Landscape Dedicated Server Edition Available in September

Canonical has announced today in a press release that a standalone version of its Landscape system monitoring and management service, Landscape Dedicated Server Edition, will be available for purchase in late September, 2009. This new standalone edition of Landscape will offer users the ability to install it locally and gain full control over their Ubuntu system. Being one of the most requested features, Canonical paid heed to its users and modified the hosted edition of Landscape in order for it to be operated locally. Landscape Dedicated Server Edition includes all the major features of the original edition, such as: auditing, management and monitoring.

Ken Drachnik, Landscape manager at Canonical, says, "System Administrators’ jobs are hectic enough. Landscape reduces errors associated with routine updates by automating the management of Ubuntu systems – freeing up time to work on more important tasks." [...] "“When released in late September, Landscape Dedicated Server will give customers the flexibility to download package updates from their own private repository or the Ubuntu public package repository."

When it will be released, in late September, Landscape Dedicated Server Edition will include the following new features:

- The management of both physical and Cloud systems in a single console (for desktop, server and Amazon EC2 Cloud sessions);
- The ability to schedule software updates and system restarts, especially if the network usage is low;
- Administrator delegation.

"We’ve been testing the new Landscape server, and it has saved us significant time and money by automating many of the routine maintenance tasks on our Ubuntu servers like patching and package updates," said Aidan Carty, HEAnet's information security officer. "Being able to install Landscape and host it internally in a HEAnet datacentre gives us greater control over our own and clients’ infrastructures."

About Canonical and Ubuntu

Canonical Ltd is the commercial sponsor of the Ubuntu Linux distribution and a global organization headquartered in Europe. Canonical is committed to the distribution, development and support of open-source software products and communities. Commercial support for Ubuntu is available through Canonical's Global Support Services team and partners. Launched for the first time in October 2004, Ubuntu has become one of the most highly regarded Linux distributions, with millions of users around the world, and it will always be free to download, use and distribute to others. With these goals in mind, Ubuntu aims to be the most widely used Linux system, and is the center of a global open-source software ecosystem.