11 September 2008

The availability of this virtualisation solution further proves that Novell and Microsoft can and are continuing to deliver on the promises of their collaboration

Janet Waxman, Vice President for Hardware Channels and Alliances, IDC Microsoft and Novell have announced the availability of the first complete, fully supported and optimised virtualisation solution to span Windows and Linux environments.

The solution is the first to include technology developed by both companies, and represents more than 18 months of technical collaboration between the two companies in response to customer demand for a virtualisation solution that provides high performance and ease of deployment. It includes Suse Linux Enterprise Server from Novell, configured and tested as an optimised guest operating system running on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. It is fully supported by both companies’ channel partners including Dell, which will test and validate the offering at the joint Microsoft and Novell Interoperability Lab.

“The collaboration between Microsoft and Novell has been built by our desire to meet our customers’ and partners’ IT needs, and to deliver solutions that support customers’ mixed-source environments,” said Bob Kelly, corporate vice president of infrastructure server marketing within the server and tools business at Microsoft. “For customers standardising on Microsoft’s hypervisor who also have a mixed-source IT environment, this virtualisation solution gives that choice. For channel partners who need a cross-platform hypervisor offering, our work with Novell gives them an easy starting point.”

Participating channel partners include the Computer Integrated Services Company of New York, Continental Resources, Dell, Insight, Total Tec Systems and 21Vianet. Dell is the only major systems vendor to participate in the programme, and will provide updates on its Web site with reference to the validation conducted on Dell PowerEdge server blades and rack-mounted systems.

“Virtualisation radically simplifies IT, providing greater flexibility and helping our customers focus their resources on innovation instead of maintenance,” said Rick Becker, vice president of software and solutions at Dell Product Group. “By supporting this new solution from Microsoft and Novell, we can provide our customers running mixed Linux and Windows environments with an optimised solution that is quick and simple to deploy.”

“We’re very pleased to be offering this new virtualisation solution with Microsoft and our channel partners, which demonstrates the success of our ongoing technical and business relationship and the unique, high-value solutions we can deliver for our customers,” said Roger Levy, general manager and senior vice president for open platform solutions at Novell. “Together, we offer our customers dramatic cost savings and greatly enhance overall business agility, allowing them to leverage Suse Linux Enterprise Server as the best virtualised guest for those who are using Hyper-V. Novell has worked closely with Microsoft on virtualisation solutions, and was a charter member of its Server Virtualization Validation Program, with Suse Linux Enterprise Server a fully supported and validated operating system on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.”

“The availability of this virtualisation solution from Novell and Microsoft further proves that the two companies can and are continuing to deliver on the promises of their collaboration,” said Janet Waxman, vice president for hardware channels and alliances at IDC. “This offering is a net win for the channel partners, which can now offer their customers a fully supported and optimised virtualisation solution for mixed Windows and Linux environments.”