Sphere Servers will be introducing more products over the next 12 months, including StrataSphere.

OfficeSphere:

FIREWALL & EMAIL SERVER & WEB SERVER & DATABASE SERVER & FTP SERVER & DHCP SERVER & DNS CACHE & MORE...
- all with simple web control panels

The Sphere "small office server appliance" uses the ReiserFS journalled file system and has solid Debian linux foundations. Sphere will update itself with any security patches and upgrades etc. as long as it has a connection to the 'net.

Sphere's web control system provides simple and intuitive access for both "superuser" and all other "users". Sphere is generally configured as the main firewall - it manages its own IP Tables settings based on the service options activated by the superuser. Hence one ethernet port can provide access to the outside world via broadband etc, while a second interface connects to the LAN etc. and provides DHCP services to all other LAN clients. Other configurations are possible using up to 3 ethernet ports.

The system provides a full featured email server (POP3, IMAP & SMTP) with authentication and a very attractive webmail client completely in sync with all IMAP folders etc.

File sharing for Windows, Apple Mac and Linux is available on the LAN by default and may be enabled on the external interface if required. FTP is available to access each user's own file share and also to control the public website content. Sphere copes well with a mixed client platform environment, with options to ensure that file names etc. work on Mac, Windows and Linux without hiccups etc. Sphere can work seamlessly with an existing Windows workgroup/domain if required.

Sphere obviously provides a web server and independently of its control system can host the users (or other)websites etc. PHP and MySQL are supported and creation and use of bespoke MySQL databases is again made simple through the web control system.

An optional groupware pack will soon provide web based shared contacts and calendars for all users.