Architosh Staff ([email protected])

9 Mar 2004

 

ProMac News: Mac OS X and BSD Unix Most Secure Operating Systems and Engineering Apps come to the Mac

Independent study by British cyber security rates Mac OS X most secure platform

A report on ITWeb.com details an independent study by mi2g, a British cyber security firm, that has found both Mac OS X and BSD Unix to be the most secure online server operating systems in the world. Based on the number of successful attacks on UK government and private server systems in January of this year, the report has found that 35% of all security breaches were attributed to Windows while 57% were attributed to Linux, a surprise increase in the popular open-source operating system. The report found no breaches in Apple's Mac OS X or BSD Unix based server systems.

BSD Unix is a popular choice for Unix-based web servers, with sites such as Yahoo.com being a longtime BSD Unix user. MacNN.com and Architosh (this site) are also running on BSD Unix (specifically FreeBSD), running the open-source Apache Web server. Apple's Mac OS X operating system incorporates FreeBSD and Mach in its core commonly referred to as Darwin. Both operating systems are so similar at the foundation level that is is easy to understand why both would rank at the same level in terms of cyber security.

Architosh Analysis: This is continued good news for Apple and will surely contribute to their push in the education, science, and enterprise markets. To read the full report go here.

Engineering Apps Come to Mac OS X

CEI has added support for Apple's Mac OS X platform for its technical visualization and analytic software products targeted at the automotive, aerospace, chemical and scientific markets. EnSight, EnSight Gold, and EnLiten are currently X11-based applications that run very well under Mac OS X Panther (10.3). EnVideo and EnVe are already native Mac OS X applications.

CEI, which stands for Computational Engineering International, develops software solutions for meshing and visualizing engineering and scientific data. The company's EnSight software is a leading visualization tool for the defense industry and is used by scientists at the US Air Force Research Lab, NASA, Department of Defense, US National Laboratories and aerospace companies throughout the world. The products are specifically used to study airplane engine failures, ensure nuclear weapon safety, conduct neutron research, and design safer, quieter weapons.

The Power of Unix and the Beauty of the Mac

"EnSight support further legitimizes OS X as the platform of choice for scientific and technical computing," says Matthew Grismer, an aerospace engineer. "I can now do all of my computational fluid dynamics research - from grid generation, to compiling and running code, to post-processing with EnSight - on one platform, and continue to use that same platform for regular office automation."

Benchmark testing by CEI indicates that Mac performance for EnSight equals or exceeds implementations on UNIX, Linux and Windows.

"The Macintosh community is justifiably proud of the Mac OS X platform, given its ease-of-use, the G5's high performance, the broad range of high-quality software applications, and the underlying UNIX-like power and robustness," says Darin McKinnis, director of sales at CEI. "But despite all the great Mac applications, CEI seems to have found a niche that was previously unserved: high-performance engineering and scientific visualization for structural and fluids analysis."

To read the full press release go here.

Architosh Analysis: Mac OS X is a full Unix operating system so engineers can effectively do high-end engineering and scientific work using their industry Unix tools on a computer that can also run standard office productivity applications such as Microsoft Office, FileMaker Pro and Adobe Acrobat. This is an essential element of the "proMac" argument in the technical markets -- Mac OS X being Unix facilitates engineers and scientists' ability to consolidate their desktops to just one machine where they can do design and visualization on the best graphics platform, yet have the ability to run highend Unix tools along business apps.

Architosh Marketplace

MacroEnter. is a CAD/AEC/Design, networking and large format printing solutions integrator, serving business, government and education customers. Reseller of VectorWorks, Microspot, HP and Encad product lines.

CAD Garage. is an online store dedicated to Architects, Engineers, Builders, Designers and Mac enthusiasts featuring ArchiCAD, formZ, Piranesi, Cinema 4D, HP and more product lines.

Lim Consultants, Inc. provides creative architects with practical solutions while incorporating cutting edge technology, pushing the art of structural engineering to new levels of excellence.

Place your text ad here and reach thousands of professionals each month for very affordable prices. (contact: [email protected])