Landscape Manages Ubuntu Server Edition on the Amazon EC2 cloud

LONDON, May 18, 2009 – Canonical, the commercial sponsor of
Ubuntu, announced today the release of Canonical Landscape 1.3, the
systems management and monitoring service for Ubuntu. Available as
part of the commercial support package or as a standalone service,
Landscape provides the growing number of businesses deploying
multiple instances of Ubuntu on servers and desktops the means to
manage and maintain their systems more easily. Landscape can
significantly reduce the cost of ownership and maximise the
administration resources of any Ubuntu deployment.

“Landscape simplifies system management tasks for users who run
Ubuntu on physical or virtual servers in-house or some or all of
their Ubuntu servers on the Amazon EC2 cloud. It enables users to
manage all instances from the same application,” said Ken Drachnik,
Landscape business manager at Canonical. “Being able to manage
servers on the cloud as easily as those deployed internally is a
huge boost for those deploying Ubuntu servers at scale.”

“New in Landscape 1.3

“The third point release of Landscape adds more features and
functionality that simplify the routine, error-prone tasks of
system administrators.

“Landscape 1.3 includes:

Management of Ubuntu on Amazon EC2 – as users begin to migrate
applications to cloud environments, they can now use Landscape to
start, stop and manage their Ubuntu instances on Amazon EC2, the
world’s most popular cloud environment.

The ability to choose Ubuntu images on Amazon EC2 –
pre-configured by Canonical with a Landscape client, this
simplifies the process of managing Ubuntu on Amazon EC2. Users can
enter their EC2 credentials directly through Landscape to start a
service.

Management of physical and virtual machines – start an Ubuntu
Amazon Machine Image (AMI) on Amazon EC2 and easily register that
instance with a Landscape subscription. All virtual machines can
then be managed and monitored in the same way as physical ones.

Updated Custom Graph feature – users can create and store trends
of key system parameters. They can create simple scripts to plot
those parameters as well as monitor any machine-reportable
parameter such as CPU, memory and disk usage.

“About Landscape
Landscape provides users with a hosted web interface on which all
machines are registered. From this single interface, packages and
security updates are deployed to the entire network of servers
and/or desktops with a single click. Additionally, a wealth of
monitoring data is provided graphically to the administrator
showing process and resource use to help them spot system
bottlenecks before they impact performance. Pricing and
availability Ubuntu users are invited to register for a free trial
at www.canonical.com/landscape/register. The 60-day trial provides
users with full access to all Landscape features to manage up to
five machines.

“Landscape is available free with Ubuntu support from Canonical
or, for those who do not yet require support, as a paid service
priced at $150 per node, with discounting available on larger
volumes. About Canonical Canonical Ltd, the commercial sponsor of
Ubuntu, is a global organisation headquartered in Europe committed
to the development, distribution and support of open source
software products and communities. World-class, 24×7 commercial
support for Ubuntu is available through Canonical’s global support
team and partners.

“About Ubuntu
Since its launch in October 2004, Ubuntu has become one of the most
highly-regarded Linux distributions. With millions of users in
homes, schools, businesses and governments around the world, Ubuntu
is growing in popularity on both the server and the desktop. With
the values of Open Source software at its core, Ubuntu costs
nothing to download or update. Users are also actively encouraged
to copy, install, modify and share their Ubuntu software anytime,
anywhere and with anyone. Visit www.canonical.com or www.ubuntu.com
for more information.”