Novell aims Linux at the datacentre

By launching the first enterprise Linux server based on the 2.6 kernel, Novell is hoping to outrun competition from Red Hat and to finally penetrate the core of the datacentre.

SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 9 includes compliance with the Carrier Grade Linux 2.0 requirements, offering better security, availability and clustering for carrier grade use, Novell's SuSE general manager Markus Rex told vnunet.com at LinuxWorld.

Another feature is the integrated and enhanced version of YaST, an installation and administration tool developed by SuSE.

"We are really broadening the gap to the competition. This is the best enterprise Linux ever," said Rex.

"The final frontier is the heart of the datacentre and the heart of the business process. Your typical web server could run on a 2.0 kernel on a five-year-old system without you ever having to touch it. The high-end systems will be the ones that profit from the enhanced stability."

The acquisition of SuSE by Novell last January played an essential part in the development of SLES 9. Rex said that projects such as adding support for Common Information Model (CIM), a standard interface used by enterprise systems management solutions, posed a problem that SuSE engineers had a hard time solving.

"We had occasions where we were asking: 'How is this working?' With CIM, we could turn to a Novell team and say: 'You know how this works. Let's just do it together.'

"This is something that, on our own, we wouldn't have been able to have completed on time."