Mainstar Announces New Features for Provisioning Expert for Linux on z/VM Product

Provisioning Expert™ Version 1.5 offers increased compatibility and support capabilities

Kirkland, WA – August 7, 2008 – Mainstar (www.mainstar.com), an industry-leading provider of data access solutions in the System z arena, today announced the general availability of Version 1.5 of its Provisioning Expert product. Provisioning Expert simplifies Linux management under z/VM, making it simple to create, configure, and maintain many virtual Linux® instances under z/VM®. With Provisioning Expert's wizard-like interface, users can create and configure new Linux instances in a matter of minutes instead of hours, increasing accuracy as well as efficiency.

The new features offered in version 1.5 include:

• RHEL 5 Support - PE now supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) version 5, including SELinux.
• FCP-attached SCSI Support - PE now supports the creation of filesystems for instances on FCP-attached SCSI devices on Linux 2.6 kernels.
• User Guide - A book describing how to use Provisioning Expert is provided which augments the online help.
• Multiple DASD Pools - PE allows DASD to be organized into pools. You can configure a snapshot, instance, or filesystem to allocate the DASD it requires from a specific pool.
• DASD Clear Option - PE will optionally clear (erase) DASD when it is freed and returned to its pool, for security purposes.

"With the newest version of Provisioning Expert, there is no need to worry about being a z/VM or Linux expert," says Shari Killion, Systems Software Engineer at Mainstar. "Creating Linux instances can be done in just a few short steps which can be fully customized to meet your environment's unique needs."