load balancing

Lowering operating costs has always been among the top priorities of today's enterprises, and cloud computing may be what they need to achieve that.

This technology has been around for years, but its role today has increased tremendously since it is used not just to provide software as a service, but infrastructure and platform as a service as well.

Flywheel-based utility power storage is one method for dealing with the variability of power from renewable sources such as wind and solar that may be more variable in their output than engineered power plant systems. Utilities like to provide an even level of power, and problems can occur in the grid when power production and power demand are not coordinated.

Firewall/VPN

FireTunnel 30 combines an eight-port 10/100 switch, router, firewall and VPN. The rack-mountable 1U appliance offers support for up to 30 VPN tunnels and load balancing across two WAN connections. Quality-of-service features give priority to network packets from time-sensitive applications, such as video or VoIP, and can limit bandwidth to some users. A password-protected, Web-based management interface enables administrators to configure and manage the device. No special VPN client is necessary for Windows 2000, XP and Vista.-Black Box Network Services

Storage Server

Equipped with an 800-MHz CPU and 512-MB RAM, the four-bay Disk Station DS408 is capable of housing up to 4 TB of storage in a range of disk configurations, including basic, JBOD, and RAID 0, 1 and 5. Running off Gigabit Ethernet, the DS408 includes two USB 2.0 ports to attach a shared printer, external hard drive or USB-capable uninterruptible power supply.

Years ago, the Linux open-source operating system seemed ready to offer a nonproprietary alternative to Microsoft Windows. But "Linux on the desktop" never took off.

Despite the technical merits of the distributions, Linux remained hard to configure and rough around the edges. And what did a user get if she conquered the hurdles? An operating system that looked like Windows, only worse.

For some reason, this month seems to be Hawaii's turn with energy news. Earlier this month, Hawaii's Governor signed a bill requiring all new homes to be equipped with solar water heaters, and the city of Honolulu is installing a system to use sea-water and deep-ocean temperature for cooling downtown buildings. But there's still more.

Developers, start your App Engine -- Google's, that is. Google announced Monday a preview release of its App Engine, a hosting tool so developers can build scalable Web applications on the search giant's infrastructure.

Google said its App Engine will make it easier for developers to build and scale applications rather than focus on system administration and maintenance.

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