VMware & Novell's Partnership Now Supports SUSE Linux Enterprise Server For VMware vSphere Environments

VMware, a provider of solutions for business infrastructure virtualization, and Novell (News - Alert), Inc., a company offering intelligent workload management solutions that help organizations, have announced plans to expand their strategic partnership with an OEM agreement.

According to the new agreement, VMware will distribute and support the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system and will also standardize its virtual appliance-based product offerings on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

With the new announcement, customers who want to deploy SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware in VMware vSphere virtual machines will receive a subscription to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. The subscription will include patches and updates as part of the qualifying VMware vSphere license and Support and Subscription.

Additionally, VMware along with its network of solution provider partners will now be able to provide its customers with the technical support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server delivered directly by the company for a seamless support experience. The customers will also enjoy reduced costs and complexity of deploying and maintaining an enterprise operating system with VMware solutions, as a result of the agreement made between both the companies.

Both VMware and Novell have been looking forward to provide customers the ability to port their SUSE Linux-based workloads across clouds, as it offers them extended choice and flexibility for VMware vSphere customers and proves to be a vital step in providing seamless cloud computing experience to them.

A number of products offered by VMware have already been distributed and deployed as virtual appliances, which are pre-configured virtual machines featuring an operating system and application seamlessly integrated into a self-contained unit that is easy to deploy, manage and maintain. By standardizing virtual appliance-based VMware products on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware, the company aims to make the deployment and ongoing management of these solutions more simple and convenient for the customers.

According to Raghu Raghuram, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Virtualization and Cloud Platforms at VMware, company's mission is to reduce IT complexity and provide customers a pragmatic path to the cloud. Raghuram noted that by delivering SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware with every qualified VMware vSphere subscription, customers can more easily and cost-effectively virtualize Linux applications, accelerate their evolution to a fully virtualized datacenter and simplify portability of their applications to cloud environments.

In May 2010, Silicom Ltd. (News - Alert) announced that its dual-port gigabit fiber server adapter has achieved VMware Ready status, the VMware Ready program being a VMware co-branding program for qualified partner products and a benefit of the VMware Technology Alliance Partner program.