NOTE: This is historical content that may contain outdated information.
In an effort to show the DragonFly BSD project some support, iXsystems has donated an Intel blade server to the open source operating system group. The blade system will be used for testing and improving network-related applications both in-kernel and in userland.
We think that the DragonFly BSD project is definitely a worthwhile cause,” states Matt Olander, CTO of iXsystems. “There are sometimes many ways to perform the same task and forking is a common method to explore those different ways. In addition to the blade server, we are working on getting the DragonFly BSD team a Quad Xeon system for testing SMP builds as well.
DragonFly BSD is a promising fork of the popular FreeBSD operating system that uses light weight threads and message passing for dealing with multi-processing issues. DragonFly BSD 1.0 was released on July 12th, 2004, one year after forking from the FreeBSD project.
The DragonFly BSD project was started by Matthew Dillon, who is known for creating the DICE C compiler on the Amiga, and later co-founding BEST Internet in San Francisco. Dillon has also contributed code to the FreeBSD project for subsystems such as VM and NFS. Many individuals have stepped up to contribute various pieces of code, documentation, ideas, and feedback to the DragonFly project. Since the first release, it has been downloaded thousands of times.
By providing this equipment for the DragonFly BSD project, we are encouraging the research and development of operating systems principles in an open forum.” comments Mike Lauth, CEO of iXsystems. “This results in a better product for everyone.
These systems will help us immensely with reaching our goals for DragonFly BSD.” says Devon O’Dell, DragonFly BSD evangelist and code contributor. “The blade cluster will allow us to develop, test, and benchmark network applications; the SMP Xeon machine will help out those developers who do not have access to machines with multiple processors. Since a lot of our work is with making our OS safe for SMP systems, this will certainly increase our productivity.
About DragonFly BSD
DragonFly is an operating system and environment designed to be the logical continuation of the FreeBSD-4.x OS series. DragonFly BSD is based on UNIX ideals and APIs. DragonFly is a fork giving the BSD base an opportunity to grow in an entirely new direction from the one taken in the FreeBSD-5 series.
For more information:
Vist the website: www.dragonflybsd.org
About iXsystems, Inc.
iXsystems, a company nestled in the infamous Golden Triangle of Silicon Valley, provides FreeBSD-based Internet infrastructure grade rackmount servers, security appliances, and managed FreeBSD hosting to a global market. The iXsystems management team consists of former executives and employees from BSDi and iXsystems.
For more information:
Phone: (408)943-4100
Visit the website: www.iXsystems.com
Send an email: info@ixsystems.com
