With that lets go over what Black Lab Server 6.8 offers to customers.
Kernel: 3.19
Primary User Interface: Command Line
Secondary User Interface: XFCE
Included functionality:
Directory Services
LAMP services
PostgreSQL
Emulation Services: VirtualBox, DOSBox, Hercules Mainframe Emulation
OwnCloud services
OpenStack support
Docker support: Included with the Black Lab SDK
GCC Compiler Suite
Postfix E-Mail Server
Remote Administration via Webmin
Webapp facilities
Dropbox integration
Some other changes that we made are:
network-manager completely usable via the command line
Debian and Ubiquity Installers
Improved headless support
Accelerated Hardware Support no longer required
The cost for Black Lab Server 6.8 for one license is $399.99
You can also order it on our new Black Lab POWERServe system for $1,299.99
Eager to learn more of this exciting product we asked our development lead, Roberto, some questions:
Q) After spending so many years as being a desktop only distribution, why this leap into developing a server?
A) Well it was because mostly of customer demand. We noticed many of our customers were adding server applications and deploying them. They really like the user experience of Black Lab that they wanted a server system to complement their own infrastructure.
Q) How does Server 6.8 differ from eServer 6
A) eServer 6 is a product thats basically a do it yourself product. Most of the users of eServer use it for ATM's, Point Of Sale systems, billboards and other systems of that nature. Its also really useful as a common intranet appliance and not an internet appliance. Black Lab Server 6.8 is designed for a higher level of deployment, web hosting, e-mail hosting, high performance database and directory services. Its designed to scale much greater than what eServer 6 is designed to do.
Q) We also noticed a higher degree of virtualization technologies for example, mainframe virtualization. Do our customers use that?
A) Absolutely. Virtualization is necessary in todays world. Virtual systems are deployed by over 70% of enterprises. Mainframes are not going away. Many people hope they would but they arent. Mainframes are adapting, they are being used more in some datacenters and they just havent vanished into the night. We include Hercules because some customers want to be able to test and develop mainframe applications without having to do it on their primary systems and Hercules does support many of the popular mainframe systems, Z/OS, OS/390 OS's as well as the S/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture instruction set and it supports networking. The users of course need to own the OS as we dont provide the Mainframe OS's but they can certainly deploy it
Q) When can customers purchase Black Lab Server 6.8?
A) Today
Q) Whats the install media for Black Lab Server 6.8
A) USB Flash Drive, DVD, SD Card, Preinstalled Hard Drive and you can order a Virtual Machine Hard Drive image.
The Black Lab POWERServe Specifications
16GB DDR3,
2x 500GB Hard Drive,
RAID 0,
9.8" Deep Ultra-Short Chassis,
2x Gigabit LAN
Price: $1,299.99
Price with 3yr warranty: $1,650.00
Please contact sales@pc-opensystems.com for shipping costs for the Black Lab POWERServe
