“Zentyal is a fast-growing server solution that combines cloud-based services to make network management easy and secure for SMBs. In just three years we have become the reference in Linux small business servers, and now, with over 30,000 monthly downloads and at break-even, we consider this is the right moment to get venture capital to disrupt definitely the market. We believe Open Ocean Capital is the best investor for us, as they can bring both the funding and the best advice to help us challenge the current market leaders” said Ignacio Correas, CEO of Zentyal.

“We are excited to become shareholders in Zentyal, as the company aims to disrupt the multibillion dollar business for small- and medium sized business servers” said Tom Henriksson, Open Ocean Partner. “Zentyal perfectly fits Open Ocean Fund Three’s investment focus, developing a rapidly scalable business on the basis of a vibrant open-source community and -product.”

Simultaneously Zentyal has also appointed new members to the Board of Directors: Tom Henriksson, Partner at Open Ocean and former Head of Corporate Business Development at Nokia, has joined the board alongside with Jorge Mata, Founder and President of Berg Networks and Founder of MyAlert.

Download the full press release in English or Spanish…

“The Spanish version of the book has been extremely well received and valued as useful training material and professional reference manual” said Javi Vázquez, Chief Operating Officer at Zentyal. “Ever since we launched the first Spanish version, our customers and community members have asked for an English edition and thanks to the cooperation with Interlinux, our UK-based partner, we’re very happy to offer it starting from today!”

Besides being a full guide to Linux-based network management with Zentyal, the book “Zentyal for Network Administrators” is written with the aim of preparing the reader for the ZeCA certification exam (Zentyal Certified Associate). This vendor-certified exam allows IT professionals to validate their knowledge in Linux small business server management with Zentyal. You can now download a .pdf sample of the book (chapter of the HTTP Proxy Service) from the Zentyal On-line Store.

During his talk, Salamero will explain the challenges the Zentyal Development Team has faced in developing a Linux small business server that integrates and makes over 30 independent open source components to act as one single unit. Special attention is given on how the project deals with packaging policies and security profiles, such as configuration file updates. Furthermore, Zentyal’s specific MVC-based development framework, integration with Ubuntu and integration plans with Debian will also be presented.

“We’re glad to be able to share our experience at FOSDEM and talk with other open source developers that might be interested in the project” said Jorge Salamero, and continued “Zentyal is a fast-moving project, with large and active userbase and its development framework makes it easy to configure new services and to improve already existing modules – I believe it is an interesting project to participate in. Moreover, besides the updated Zentyal packages that will be included in Ubuntu Natty, packages for Debian Squeeze will be available shortly, making the participation possible for even more developers.”

Additional note: Zentyal Team will be in Brussels from the 2nd until the 7th of February. If you are interested in arranging a meeting, please contact us via info at zentyal.com

Please note that this installer comes with a new Zentyal Cloud-based feature: you can see a new “Disaster Recovery” entry in the installer menu. This option allows users with a free Basic Server Subscription to automatically install the modules from a previously stored configuration backup and also to restore the configuration itself. Starting from January, full Disaster Recovery functionality will be available for those with Professional and Enterprise subscriptions.

Another mayor change in the installer is the switch from slim to LXDM as display manager – we have opted for this change to avoid crashes of the graphic environment on some systems.

Remember that if you already have Zentyal 2.0 installed, you can update to the latest version without having to reinstall. Simply go to “Zentyal Components” page in the “Software Management” section and download the new packages! Alternatively, you can download the new installer at http://www.zentyal.org/downloads

The whole Zentyal Team wishes you happy holidays with this new release! We will be at the office, so if you can spare some of your time to test the new features, it would definitely be the best gift you could ever make!

“This book is being extremely well received both as a valuable training material and as a professional reference manual” said Javi Vázquez, Chief Operating Officer at Zentyal, and continued “We’re currently working on the English version, that has been already demanded by many customers and community members. We believe that the English edition will be available during the first quarter of 2011″.

Besides being a full guide to Linux-based network management with Zentyal, the book “Zentyal for Network Administrators” is written with the aim of preparing the reader for the ZeCA certification exam (Zentyal Certified Associate). This vendor-certified exam allows IT professionals to validate their knowledge in Linux small business server management with Zentyal. You can now download a .pdf sample of the book (chapter of the HTTP Proxy Service) from the Zentyal On-line Store.

On one hand, the presentation is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses and organizations interested in deploying an easy-to-use and affordable Linux server. And on the other hand, the presentation is also directed to ICT service providers interested in becoming Authorized Zentyal Partners to offer support and services based on Zentyal.

During the technical demonstration the attendees will see how to configure Zentyal as a Gateway to give all the users of a network secure and controlled access to the Internet. Of all the Zentyal Gateway functionality, features such as firewall, content filtering and virtual private network (VPN) configuration will be highlighted.

Furthermore, the audience will see how to configure Zentyal as an Office Server, including network configuration, central management of users and groups in master / slave mode or synchronized with Windows Active Directory server, or Samba server for folder sharing, among other features.

The presentation is free of charge, but registration is required. For more information and to register (please note that you must first join the MoR platform and then join the event), see this page.

Since the very beginning, Zentyal has aimed at offering small and medium businesses easy, affordable and secure Linux-based network management. And during the past year, many important steps have been taken in order to accomplish this promise even better. In the area of business development, the launch of subscription based service offering via Zentyal Cloud, launch of the Zentyal Academy program and large number of new partnerships, among others, have marked important milestones. On the other hand, in the area of product development the release of Zentyal 2.0 – a mayor new release based on Ubuntu 10.04 and the first versions of Zentyal Desktop would be definite highlights.

It has been exciting year and we have been glad to see our efforts rewarded with fast growth in downloads, users, partners and customers – We believe the next year will be at least equally exciting and will take us closer to our goal of turning Zentyal into the server application of choice for small and medium businesses!

Please note that we are still working on updating the screenshots in the English version, but this should be done by the end of this week. If you find any issues (typos, mistakes, etc.) and want to contribute by reporting them, please let us know through the Forum.

“Until now, we have followed a six-month release cycle, adding many new features with every version, with the goal of completing the functionality of the Zentyal server” said José Antonio Calvo, Zentyal Product Manager. “Although we will continue developing and adding new features to Zentyal, we believe that it is time to shift our focus from adding many new features towards stability and long-term support. With the freshly published release policy, that grants three years of support for every stable release, we make an important promise to our users and customers regarding the quality and stability of the product.”

As the release policy specifies, from now on there will be one stable release every year. The development will be frozen in June and after a three months stabilization period, the stable releases will be published in September. Regarding the support policy, the Development Team of Zentyal guarantees three years of support to every stable release. This means that all security issues will be solved and commercial support and subscription services will be available for this period of time.

Zentyal 2.0 is based on the new Ubuntu 10.4 LTS distribution and this has implied a major change in all the server components. For this reason, Zentyal 2.0 is a new major release. With this change, the users are ensured higher levels of security, functionality and hardware compatibility.

Besides updating the Zentyal base, this version features significant usability, performance and stability improvements. Additionally, it also includes new features. With the goal of providing a Linux server that can be fully configured through a simple graphical interface, software management improvements have taken place and automatic configuration wizards have been introduced.

Moreover, the configuration backed of Zentyal has been changed from gconf to redis and this has improved notably the server speed. Thanks to this and other visual enhancements, the general user experience has been greatly improved.

Additionally, Zentyal 2.0 also includes new features such as bridge mode that simplifies the deployment of existing networks or FTP module demanded by many Zentyal community members. Finally, this version also features a new Zarafa module that provides a groupware solution for sharing calendars, contacts and tasks.

Additional information
Zentyal 2.0 is available for download at:
http://www.zentyal.org/download/latest
The official Zentyal 2.0 release announcement is available at:
http://trac.zentyal.org/wiki/Document/Announcement/2.0/
This announcement is also available in Spanish, French, Portuguese and Russian.