft's Active Directory. Among other things, the application enables authentication with a single user name and password on over 110 Linux, UNIX and Mac Platforms. Soon Likewise Open will be distributed through Novell (openSUSE), Red Hat (RHEL), and Canonical (Ubuntu).
http://www.likewisesoftware.com

GroundWork Monitor 5.2
GroundWork Open Source just let fly a new product this week, Version 5.2 of its open source systems and network management software, GroundWork Monitor. GroundWork says that its Monitor product, part of the firm's GroundWork Monitor Enterprise line, is ideal for those looking for high-capacity monitoring solutions with a high level of extensibility and scalability. One can monitor tens of thousands of devices across geographically dispersed locations. GroundWork asserts that the new release has improved monitoring throughput by a factor of 5x. The company also claims other advantages such as an average cost savings of around 80 percent, as well as seamless integration with existing systems like Windows, AIX, Tivoli, OpenView, NetIQ and others.
http://www.groundworkopensource.com

To send feedback on this article, or to send product news, please contact Products Editor, James Gray at jgray@linuxjournal.com.