Shuttle joins the SUSE Pre-load family

You can add another to the list of computer manufacturers who are pre-loading SUSE Linux… Shuttle. (Thanks to TrustedReview’s article for the heads-up). Actually, these new small form factor PCs are now available in the UK and Austria; and can be configured with your choice of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop or openSUSE.

Shuttle LinuXPCs with SUSE Linux Operating System is available immediately in the UK. Delivery to Austria also possible

Shuttle Inc., the market leader in the Mini-PC sector and manufacturer of Multi-Form-Factor solutions, is now also selling its Mini-PCs with the Linux Operating System in the UK. The two compact PCs made of aluminium can be individually configured in the official Shuttle Systems Configurator. They are delivered pre-installed and ready to connect and include the 24 months Pick-up-and-Return Service for reliable help in the case of a warranty claim.

 

Watts Water Technologies lowers TCO with SLED and ZENworks

Watts Water Technologies needed to replace 1000 old shop-floor terminals with more flexible desktops. They ended up choosing SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop on Neoware thin client hardwares along with ZENworks to help manage the environment. You can also check out the Open PR blog entry for some info.  From the customer success story…

After evaluating several desktop and thin-client solutions, Watts Water Technologies selected SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop for use in a thin-client deployment, as well as Novell ZENworks to manage more than 1,000 desktops.

“Linux really shines and Novell has a great Linux strategy,” said Ty Muscat, Data Center Manager for Watts Water Technologies. “We have almost every platform imaginable and are moving more and more to SUSE Linux Enterprise desktops and servers. We like having an open platform with a lot of flexibility.”

The results:

“Without Novell, we would have had to invest far more to get anything similar to what we have with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop,” said Muscat. “The ongoing management and maintenance costs of other options would have been overwhelming for us.”

 

1 Year Later, Just the Facts

It’s been a whole year since the ground-breaking Novell-Microsoft Collaboration Agreement was signed and announced. The one-stop shop for official info is here: http://www.moreinterop.com So far, despite the noise in the press, MANY customers have decided to take advantage of the many benefits that the agreement brings to the table. Here’s a list of all 46 of the customers who are allowing us to mention them publicly. They include some of the largest and most recognizable organizations in the world – Wal-Mart, BMW, Costco, HSBC, Nationwide, Siemens and Southwest Airlines just to name a few…

• 1blu
• Abraxas Informatik AG
• ADIF
• AFG IT Consulting
• Arsys
• Arsys Internet S.L.
• Baker Hughes
• BATS Trading Inc.
• BMW AG
• State of California, Department of Fish and Game
• State of California Department of Technology Services
• Cash Converters International Ltd.
• CHRISTUS Health
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• City of Los Angeles
• CompuCom Systems Inc.
• Conductor Tecnologia S.A.
• Costco Wholesale Corp.
• Flagstar Bank
• Fujitsu Services Oy
• Gordon Food Service
• Gulfstream Aerospace Corp.
• hi5 Networks Inc.
• Host Europe
• HSBC
• iLoop Mobile Inc.
• Leicester City Council
• Kent County, Mich.
• Mercury Insurance
• Nationwide
• Pioneer Corp.
• PRISACOM SA
• Reed Elsevier
• Riverside County, Calif.
• Save Mart Supermarkets
• Siemens Corp.
• South Carolina Department of Probation, Pardon and Parole Services
• Southwest Airlines Co.
• Swiss Post
• Synovus Financial Corp.
• TDC Hosting
• T-Systems Enterprise Services GmbH
• Wal-Mart
• Washington State Department of Information Services
• Westmont College
• Zabka Polska S.A.
• Links here, here and here

On top of all these customers, several other developments in the relationship have occurred during the first year. Novell and Microsoft have completed building out and are now doing real engineering work and interoperability testing in the Microsoft and Novell Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. More info on the lab is in the recent press release. Dell signed on as a partner for the agreement as well, working to help Linux customers with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

And most recently, Novell and Microsoft extended the agreement by agreeing to work together to make it easier for all software developers to develop applications for users with disabilities, such as blindness. From the press release:

Microsoft will make available its User Interface Automation (UIA) specification, an advanced accessibility framework that simplifies the development of assistive technology products for people with one or more disabilities, and pledge not to assert any Microsoft patents necessary to implement the specification against anyone, regardless of platform, in the open source and proprietary software communities. In concert, to promote interoperability between leading accessibility frameworks in the market, Novell will develop and deliver an adapter that allows the UIA framework to work well with existing Linux accessibility projects and complement the investments made by IBM Corp. and others. Novell’s work will be open source and will make the UIA framework cross-platform while enabling UIA to interoperate with the Linux Accessibility Toolkit (ATK), which ships with SUSE Linux Enterprise, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu Linux. The UIA solution will ensure interoperability of nonvisual access to the next generation of software applications.

“Microsoft’s commitment to make the specification for UIA freely available to others to implement, coupled with Novell’s plans to develop and deliver an adapter that allows Linux accessibility projects to work well with the UIA framework, are tremendous examples of how industry can come together to tackle interoperability problems for blind persons,” said Dr. Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind. “The NFB challenges the entire IT industry to continue to look for creative opportunities such as this to solve longstanding interoperability challenges and reduce development barriers to accessibility.”

 

Novell, Dell Expand Customer Choice with Linux Pre-Loads in China

We mentioned this in an earlier blog entry, but here’s the official press release:

BEIJING— 06 Nov 2007—  Novell and Dell™ today announced an expansion of Linux offerings with the addition of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 installed on Dell OptiPlex™ 330 and 755 commercial desktop PCs in China. The systems will be available later this year.

This development is part of Dell’s efforts to give customers more choices and to help meet increasing demand for Linux that provides security, dependability and lower TCO. The OptiPlex desktop PCs with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 come with 60 days of telephone software technical support from Novell and a year of hardware support from Dell.

More choice for customers.  It’s a good thing for the industry, and hopefully Dell will become more and more comfortable with a Linux pre-load offering of SLED as a result.  Translation… I’m eager to have them offer something similar in the US too.

 

If MacGyver had 8 PS3’s and a CS Degree…

MacGyver knew his stuff when it came to building a flame thrower out of popsicle sticks, chewing gum, dental floss and a styrofoam cup — plus he always had that cool Swiss Army knife. But I bet even he wouldn’t have been able to use eight PlayStation 3’s, Linux and some technical hacker-know-how to do some scientific supercomputing. But someone’s done it!

This interesting blog article from ZDnet talks about how a researcher from University of Massachusetts built a very low cost “supercomputer” capable of about 200 GFlops all running on PS3’s. While the Linux distro used wasn’t SUSE Linux Enterprise (it was Yellow Dog Linux)… and while there are several other considerations which keep the PS3 from being the scientific computing platform of choice, it’s definitely another fine example of how flexible Linux can be compared to other OS’s.

So, if you’re looking for an excuse to get approval for a purchase order of equipment for your gaming– er, “supercomputing lab”… look no further.

 

SUSE Linux Enterprise in Asia

Yeah, I know this is a blog about Linux in the US, and specifically in the East — but if you check us out regularly or have us in your RSS reader, you should know that we also occasionally visit other parts of the world to see how they’re doing.

Here’s a little article from ZDnet Asia/Bangkok Post whose reporter sat down with Novell’s Executive VP of Worldwide Sales, Tom Francese, to see how things were coming along…

“We’re an information infrastructure company. We are different from RedHat in that we deliver up the stack–security, systems management, virtualization–and we are more than just open source,” Francese explained.

…and…

In Thailand, some of Novell’s reference customers are Thai Airways and Assumption University. The Ministry of Interior is also of note, as it progressed from being a heritage customer using Netware through to security and today’s OS stack.

The government sector is one where Novell is particularly strong. The Indian state of Tamil Nadu recently rolled out 2,000 servers and 40,000 desktops all based on Suse. Novell is also looking to the government sectors in China and Japan, as well as here in Thailand.

 

Dell is seeing Linux server sales grow faster than Windows

According to a Silicon.com article… Speaking to an audience at the Gartner Symposium/IT Expo last week, Dell’s CEO Michael Dell said that Linux server sales are increasing faster than Windows server sales. You can view the webcast of the keynote here. I think that helps to validate what many of us have intuitively known for years… that Linux is the fastest growing operating system in the IT market. It’s also worth pointing out that Dell is validating the observation we’ve had for some time that more and more organizations are “trusting” Linux A LOT more and deciding to put more “critical applications” on Linux than in the past.

He said: “On the server side Linux continues to grow nicely, a bit faster than Windows. We’re seeing a move to Linux in critical applications, and Linux migration has not slowed down.”

However, for those customers who might be concerned about whether Microsoft’s claims of patent violation could result in legal action, Dell added that there were “certainly mechanisms if customers are concerned about patents”.

One of those mechanisms he’s referring to is Novell’s own Novell Technology Assurance Program (NTAP). Whether or not you believe MS’s position on IP, there are surely CxO’s within your organization who prefer to minimize all risks for the organization. NTAP can certainly help give those CxO’s the piece-of-mind necessary, and help remove roadblocks for you to dramatically increase the amount of Linux in your shop — (assuming you like secure, reliable, and low cost operating systems… like SLE) 🙂

Find the Silicon.com article here and checkout Michael Dell’s keynote here (Linux comments ~29:30).

 

NetWare virtualized in Xen?

Yes!  NetWare can be virtualized using Xen on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1.  It’s part of the feature set of Open Enterprise Server 2 — more info:  product home page, audio podcast, Novell CTO blog, press release, workgroup blog

A couple of related news articles

• “Novell Actually Ships Open Enterprise Server 2” from IT Jungle
• “Good-Bye NetWare, Hello Linux: Novell Open Enterprise 2” from eWeek.com
• “A Novell SUSE Linux shop surprised by Xen’s polish” from SearchEnterpriseLinux.com

One great thing about the way that OES 2 was designed is that it is simply an add-on to SLES 10.  That means, all the hardware that is officially certified for SLES 10, is now officially certified to run virtualized NetWare (OES 2).  Get a list of the certified hardware on the Novell site here, and don’t forget to check your favorite hardware vendor’s own website for the latest info.

 

Linux for Small Biz, made easier…

Many small businesses and the IT consultants who support them have deployed Linux in some way — hey, it can save a ton of cash! But typically Linux is doing a specific task — maybe a file/print server, web server, firewall, database, etc. The solutions have been done fairly piece-wise, and that can lead to a lack of integration – making things a bit more difficult to manage over time. Alternatively, one might have chosen the Microsoft Small Business product – but we all know where that can lead (security problems, constant patching, IT headaches, excessive software costs, etc.). There really hasn’t been a nicely integrated workgroup suite for small business based combining the best of open source and proprietary enterprise software… until now.

Novell Open Workgroup Suite Small Business Edition has arrived. It works with either Windows or Linux desktops and includes “less expensive” (and arguably EASIER-to-LEARN) alternatives to Windows Vista and MS Office 2007. In addition to a nicely integrated installation, it has a ton of value for a very small price. It includes:

• File/Print sharing and security – Open Enterprise Server for Linux
• Laptop backup/file collaboration – iFolder
• Email/Calendaring – GroupWise
• End-user general purpose desktop – SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop
• MS Office-compatible office suite – OpenOffice.org, Novell Edition
• Backup software – Amanda
• Network faxing – HylaFAX
• Anti-spam – MailScanner
• Anti-virus for email – ClamAV
• Firewall – iptables
• VPN – OpenVPN
• Remote control – TightVNC

… and all this stuff runs on Linux!  Yeah, but how does it compare to the Microsoft Small Business Suite? Look here.

All this for a retail cost of $350 for every 5-users!! Want more info? Check these out… product home page, audio podcast, press release, workgroup team blog

 

Hard Disk Encryption Support for SUSE Linux (updated)

Most IT shops would agree… stolen laptops are a security risk. To combat this problem, many organizations are turning to hard disk encryption as a way to prevent loss of sensitive information. Apparently the US Federal government has even mandated that disk encryption be used on laptops with sensitive data.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 includes some support for disk encryption natively – look here for more info. But if that does not fit your needs; or perhaps you’re looking for a cross-platform solution; or something that does “whole disk encryption”….

At least one commercial offering is also available: WinMagic, purveyor of hard disk encryption, recently announced that their product SecureDoc will be supporting hard disk encryption on Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop – their first official support of Linux (traditionally, they’ve been a Windows only vendor). The product is expected to be generally available by September 2007.

According to their press announcement…

“In recognition of the increased demand for Linux, WinMagic has developed an end-point encryption solution which will make it simple for Linux users to protect data at rest no matter where it may reside,” said Thi Nguyen-Huu, CEO of WinMagic Inc. “In developing and testing SecureDoc for the Linux environment, WinMagic’s main focus was to provide the marketplace with an encryption product that will not yield on performance, functionality, or ease of use,” Nguyen-Huu continued. “Our support for Linux is yet another sign of WinMagic’s dedication to open system standards and to furthering those standards for the data encryption market place.”

(Updated) Found another commercial offering for Linux hard disk encryption… CheckPoint’s Pointsec Hard Drive Encryption. Supports SUSE and Red Hat.

(Updated, Oct 9) Here’s a non-commercial “free” product for entire hard disk encryption… TrueCrypt. Although it does not do “whole disk encryption” it does do partition-level encryption. According to the website it supports openSUSE and Ubuntu.

What’s been your experience with hard drive encryption thus far?? Any other vendors in this space you might be aware of?

 

Another Virtualization Mushroom Pops Up

As if there weren’t currently enough companies with a virtualization play, Hitachi has announced that it has placed it’s Virtage virtualization code on the firmware for it’s Xeon-based blade solution, the BladeSymphony 1000, which combines Itanium and Xeon CPU’s in a single chassis.

More here.

 

Novell + MS Agreement = Continuing Growth

From the article:

September 26, 2007 (Computerworld) — Novell Inc.‘s Linux business has soared 243% since last November, when the company signed its controversial deal with Microsoft Corp.

“The affect on sales year over year, for Novell’s first three quarters of our fiscal year, which ends Oct. 31 — our Linux business was up 243%,” said Justin Steinman, director of marketing at Novell, who, along with executives from both companies, spoke at a program hosted by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council.

And, that growth doesn’t seem to be short-lived.

“We’re continuing to see above market growth year [over] year and that clearly has resulted in the 243% Justin alluded to,” said Susan Heystee, general manager of global strategic alliance at Novell.

More here.

 

Whoa, Mainframe, Linux and Windows on a Single Box?

I’d buy that for a dollar. Well, lots of dollars, since it’s priced similarly to our friends at IBM’s mainframes. PSI (Platform Technologies Inc.) makes a plug-compatible set of machines called the System64 DS and ES, formerly only available through a 3rd party.

DS or Distributed Server and the ES or Enterprise Server hardware are currently shipping to early adopters and are competitively priced with IBM’s per-MIPS pricing of approximately $1200 to $1400.

The key to PSI’s systems are the ability to not only run OS/390 (IBM’s Mainframe OS) but also Linux and Windows. The DS system sports up to 8 Itanium v2 CPU’s and the ES supports up to 64 Itanium cores. Both support the production versions of z/OS, OS/390, HP-UX, Linux including SLES and Windows Server versions.

“Our customers have repeatedly told us that standardization and virtualization are key to their business success and an imperative for their IT strategy – today and for the future. We’ve developed the System64 product line to meet the industry’s challenges and drive customers’ success.”

You can get a lot more information from the PSI site, including quotes and whitepapers.

Enjoy,

RossB

 

Mexico’s Largest Mortgage Lender Chooses Novell for Key Business System

WALTHAM, Mass.— 02 Oct 2007— The Instituto del Fondo Nacional de la Vivienda (INFONAVIT), Mexico’s largest mortgage lender, has tapped SUSE® Linux Enterprise from Novell® as its platform for customer transactions. Providing services to more than 12 million people and 830,000 employers, INFONAVIT has deployed SUSE Linux Enterprise as the basis for its new payment collection system.

and furthermore,

INFONAVIT estimates it has saved approximately $3 million in hardware costs and $1.5 million in software licensing, and the stability and reliability of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server will also help keep the long-term cost of ownership low.

The full press release is here.

 

Playing with High Availability Storage Infrastructure (HASI) (updated)

Just wanted to let you know that there is technical overview paper and a great step-by-step “lab” document available from Novell’s website which describes how to set up a lab environment with four exciting (and included, supported) features within SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10:

• iSCSI
• Oracle Clustered File System (OCFS) v2
• Heartbeat v2 – cluster service
• Enterprise Volume Management Service (EVMS)

These features are collectively known as the High Availability Storage Infrastructure (HASI) and provides an out-of-the-box capability to implement a fully clustered storage system. You don’t have to pay for clustering as a “premium” services with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10.

The document gives you step-by-step instructions that will allow you to get your hands dirty and try this out. You can even combine HASI with the Xen virtualization capabilities to implement a live migration of a virtual machine from one physical server to another… similar to VMotion — but again, included with the base OS, SLES 10.

If you’re interested, I also found this “lighter weight” how-to article at SearchEnterpriseLinux.com which talks about how to setup Heartbeat clustering on SLES 10.

 

Online Gadget Retailer chooses SUSE Linux Enterprise

According to ITPro – UK-based online retailer I Want One of Those (IWOOT) has been implementing a open-source strategy and has chosen SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Desktop for its “ERP system, desktop productivity apps [including Novell GroupWise] and website servers” to take advantage of the Novell/Microsoft interoperability agreement signed last year.

The implementation of SUSE Linux Enterprise is helping IWOOT by giving them a single platform on which to run these apps – which used to be on various OS’s (including Windows).

Read more in this ITPro article

 

So, I’m giving a talk at GTC…

If you’re in the Albany NY area this week, stop by the Goverment Technology Conference at the government plaza (under the “Egg”) on Thursday the 27th of September and you’ll learn all about how to take advantage of Open Source in Government.

Here’s the agenda and though pre-registration is closed, you can get in at the event the morning of.

See you there!

RossB

 

Sun Buys CFS / Lustre

SANTA CLARA, Calif. September 12, 2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced a definitive agreement pursuant to which Sun will acquire the majority of Cluster File Systems, Inc.’s intellectual property and business assets, including the Lustre File System.

Full press release

 

PR: Novell Boosts Linux Virtualization with VMWare Support

From the wire:

WALTHAM, Mass., Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Novell today announced significant enhancements in the performance of SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Server when the Linux* operating system is running as a virtual machine guest in a VMware* environment. To deliver this improved performance, Novell modified the SUSE Linux Enterprise kernel to support the VMware Virtual Machine Interface (VMI), a communication mechanism between the guest operating system and hypervisor that simplifies the task of virtualization and makes Linux a more efficient guest operating system when running in VMware environments. The VMI modifications, along with the paravirt-ops interface, have been accepted by the upstream Linux development community and will be included in upcoming releases of the standard Linux kernel, as well as future versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell(R).

“As the first enterprise Linux vendor to provide these enhancements for the VMware VMI, Novell continues to demonstrate our commitment to providing enterprise Linux customers benefits through virtualization and other innovative technologies,” said Holger Dyroff, vice president of product management for SUSE Linux Enterprise at Novell. “Virtualization is proving its value in the data center, and our collaboration with VMware is part of our multi-pronged virtualization strategy to create additional opportunities for customers to reduce costs and increase efficiency with Linux virtualization.”

Dan Chu, VMware vice president of emerging products and markets, said, “We are pleased that Novell is delivering enhanced performance for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server in VMware virtualized environments. The inclusion of VMware VMI patches into SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is designed to provide customers with increased performance, improved behavior of timing-critical workloads and better interoperability by allowing the same VMI-enabled SUSE Linux Enterprise Server kernel to run on physical machines and on VMware Infrastructure. We look forward to working with Novell on future initiatives to make SUSE Linux Enterprise run even better on VMware Infrastructure.”

Read the press release.

 

Who else is using SLES 10?

According to an SGI press release and article on CNN.com, they’ve had several recent customer wins. Here’s a list of the organizations they specifically mentioned who are using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 on their recently purchased SGI servers:

• IFREMER, the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea
  • SGI Altix ICE 8200 blade cluster powered by 256 Intel Xeon cores and a 16TB SGI InfiniteStorage 4500 system
• The Center for Parallel Computing (NACAD) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro: UFRJ)
  • 152 Intel Xeon cores and 304GB of memory. UFRJ also upgraded its SGI Altix 450 system to a configuration with 32 Intel Itanium 2 processor cores and 64GB of memory. The SGI systems, which run SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 from Novell, are backed by an expanded 32TB SGI InfiniteStorage 4050 network attached storage solution.
• University of Minnesota Supercomputing Institute for Digital Simulation and Advanced Computation
  • 2,048-core SGI Altix XE 1300 cluster,… Outfitted with more than 4TB of memory across 256 compute nodes. Minnesota’s system also is linked via a high-bandwidth InfiniBand connection and runs SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 from Novell
• Dedic, the contact center company from Portugal Telecom Group
  • Powered by a total of 56 Intel Xeon cores and 72GB of memory
• Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), School of Chemical Engineering
  • 136-core, 272GB SGI Altix XE1300 cluster supported by an 8TB network-attached SGI InfiniteStorage 350 solution
• Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), CENAPAD, a National Center for High-Performance Computing
  • 176-core SGI Altix 450 compute solution and a combination of new and upgraded SGI InfiniteStorage systems that added more than 56TB of capacity
• The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix AZ
  • SGI Altix 4700 system with 576GB memory and 48 Intel Itanium 2 cores running Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10
• University of West Florida’s School of Science and Engineering
  • SGI Altix 450 system with 32 Intel Itanium 2 Dual Cores (64 core total) and 248GB memory, with SUSE Enterprise Linux 10
• European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EGBL)
  • 256GB of memory, all of which can be made available to a single data mining problem, the 16-core SGI Altix 450 server

I don’t know about you, but I’m always impressed by the compute power that organizations are implementing these days… especially when talking about SGI.

Looking for more examples of who’s using SUSE Linux Enterprise? Stop by Novell’s customer success home page or the list of Novell press releases and see who else has a documented success story for SUSE Linux Enterprise.