Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release

[downix]

Genesi today announced a new, PowerPC®-based, modular MicroATX mainboard release that brings flexibility and efficient processing power to performance-intensive applications, including desktops, workstations, servers, and communications products.



This latest MicroATX board is the most powerful and cost-effective hardware foundation for Genesi’s popular Pegasos platform, with over 1,000 users in 34 countries around the world.

The new motherboard features an IBM PowerPC 750CXe microprocessor and supports industry standards software such as Open Firmware, and multiple operating systems including distributions of Linux and BSD.

"Genesi's new PowerPC-based computer brings effective and flexible processing power to the desktop, low-end server, firewall and pervasive space at an affordable price," said Bill Buck, CEO of Genesi.

Looking forward, Mr Buck also revealed that Genesi would be working closely with IBM to release a 64-bit Pegasos workstation in 2004, based on the new IBM PowerPC 970 microprocessor.

“Today’s Pegasos release is a starting point that will enable all the operating systems developed for the PowerPC environment to begin to move in this direction with confidence and purpose," he explained.

The new Pegasos Platform is also the core for Genesi’s first commercial product designed to support the increasingly-important security infrastructure requirements of Fortune 1000 companies and large institutions.

The Pegasos Guardian provides: border protection of networks; proactive protection of network assets; and logging and auditing of suspicious network traffic.

“IT Managers must know exactly what is happening on their networks, and why,” said Buck. “The Guardian gives you a very high level of control and the new MicroATX board provides the performance platform for them to achieve this.”

Choice of the PowerPC environment enhances the security that Guardian offers: “Much of the office and network IT infrastructure in use today is x86-based,” explained Buck. “The Guardian runs on a different processor platform and is not as susceptible to the common buffer overflows that are the main entry point for security breaches.” Any element of security begins with people, procedure and enforcement, but with tools such as the Guardian IT Managers can audit and build their own code. Customers need a total security posture, and this is one component of a total security system.

Genesi developed the Guardian with partners ShopIP and Diginexus. The interface design and border-level protection is based on the acclaimed ShopIP Crunchbox.

Proactive protection is based on the security scanning features of Nessus and the internal invisible IDS scanning features were developed and contributed by Diginexus.

Buck added, “this collaborative effort is an example of the partnerships we expect to develop in the months ahead and indicative of the many and varied potential uses for an open, powerful and efficient hardware platform.”

“IBM has worked closely with Genesi and its partners to ensure that the Pegasos platform can be configured to cover the rich variety of applications over multiple operating systems that Genesi and its partners are developing,” said Ray Bryant, Director PowerPC Products at IBM Microelectronics. “The integration of the IBM PowerPC 750CXe offers developers further opportunities to extend Pegasos’ use into the evolutionary path we have chartered for the PowerPC.”

Based on industry standards, such as Open Firmware, the Pegasos supports multiple operating systems including varieties of Linux and BSD. The Pegasos platform also comes with Genesi’s own non-UNIX, Quark-based MorphOS. Recent releases supported on the Pegasos include OpenBSD 3.4 and Debian-Installer Beta 1.

Buck added, "in the meanwhile, the strategic value of moving to a Linux Desktop is becoming increasing clear and a migration to Linux has begun. Every major commercial or non-commercial version/distribution of Linux on the market today runs on the Pegasos, including SuSE and the Novell® Nterprise Linux Service package. Getting on the network with the Pegasos Guardian and on the desktop with the Pegasos, now and in the future with the PowerPC 970, places Genesi at the forefront of these major market developments."

Genesi has served the computer hobbyist since the first Beta release of the Pegasos in 2002. Trialed and tested by over 1000 users in 34 countries, enthusiasts have configured the Pegasos in variety of fashions with over a dozen different operating systems. The Pegasos was awarded the Amiga Award 2002 by Falke Media Verlag and recently, the Pegasos was acclaimed as the future home of the Linux desktop by German Linux site PPCNUX.

The Pegasos-Guardian will make its public debut with ShopIP and Diginexus at Infosecurity 2003, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York, December 8-11, Booth 126 and be distributed by Pegasos Resellers worldwide through the IBM Global Solutions Directory.

Genesi's "Ready for IBM Technology"-validated Pegasos systems signal the advancement of the IBM 750CXe PowerPC microprocessor family into the broader global marketplace for embedded industrial controls, military, multimedia, consumer electronic appliances, blade servers, thin client systems, storage, networking, firewalls, and communication applications. With leading edge CPU bus speed capabilities and enhanced AGP, PCI-X, SDRAM and DDR support, the combination of the Marvell Discovery II chipset and IBM PowerPC 750CXe processors offers a most desirable solution to the performance-intensive applications marketplace.

Genesi is an IBM Business Partner and carries the Ready for IBM Technology mark on five of its products, the Pegasos Guardian, Pegasos, PegXLin, MorphOS, and OpenBSD for Pegasos. The basic Pegasos featuring the IBM PowerPC processor can be purchased online for 299 Euros at http://www.pegasosppc.com while the Pegasos-Guardian is priced between 5000 and 15000 Euros depending on the configuration and the associated service contract. Genesi is based in Luxembourg and can be found on the web at http://www.genesi.lu. Details on the Pegasos Guardian are presented at http://www.pegasosppc.com/guardian.php

[CD32Freak]

I bet Genesi will name it the MicroPegasos :lol: :-D

[dammy]

Nessus is the bomb! =)

Dammy

[System]

@CD32Freak

This isn't about a new motherboard.  Sorry for that impression.  This is about a professional level network security solution using the Pegasos.

Click here to actually read about it

[CodeSmith]

@Wayne:

Well, to be perfectly fair that reads like a press release for an all-purpose computer, not a custom security solution (if all I want is a strong firewall, what do i care about all the OSs I can run on it and what impact it's going to have on hobbyists?)

That said, his emphasis on "PowerPC is not x86 and therefore more secure" is a bit naive.  Security should be based on strong software auditing procedures (ie go over your code with a magnifying glass to make sure there are no buffer overflows, use of software complexity metrics, etc), not some vague assertion that the script kiddies won't know how to r00t a PPC box.  Sooner or later they will, and a determined hacker won't be put off by a different instruction set.

[System]

It's not naive, it's true.

PowerPC processors are just that little bit harder to produce exploits on than x86 processors. You have to do a LOT of legwork that x86 does for you.

There are some nice articles about this on the internet by a guy named Chris Shepherd. It's all very technical and all very true.

Granted, PowerPC isn't 100% unhackable, but.. it's not AS hackable and therefore MORE secure.

Running OpenBSD, most of those hackable bits are intrinsically protected and checked anyway, so the software backs up already superior hardware.

=Neko=

[Piru]

@CodeSmith

You're absolutely right, you must not forget  strong software auditing procedures even when the architecture is not x86.

However, the truth is that having other than x86 architechture limits the impact of found buffer overflows and automated worms/scripts/viruses.

Also most of the script kiddies (using exploit apps created by real hackers) are not familiar with PowerPC and are unable to root them with known buffer overflow (and in most cases the PPC instruction set limits the buffer overflow, for example it is very hard to embed PPC code to a null terminated string).

So IMO not being x86 can be seen as an additional value.

[dammy]

Poster: Neko Date: 2003/12/4 15:55:59

PowerPC processors are just that little bit harder to produce exploits on than x86 processors. You have to do a LOT of legwork that x86 does for you.

So sparc or MIPS based security box should be even better then?  

Granted, PowerPC isn't 100% unhackable, but.. it's not AS hackable and therefore MORE secure.

That would might be true if PPC and x86 (guess that would leave out IA-64) were running the same software.  That isn't the case.  Now, how about doing a nifty demonstration for us.  This security device vs x86 running Linux/FireWall1-NG and let's see who can configure the which firewall with minimum problems.  Afterall, the best firewall on the best hardware is worthless if it's not configured properly.  :-D

Dammy

[Piru]

That would might be true if PPC and x86 (guess that would leave out IA-64) were running the same software.

Why wouldn't they be?

[Snuden]

PowerPC processors are just that little bit harder to produce exploits on than x86 processors. You have to do a LOT of legwork that x86 does for you.

There are some nice articles about this on the internet by a guy named Chris Shepherd. It's all very technical and all very true.

http://www.belgo.org/propeller/ppc-stack-1.html

Assuming that it is this Chris Shephard that you mean, and after having read the three articles I can't really see that there is that much to it. Offcourse there are improvements over plain x86, but nothing that will stop a competent attacker. So IMHO using PowerPC over x86 is just security through obscurity, and nothing more.

[TallAmigan]

his is about a professional level network security solution using the Pegasos.

Cool.....




 :-D

[IonDeluxe]

Trialed and tested by over 1000 users in 34 countries

Correct me if I am wron but there were only 6-700 Pegasos produced.The pegasos II has been available for order for only a little over a month so that cannot add to this particular group.

This is just crap, if you are going to do this kind of advertising, make it truthful, not exageration hype and half-truths.

[gary_c]

Correct you if you're wrong? OK: in addition to the 600-700 Pegasos boards, Pegasos IIs have been produced and shipped to corporate customers.  100 were sent to IBM Japan, which was made public. Some obviously were sent to IBM in the US, and maybe some to other corporations. So if the "over 1000" is an exageration, it isn't much of one. But keep in mind that this is a press release, not a spec sheet or legal deposition.

-- gary_c

[gary_c]

Dammy wrote:

That would might be true if PPC and x86 (guess that would leave out IA-64) were running the same software. That isn't the case. Now, how about doing a nifty demonstration for us. This security device vs x86 running Linux/FireWall1-NG and let's see who can configure the which firewall with minimum problems. Afterall, the best firewall on the best hardware is worthless if it's not configured properly.

The Pegasos Guardian will be running ShopIP Crunchbox on OpenBSD.

-- gary_c

[dammy]

Poster: gary_c Date: 2003/12/4 21:29:53

The Pegasos Guardian will be running ShopIP Crunchbox on OpenBSD.

And that will do what compared to Linux/FW1-NG?  How about PEg/SHopIPCrunchBox vs VPN-1 Edge?  Note the prices on the latter.

Dammy