Novell pins hopes on Open Enterprise

Novell believes its Open Enterprise Server (OES) is a key component to retaining business from NetWare and SuSE Linux users.

The NetWare and Linux software will come bundled with SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 9 on Linux. Its NetWare 7 features include enterprise-level management and access control.

OES on Linux will move to public beta next month with release scheduled for the end of the year.

According to Brian Green, Novell's EMEA director of Linux solutions, the product has already started to take effect.

"There's a lot more traction with our NetWare customers. Rather than walking away they are talking about Linux," he said.

Green added that OES would provide an automated migration path from NetWare to Linux, which could mean end users seeing no change to operation. He also identified a market among Linux users.

"Those already using SuSE Linux don't get the functionality found in OES. These users are interested because OES gives them scalable enterprise-level policy-based management," he said.

All software running on SLES 9 will run on OES, Green confirmed.

Gary Barnett, principal analyst at Ovum, commented that OES is very important for Novell, and that the company needed to "market the socks off" the product.

"Taking SuSE and adding the well-proven NetWare services is a very sensible thing to do," he told vnunet.com.

"Linux provides an open development API [application programming interface]. In part it's about raising the API bar. A key in enterprise is to play nicely with [Microsoft] Active Directory and the world of Windows, which OES does."

But OES may not be available on Red Hat for some time. Red Hat Enterprise Linux has its own management capabilities, and currently does not use the latest Linux 2.6 kernel.

"If Red Hat is interested OES could be offered. But some of the technologies use the 2.6 kernel so, in the short term, this prevents the technology being deployed," said Green.

Barnett added: "Red Hat would want its own enterprise management solution. But Novell wants to say 'it doesn't matter which [Linux] distribution, you can benefit from this technology'."

Interested NetWare and Linux users will be able to see OES demonstrated at Novell BrainShare Europe in Barcelona on 12-14 September.