Users with data center and high-performance computing needs will soon see their options widen, as several server and appliance vendors make announcements this week and next.
Next week, MicronPC LLC plans to unveil two additions to its rack-mount high-density NetFRAME servers. MicronPC said it will provide details next week on new features of the servers that give users high performance in space-constrained environments.
Websense and Network Appliance also plan to release next week a new multi-function appliance that will feature both caching and Internet filtering. The product is designed to help companies save on network bandwidth usage by storing frequently visited Web pages, while also blocking access to non-work-related Web sites.
According to preliminary information supplied by Websense and Network Appliance, the new Websense-enabled NetCache appliance will provide customers with:
-- Eight management features, including time-based quotas for limited personal surfing.
-- A database consisting of more than 3.2 million Web sites, categorized into 78 content categories (pornography, gambling, etc.) in more than 40 languages - and updated every 7 hours.
-- Secure and flexible authentication, which enables administrators to enforce Internet access policies by identifying users by their NT user names.
For its part, Sun Microsystems announced Wednesday that it has cut prices by as much as 28 percent for its two-way Sun Fire 280R server.
Sun says its Sun Fire 280R provides Level 2 cache, memory and system interconnect capabilities, something that isn't available on similar entry-level Intel Pentium III-based servers running Microsoft Windows or Linux.
Pricing for the Sun Fire 280R now starts at US$7,995 and goes up to $17,995.