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SALT LAKE CITY—Novell announced the next generation of its OES (Open Enterprise Server) operating system, at its annual BrainShare tradeshow March 19. OES 2 adds 64-bit Xen-based virtualization, dynamic storage support, and Windows domain support, and marks the final transition from Novell NetWare to SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server).
The new OES is built on top of the just released SLES 10 SP1. This operating system supports Intel and AMD 64-bit dual-core and multi-core processors.
In addition, many of OES main services—Novell Storage Services, Novell Cluster Services, and others—have been updated to 64-bit code. Other services are 32-bit with 64-bit libraries where needed.
Using Xen virtualization, OES now enables users to run NetWare 6.5 as a paravirtualized guest operating system on top of SLES.
In order to achieve optimal performance on the latest hardware in this paravirtualized mode of use, NetWare has been enhanced to recognize that its running as a virtual machine, according to Novell.
Novells director of product marketing Justin Steinman said NetWare on OES opens up some very profitable server consolidation possibilities.
“On todays high-end hardware, NetWare rarely comes close to reaching full CPU utilization. When Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 comes out, youll be able to take advantage of under-utilized hardware by having a single machine host two, three, or more NetWare servers without affecting performance. This can deliver significant savings on hardware costs, rack space, cooling requirements, and power requirements.”
In OES 2, Novell is also introducing “dynamic storage technology.” This new functionality enables administrators to create policies that dictate what data is considered active or inactive.