HP Fights Viruses With Open Source

HP announced a slew of Linux initiatives today, including its Virus Throttle security technology and the availability of more than 200 open source packages that can run on its open source server.

The announcements come as LinuxWorld San Francisco kicks off and
vendors of all stripes peddle their Linux wares to throngs of open source
devotees.

HP Virus Throttle for Linux follows HP’s deployment of Virus Throttle for
Windows, which the company launched earlier this year. Jeffrey Wade, HP’s worldwide Linux marketing manager, explained that what’s unique about Virus Throttle is it works without knowing anything about the virus or the worm.

It recognizes the way a virus or worm acts in an environment by recognizing patterns. Virus Throttle throttles back the traffic coming from the
virus/worm, as opposed to shutting down a server or
service altogether, which can obviously impact connectivity and overall
reliability.

“There’s a lot of talk in the industry about whether Linux is more secure
than Windows and it goes back and forth,” Wade told internetnews.com.
Whatever the case, said Wade, Virus Throttle provides a higher level of security.

HP also announced today that it had signed an agreement with Symas, one of the lead contributors to the OpenLDAP . The partnership will allow HP to certify and integrate Symas’ Connexitor Directory Services distribution of OpenLDAP on HP Linux Reference Architectures (LRA).

In partnership with SimDesk, HP will now offer a new open source on-demand solution set geared toward governments and communities.

Using both Linux and HP Integrity NonStop (HP-UX) servers, the solution provides the ability to access data from anywhere anytime on any device. Wade said it will help to eliminate the digital divide by providing communities with access to storage data and provide the ability to e-mail and print remotely.

HP’s Wade explained that there was some work involved in porting the
application and some were easier than others to do.

“What’s exciting for us is to see open source become pervasive across our
product line,” Wade said. “It’s not just about open source on Linux
anymore.”

There are more than 200 open source packages now available to run on HP Integrity NonStop HP-UX servers. The list includes the Apache Web server, Samba, Zope and Jabber, among others. HP plans on offering an additional 300 open source packages.