Emu Software Releases Flagship Product NetDirector Under Open Source License

CARY, N.C., USA, – Emu Software is pleased to announce that the their flagship product, NetDirector, is now available under a modified version of the Mozilla Public License, the NetDirector Public License. NetDirector can be downloaded from the NetDirector community portal (www.netdirector.org). Emu Software will continue to offer commercial support and release new management modules to extend the product's functionality in conjunction with partners and the open source community.

“The adoption and use of open source software have grown in IT organizations of all sizes,” said Mark R. Hinkle, vice president of strategy for Emu Software. “Customers and partners tell us that there is a need for a customizable set of enterprise class tools to manage both open source and commercial applications. By releasing NetDirector under an open source license, any IT organization can tailor NetDirector to meet its exact needs. We also believe that making NetDirector open source will encourage other vendors and integrator partners to collaborate with our framework, which will accelerate the extension of NetDirector.”

NetDirector is an extensible management framework for managing configurations of common open source network services hosted on Linux and Unix. The server management console offers both form driven and fine-grained control of server configuration files with the benefits of rollback and policy-based access. NetDirector manages a variety of common Internet services, including Samba, Apache, Bind, Sendmail, Postfix and VSFTP. Additionally, NetDirector manages and audits users and groups. Modules to manage updates via Red Hat Network, LDAP and iptables are scheduled to be available for the second quarter of 2006.

NetDirector is designed to be extended through a pluggable architecture to allow the addition of more managed services. Emu Software will work with the community and partners to extend the architecture not only to support configuration management but also to offer monitoring and provisioning services through strategic partnerships. NetDirector is available under an open source management stack that can be built to address the management needs of all sizes of enterprises.

“We have been speaking with other open source companies and projects, and their support for our decision to move to an open source development model has been overwhelming,” added Jim McHugh, CEO of Emu Software. “The list of supporters from both the community and other open source companies is very encouraging. We are very grateful for their backing.”

John Andrews, president of Evans Data Corporation, is one of those supporters. “The growth of Linux and open source increases the need for platform-independent, open source tools to manage these environments, he said. “I predict that Emu Software's decision to open source NetDirector to allow for better collaboration and customization to the needs of different end-users will be well received by IT managers and developers alike.”

Fred Gallagher, vice president of Global Alliances for Qlusters, agreed. “We are excited to see Emu Software choose to release their software under an open source license,” he said. “We believe that NetDirector will be an excellent compliment to OpenQRM (www.openqrm.org). We are thrilled to be working with Emu Software as a strategic partner for our commercial open source offerings.”

Bill Karpovich, CEO of Zenoss (www.zenoss.com), an open source, enterprise network and systems monitoring application, said, “We are pleased that Emu has joined the open source IT management ecosystem. We look forward to working with the NetDirector project to achieve the vision of a complete, IT management suite based on open source technologies."

Olaf Jacobi, CEO of Collax, Inc., added, "Linux has made incredible leaps into the mainstream, including the small and medium business market. There is a major opportunity to meld the scalability and rapid innovation of open source with the familiarity of commercial operating systems."

Emu Software is exhibiting at LinuxWorld Expo from April 4-6 at Booth 1134.

About Emu Software

Emu Software, Inc. is the maker of NetDirector, an extensible management framework that brings features such as rollback, policy-based administration, multi-server changes, and an ergonomic interface to open source systems. Emu Software is an IBM Business Partner and is designated as Red Hat Ready. Emu Software strives to deliver the leading cross-platform, cross-distribution configuration management solution for open source services such as Apache, Bind, Sendmail and many others. The company is headquartered in Cary, N.C. For more information, please visit www.emusoftware.com
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NetDirector is a trademark of Emu Software, Inc., in the U.S. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other trademarks herein are property of their respective owners.