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SALT LAKE CITY—Novell CEO Jack Messman rolled out the SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 platform at the companys annual BrainShare conference here on March 20, describing this as the platform for the open enterprise that leverages the assets of Linux, open source and Novells engineering efforts.
“This platform supports all of Novells products and is a complete package, offering the platform, products and services above that, as well as our partner and support networks,” Messman said.
The platform will leverage open standards across IT to drive business innovation, protect against security threats anywhere and lower operating costs. Two products were built on the SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 platform, the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 product and the SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, he said.
The SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 platform, and the server product built on it, will deliver a completely integrated and supported virtualization environment, Messman said.
“We are first with this, and virtualization is completely integrated into YAST [Yet Another Setup Tool],” said Eric Anderson, the vice president of SUSE Linux engineering.
SUSE Linux Enterprise 10, which is being beta tested, will include a fully integrated and supported version of Xen 3.0, the emerging open-source standard for virtualization services, he said.
Xen 3.0 lets organizations consolidate multiple workloads on a single server. “With Xen 3.0, customers can configure applications and systems for maximum efficiency,” Anderson said, adding that SUSE has also had more code submissions accepted into Xen than any other vendor, which underscores its leading position on this front.
Simon Crosby, the chief technical officer for XenSource, said SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 was the first enterprise Linux distribution to offer full commercial support for the open-source Xen 3.0 hypervisor.
“With Xen 3.0, SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 can take full advantage of Intel and AMD hardware support for virtualization, delivering bare-metal virtualization performance to enterprise customers. Novell is a trusted partner to XenSource, and we look forward to working closely with Novell to deliver compelling virtualization solutions to enterprise customers,” he said in a statement.
SUSE Linux Enterprise10 also includes Novell AppArmor, the application-level security service that protects customer systems and processes. With the open-source AppArmor, customers can deploy application security for both servers and desktops while reducing IT staff workload and lowering total cost of ownership, Anderson said.
“AppArmor helps customers rapidly develop and enforce security policies to protect infrastructure against attackers who seek and exploit application flaws. SUSE Linux Enterprise also fully supports leading open standards for encrypted file systems, firewalls, certificate management, intrusion detection and intrusion prevention,” Anderson said.
He said customers who subscribe to SUSE Linux Enterprise will also get access to the latest software enhancements, bug fixes and security patches through regular updates via the Novell Customer Center, a centralized online portal that provides access to technical support and is completely integrated with Novell ZENworks Linux Management.
Other SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 innovations include the fact that its storage foundation integrates Oracle Cluster File System 2, Enterprise Volume Manager and Heartbeat 2 clustering services to deliver an open-source, high-availability storage solution, Anderson said.
Linux Enterprise also brings an integrated application development kit, including the Mono open-source development platform based on Microsofts .Net, to build new solutions based on Linux, along with middleware services including Apache, Geronimo, Java, PHP, Python, TCL (Tool Command Language)/TK, Ruby and shell scripting, he said.