Zentyal 2.0 is based on the new Ubuntu 10.4 LTS distribution and this has implied a major change in all the server components. For this reason, Zentyal 2.0 is a new major release. With this change, the users are ensured higher levels of security, functionality and hardware compatibility.

Besides updating the Zentyal base, this version features significant usability, performance and stability improvements. Additionally, it also includes new features. With the goal of providing a Linux server that can be fully configured through a simple graphical interface, software management improvements have taken place and automatic configuration wizards have been introduced.

Moreover, the configuration backed of Zentyal has been changed from gconf to redis and this has improved notably the server speed. Thanks to this and other visual enhancements, the general user experience has been greatly improved.

Additionally, Zentyal 2.0 also includes new features such as bridge mode that simplifies the deployment of existing networks or FTP module demanded by many Zentyal community members. Finally, this version also features a new Zarafa module that provides a groupware solution for sharing calendars, contacts and tasks.

Additional information
Zentyal 2.0 is available for download at:
http://www.zentyal.org/download/latest
The official Zentyal 2.0 release announcement is available at:
http://trac.zentyal.org/wiki/Document/Announcement/2.0/
This announcement is also available in Spanish, French and Portuguese.

(Download the full press release in English or Spanish…)

“From our point of view, eBox Platform is a powerful network management tool that responds perfectly to the needs of SMBs and partnering with eBox Technologies opens us many business opportunities in Dominican Republic” said Javier Sánchez, Sales Manager at Single Box Solutions. “We have followed up the progress of other Authorized eBox Partners and as we have found their evolution positive, we have decided to establish this new alliance between eBox Technologies and our company.

“Although Single Box Solutions is quite young company, it is definitely formed by professionals with great experience in system administration and deploying eBox based solutions” stated Mateo Burillo, Partner Manager at eBox Technologies, and continued “We are very glad to collaborate with a company that is part of the Netser Group that is well recognized for the outstanding quality of their work and that has the ambitious prospect of becoming a leading IT company in all South America.”

As an Authorized eBox Partner, Single Box Solutions will now provide small and medium business located in Dominican Republic with certified eBox server products and services, from Server Subscriptions and Subscription Add-ons such as disaster recovery, security list updates or low-cost VoIP calls to certified technical support. Simultaneously, eBox Technologies will grant Single Box Solutions with quality assured software, services, technical support and training, assuring that their customers have access to vendor-quality services.

About Single Box Solutions
Single Box Solutions was created with the idea of offering services based on open source software and to complement these services, the company also offers the necessary hardware for the deployments. Single Box Solutions belongs to the Netser Group that offers telecommunications and IT Services in the Latin America, Caribbean region and South Florida, providing both clients and manufacturers a single point of contact and allowing them to minimize their operating costs. To meet their objectives, Netser Group makes strategic alliances and collaborates within each region with providers and professionals that have wide experience in project management, sales and technical support services. The company is considered as a regional leader in IT Services that offers high quality of services and a constant increase in technological and geographical coverage.
More information about Netser Group at: www.netsergroup.com

“The eBox Platform project has developed, grown and naturally, transformed from its initial goals during the last seven years of development. With this change, we want to ensure the product more accurately reflects what it does” said Ignacio Correas, CEO of eBox Technologies. “The current name eBox Platform suggests that the software comes integrated in a server hardware because of the word “Box”. However, the eBox Platform is purely server software that comes with cloud-based subscription services.”

The word Zentyal was chosen as the new name of eBox Platform because it closely resembles the main goal of the project: to make something as essential as network management easy and secure. Zentyal is fusion of two words, where “Zen” represents qualities such as intuition, insight and balance – the easiness of carrying out tasks via intuition – and “Essential” represents qualities such as basic, fundamental and necessary.

New Zentyal logo

(Download the full press release in English or Spanish…)

“The two most important new features of this eBox Control Center version are Alert autoconfiguration and Users’ password security strength audits” said Enrique Hernández, eBox Control Center Product Manager at eBox Technologies, and continued “From now on, when you subscribe a new eBox server to eBox Control Center, the alerts for this server are automatically configured and you will be informed every time when the server has a high load, low disk space, a mail user quota has exceeded, etc. On the other hand, the new security audit allows you to check easily the strength of your users’ passwords on weekly basis and to increase the security of your system.”

You can gain access to the services integrated in the eBox Control Center, by obtaining a Professional or Enterprise Server Subscription. The Professional Subscription is aimed for businesses with few or independent eBox servers and the Enterprise Subscription for businesses with multiple eBox Servers. Both subscriptions include QA software updates that guarantee that all the eBox Platform upgrades, bugfixes and security updates are extensively tested by the eBox Development Team, as well as grant access to Virtual CIO services such as alerts and events on hardware and network services, reports, service and hardware inventory and security audits. Additionally, the Enterprise Subscription gives access to Virtual MSP services that allow to carry out massive system and security updates or groups tasks.

If you are interested in the eBox Control Center trial and the different Subscription options, you can simply get the free Basic Server Subscription. The Basic Subscription, that is intended for use in testing environments, allows you to store your configuration backup remotely, receive alerts regarding the connectivity of your eBox server, available updates or failed automatic backup. Moreover, the Basic Subscription allows you to view and learn about all the additional subscription features.

According to the agreement, eBox Technologies provides Novabox Service Inc. with customized, eBox Platform-based software solutions for the Novabox device allowing the company to carry out quick and simplified on-site installation of the device and central management without relying on their customers’ local network. The Novabox devices that targets SOHO (small office/home office) businesses will be shortly launched via country-wide reseller network counting 75+ resellers, first in the Netherlands and later in rest of the Europe and United States. Also consumer targeted versions of Novabox are scheduled for the course of 2011.

“eBox Technologies is by far our most important technology partner” said Alexander Mans, CEO at Novabox, and continued “It is a great young and dynamic company and together with their practical approach and willingness to share ideas and concepts, we have been able to create a unique product with great potential.”

“Novabox has prepared an astonishing offering for micro and small business in the Netherlands by combining an all-in-one appliance with a complete set of managed services and a far-reaching distribution network at a very competitive price” commented Mateo Burillo, Partner Manager at eBox Technologies. “We are proud of being part of this project and providing an essential piece in the whole offering.”

About Novabox Service Inc.
Novabox Service Inc., founded in early 2009, is a Managed Services Provider that provides its customers all-in-one solutions in the field of ICT. All common, but also less common services are offered in a single package at very attractive monthly prices. All Novabox services are monitored in real-time, checking stability and effectiveness. The company is based in Maastricht (The Netherlands) where the central operations center and their system and network operators are located to take care of all their customers at the office, home or on the road. Novabox works hard to construct a large network of dealers and distributors for their services in the Netherlands and abroad.
More information about Novabox: www.novabox.nl

“eBox Platform is stable, secure and easy-to-use for the end users. Therefore, it fits perfectly to the IT needs of the small and medium businesses” said Evgeniy Zabolotniy, IT Director at IRT Group, and concluded “eBox Platform and the related server products and services allow us to provide all the network services required by most of the SMBs.”

“IRT Group is created by companies that are real technology experts, focused on their local market in Ukraine” said Mateo Burillo, Partner Manager at eBox Technologies. “They are very enthusiastic about what they do, giving personalized service and dedication to their customers. We’re convinced that they will do a great job introducing eBox based server products and services in the Ukrainian market.”

As an Authorized eBox Partner, IRT Group will offer their customers certified eBox server products and services, such as eBox Server Subscriptions that guarantee that eBox servers are always up-to-date and secured, Subscription Add-ons including disaster recovery, security list updates or low-cost VoIP calls or certified technical support. On the other hand, eBox Technologies grants IRT Group with quality assured and certified software, services, support and training, assuring the IRT Group’s customers always receive vendor-quality service.

About IRT Group
IRT Group is formed by a group of Ukrainian IT service companies specialized in deploying all-in-one, open source IT solutions as well as offering technical support and customized OS solutions to small and medium businesses all over the country. IRT Group supports their customers on each step of establishing their IT infrastructure, from planning to developing or customizing necessary IT solutions, managing the deployment and giving long-term technical support and maintaining the IT infrastructure.
More information about IRT Group at: www.irt.net.ua

“Our customers are every time more interested in managing their computer network services through one single open source platform” said George Sapronov, Project Manager at PingWin Software and continued “We find eBox Platform software safe, flexible and fast-moving solution that responds perfectly to this need.”

“From our point of view, PingWin Software’s focus on providing open source enterprise solutions in combination with a high-quality nationwide service delivery makes them the perfect partner for eBox to address the Russian market” stated Mateo Burillo, Partner Manager at eBox Technologies. “We are very enthusiastic to start working with PingWin Software to help their customers improving their IT infrastructure while cutting their overall costs with eBox-based server solutions.”

As an Authorized eBox Partner, PingWin Software will offer their customers certified eBox server products and services, including eBox Server Subscriptions, Subscription Add-ons and certified technical support. The eBox Server Subscriptions guarantee that the installed eBox servers are up-to-date and secured at all times and allow the users to receive frequent reports on system performance and use, as well as to carry out central administration and monitoring of multiple eBox servers. The Subscription Add-ons currently include disaster recover, security list updates or low-cost VoIP call options.

About PingWin Software
PingWin Software Ltd. was founded in 2009. The main objective of the company is to provide development, migration, upgrade and support services based on the FOSS (free/libre/open source software). PingWin Software offers their customers 24/7 technical support and they are always ready to help regardless of the location or time zone their customers are working at. Support requests are handled around the clock by phone, email or through web-system Service Desk. PingWin Software is an active member of the Russian Association of Free Software (RASPO) and the Association of Software Developers “Domestic software”.
More information about PingWin Software at: www.pingwinsoft.ru

“We decided becoming Authorized eBox Partners when we saw the enormous potential of the eBox Platform server” said Jaume Ponse, System Administrator at Calidae, and continued “Besides all the functionality and possibilities eBox offers, it allows us to unify the way our technicians access and modify any network services of this Linux-based system. Furthermore, we were also convinced by the fast-moving product development and active community of the eBox project.”

“Calidae is a well-established company with a large number of success stories in the local public administration. They are strongly committed to open source solutions in all their business areas, from web development to and consultancy and we are glad that they have decided to include eBox based server products and services to their portfolio” said Mateo Burillo, Partner Manager at eBox Technologies.

As an Authorized eBox Partner, Calidae will offer their customers certified eBox server products and services, such as eBox Server Subscriptions that guarantee that eBox servers are always up-to-date and secured, Subscription Add-ons including disaster recovery, security list updates or low-cost VoIP calls or certified technical support. On the other hand, eBox Technologies grants Calidae with quality assured and certified software, services, support and training, assuring the Calidae’s customers always receive vendor-quality service.

About Calidae
Calidae is an ICT company, founded in 1999 in Caldes de Montbui (Barcelona), Spain. The services offered by the company can be grouped in four different areas: systems, communications, web development and business management software. Calidae is strongly committed to open source software and they offer their customers an open source alternative in each area: Linux servers, open source VoIP solution Asterisk, CMS-Calidae and AbanQ.
More information about Calidae at: http://www.calidae.net/

As an Authorized eBox Partner, Zimios will offer their customers certified eBox server products and services, such as eBox Server Subscriptions that guarantee that eBox servers are always up-to-date and secured, Subscription Add-ons including disaster recovery, security list updates or low-cost VoIP calls or certified technical support. On the other hand, eBox Technologies grants Zimios with quality assured and certified software, services, support and training, assuring the Zimios’ customers always receive vendor-quality service.

“We have been looking for a long time for a good Samba-OpenLDAP Web user interface to give our customers the possibility to manage their users easily without our help. eBox Platform was the perfect solution to this need and the best of all was that eBox had much more to offer than we had expected” said Miguel Lara, CEO at Zimios. “Options such as simple backup and disaster recovery, IM and other features are a good plus and we are also very interested in the new features eBox 2.0 will offer. So, after all, it was an easy decision for us to opt for eBox Platform and join the eBox Partner Program.”

“Zimios is a very pragmatic, technology-wise local IT provider with a focus on delivering only the best solutions for their customers” said Mateo Burillo, Partner Manager at eBox Technologies. “We are very excited to start working together with such a partner, as the combination of Zimios’ quality of service and eBox’ level of productivity make a perfect match, and we believe that, in time, they will become a solid reference for eBox in the Helsinki area.”

About Zimios
Zimios is a Finnish company specialized in IT Support Services providing on-site and remote system troubleshooting and support, disaster recovery and consultancy to small and mid-sized companies in the Helsinki-area. The company covers every aspect of IT infrastructure support, from installations to complete maintenance services on both Linux and Windows based systems.
More information about Zimios at: http://www.zimios.fi

“This solution has allowed OPAEF to reduce significantly the time and costs required to manage network services of their offices” said Juan José Domínguez Calvo, System Analyst at the Provincial Information Services Network (INPRO), the entity created by the County Council of Seville for the provision of IT services. Domínguez continued “As the chosen technology solution is open source, we have removed all the software licensing costs. Moreover, we got the support for the deployment, training of our staff and maintenance directly from the eBox Platform vendor, but INPRO has all the freedom to manage the solution. From our point of view, this has greatly increased the quality and speed of the service we provide to our end users.”

The implemented solution allows to connect the OPAEF offices on a single computer network where the network administrators carry out centralized management of users based on LDAP(master-slave). As eBox Platform acts as a primary domain controller (PDC) of the Windows network, it also enables data backup and printer management. Given the nature of the OPAEF offices, it is worth noting that the used configuration allows PCs continue to function normally in case of loss of connectivity between offices and the central server and once the connection is retrieved, if there were any changes in the central server, they will be synchronized.

In addition, each network user has a roaming profile that allows the users to access with their username and password to their local information on any computer in their office, with their own desktop and configuration. Besides, the system allows to establish corporate policies on client desktops, such as configure wallpaper, set proxy setting or decide which groups of users can connect USB drivers, among others.

“The use case of the OPAEF is one of the best examples of the cost savings you can achieve with eBox Platform” said Javi Vázquez, Chief Operations officer at eBox Technologies, and continued “We believe that this case can be easily applied in other organizations, especially in the public sector where the rationalization of costs and investments is now more necessary than ever.”

The detailed OPAEF-eBox Success Story is available for download in English and in Spanish.

(Download the full press release in English or Spanish…)