GOVERNMENT

Governments around the world are moving rapidly to open computing to drive economic development and provide citizens with easy access to the latest secure technology, IBM said at LinuxWorld. IBM announced that it is working with India's National Informatics Center (NIC) to deliver open solutions to India. NIC is a premiere consulting organization of the Government of India in the field of Informatics Services and Information Technology applications. IBM also said that the U.S. Army, as well as the states of Hawaii and Oklahoma are implementing IBM Linux-based solutions. "India should be a net giver to the open community," said Dr. Deepak Phatak, Subrao Nilekani chair professor of IT, Indian Institute. "The Government of India sees open computing as having the potential to drive economic development and I believe that information technology can spread to smallest of Indian towns and villages only through open standards." Dr. Phatak is one of the most renowned academicians in India and a leading visionary on Linux and open computing. For the U.S. Army, IBM will deploy a massive Linux-based supercomputer that is slated to be among the top ten fastest Linux-based supercomputers in the world. It will be the largest Linux supercomputer in use by the military to date. The powerful 10 teraflop system will be installed at the Army Research Laboratory Major Shared Resource Center in Aberdeen, Maryland. Its purpose will be to speed the research and development of advanced military systems. "This increase in computing capability will give DoD scientists and engineers the ability to solve complex, mission-critical, physics problems in a timeframe that can provide the data necessary to better assist our staff in solving some of our nation's most complex defense challenges and solutions," said Charles J. Nietubicz, Director of the ARL MSRC. Other announcements include: -- The State of Hawaii is facilitating access to its financial applications, managed by its Department of Accounting and General Services, to provide state employees with a more detailed and timely financial snapshot of budgets, revenues and expenditures. The IBM solution is designed to help the State of Hawaii benefit from software cost savings and stability by using DB2 and Linux as its strategic database with a front-end gateway based on WebSphere Application Server. -- The State of Oklahoma, Department of Human Services, is using Linux on an IBM eServer zSeries 900 mainframe to manage critical functions across the state such as Child Welfare services, including child abuse cases and other high impact areas that require immediate access to information. By moving the applications onto the zSeries mainframe running Linux, the Department is able to improve services by providing more timely responses to its citizens, simplify the management of its IT infrastructure, and reduce its overall IT costs. -- County of Essex is Canada's southernmost county, and is one of the most agriculturally productive areas in Canada. The county moved its financial applications to a Linux system running DB2 and Red Hat. The database is currently managing 5,000MB of general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable and financial reporting data - all on Linux. In other news: IBM and Red Hat Achieve Common Criteria Certification In a move expected to further speed the adoption of Linux by governments, IBM and Red Hat announced that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, Update 2 on IBM eServers has achieved Controlled Access Protection Profile compliance under The Common Criteria for Information Security Evaluation (CC), commonly referred to as CAPP/EAL3+. The new level of Red Hat security is available across the IBM eServer product line, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS on xSeries, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS on xSeries, iSeries, pSeries, zSeries as well as Opteron-based systems. The Common Criteria is an internationally recognized ISO standard (ISO/IEC 15408) used by the Federal government and other organizations to assess security and assurance of technology products. The Common Criteria provides a standardized way of expressing security requirements and defines the respective set of rigorous criteria by which the product will be evaluated. It is widely recognized among IT professionals, government agencies, and customers as a seal of approval for mission-critical software. IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key IBM Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM and Linux, visit www.ibm.com/linux.