The VM images together with instructions and additional information are available at: http://trac.ebox-platform.com/wiki/Download/VMImages Please note that the images come with a reduced set of eBox packages and actually eBox offers plenty of more features that are available at the “Software Management” section once you have created your VM.

As always, any feedback or suggestion is very welcome through the Forum.

The courses are free of charge and will be held in Spanish, from the 8th until the 26th of March – one in the morning with a total duration of 60 hours and one in the afternoon with a total duration of 48 hours. Both of the courses also include a certification exam. All the interested parties can apply on-line until the 26th of February (please note that there are different applications for the morning course and the afternoon course).

These courses are aimed at IT professionals with basic knowledge on computer network management, for example, Windows system administrators who are interested in quickly getting effective at managing computer networks with Linux based systems. At the completion of these courses, students should be able to understand the concepts behind computer network management and to manage perfectly small and medium sized businesses’ computer networks with eBox Platform.

The courses include a large set of practical exercises with eBox Platform, all of them carried out in a virtual environment installed on each students’ PC. Besides introducing the students to the platform virtualization, this allows them to model computer networks with different servers and clients and to try by themselves multiple network environments and configurations. The detailed course program is available at the CTA web page.

The maximum number of students accepted for each course is 15 and the students are selected based on their curriculum vitae and examination.

“Our aim with eBox Platform and eBox based services is to offer small and medium businesses and IT service and solution providers a one-stop-shop for all the network management services” said Javi Vázquez, Chief Operating Officer at eBox Technologies. “eBox Platform has a fast-growing professional user base that is requesting every time more commercial services and we believe that with the launch of the online store we are able to meet better the needs of the marketplace.”

The recently launched version 1.4 of eBox Platform integrated – for the first time – SaaS options such as remote backup and low-cost VoIP calls aimed directly to the eBox end users. The eBox Online Store now enables the purchase of off-site storage space and VoIP credit that the eBox end users can easily use through the eBox Platform user interface.

Other services that are now available for purchase include eBox Control Center Subscriptions to manage and monitor easily multiple eBox servers and support services such as One-time eBox Support, aimed at those customers that occasionally have a need for technical support and eBox Migration Support, to guarantee successful migrations from eBox 1.2 to eBox 1.4. Both support options are provided directly by the eBox Support Team. In addition, end users can now purchase official eBox documentation from the online store – to begin with, the official eBox for Network Administrators Guide in Spanish (for eBox Platform 1.4).

Other on-line services that will be offered shortly will include One-time Priority Support, with maximum response time of one hour, aimed at those customers that have an occasional and urgent need for technical support as well as official eBox documentation in English. Furthermore, in the first half of 2010, the company will launch the Virtual CIO service, that consists of reports on network activity together with security audits, evaluations on the status of the network, warnings of potential problems and recommendations of improvements.

Additionally, you can find the full list of available documentation including the official documentation for eBox Platform 1.2, how-tos, tutorials and screencasts at: http://trac.ebox-platform.com/wiki/Document/Index.

Two of the most important new features of the eBox Platform 1.4 release include support for master-slave LDAP servers and Microsoft Windows Active Directory synchronization. Moreover, new features include new webmail module, PPPoE support, Multi-WAN support for DHCP and PPPoE configured gateways, new Samba (3.4.5) version, dynamic DNS updates via DHCP and new RADIUS module. Additionally, the new release incorporates a number of improvements in the Mail, Printers and VoIP modules and general usability enhancements.

For additional information regarding the upgrading, repository and full change log, please check the eBox Platform 1.4 Announcement The next stable release will be eBox Platform 2.0 which is expected for July 2010.

Besides shipping a number of new features and improvements (check the roadmap for deatails), the focus of this release candidate has been on allowing easy migrations from eBox 1.2 to eBox 1.4. Although we have tested thoroughly several upgrading scenarios and we have detected a very few rough edges, we would appreciate greatly your help in testing this release candidate and making the eBox 1.4 a great release!

Please remember this is a release candidate and it’s not ready for production yet. For additional information, how to upgrade and known issues please check the forum. We’re looking forward to receiving your feedback!

eBox Control Center features include remote, centralized and secure administration of groups of eBox servers, automatic remote configuration backup, network monitoring and generation of customized reports regarding the use of different network services. If you are a professional eBox Platform user, maybe you are interested in reading the full story. Starting immediately, you can also request a 15-day trial at no charge at: www.ebox-technologies.com/products/controlcenter/try/ The free trial includes on-line support for eBox Control Center related issues.

After five years of intense development work and approximately 200.000 lines of code that integrate over 20 open source network management tools in one single platform, eBox is currently not only an enterprise level network management solution, but what is more, enables Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and Value Added Resellers (VARs) to offer a full set of eBox based network management and outsourcing services for SMBs all over the globe.

Included in Ubuntu since 2007, an estimate of 40,000 active installations, currently over 8,000 monthly downloads and active community of 2,000 members -both growing at fast pace, make us to believe that eBox Platform is a well-established solution in the open source market and each new release will take us a step closer to our goal of turning eBox into the application of choice for Linux based network management!

All these features and much more will be available in the next eBox 1.4 stable version that will be out in few months (check the roadmap for additional information). In the meanwhile, you can help us starting to test the eBox 1.3 by reporting bugs or any other issues you consider of importance. Just remember that this is beta software and it is not intended for production use.

Your feedback is very important – Please do not hesitate to report any issues through the eBox Support Forum or eBox Trac.