Jeff Jaffe’s Blog

Fourth in a series about Novell’s comprehensive approach to cloud computing.

Recent Events

The summer has seen numerous announcements with the proof points of our cloud infrastructure contributions. These announcements are transformative. They are not merely new products. They address issues that the industry has not totally addressed, with innovative solutions.

Last week was especially exciting. As foreshadowed in Software Appliances and Cloud Computing we launched SUSE Studio a key tool in our overall appliance program and in developing for the cloud. The press reaction was breathtaking with some saying that this was Novell’s most important announcement in decades.

Also last week we provided our cloud security demo at the Burton conference. More about that below.

The previous week saw Microsoft releasing 20,000 lines of GPL code to the Linux kernel. Interesting times.

Reprise

In mid-June, we identified five cloud infrastructure priorities:

• Connect
• Secure
• Manage
• Develop
• Collaborate

We’ve elaborated about Connect and Develop and here we will talk about Securing the Cloud.

Cloud Security

Many studies have documented that enterprises are concerned about cloud computing security.

This is not surprising. Many events have heightened concerns about security. Information leakage, viruses, and lost laptops are examples of security lapses. Cloud computing exacerbates concerns. Data and applications are placed outside of the enterprise, outside the firewall, and outside the adminstrative domain of the IT organization.

The security fears are dramatic enough. Sometimes, the fix is worse than the fear. A cloud computing vendor might propose a new security model to assure wary users that their data is safe. However, even if this new model is theoretically secure—it does not immediately address the practical problem. The IT organization must incorporate the model deeply enough to be secure. They must be able to explain it to survive a corporate audit about data protection. After the IT organization appreciates the security of the new model there is complexity to introduce the new model and security holes that arise from lack of training or misuse

Annexation

With so many barriers the best way to secure the cloud is to use existing security models. The IT organization should use the same security and access control technology for the cloud as they use in the enterprise. The interfaces must be the same. The user model must be the same. If passwords are used the actual password must be the same.

We call this idea annexation of the cloud. In this model we provide transparency in usage and security model so that the IT organization does not use a new access control paradigm. Rather, they feel that the cloud has become an extended part of their enterprise.

Novell Cloud Security Service

This is the essence of the Novell cloud security service that we demonstrated together with PivotLink at the Burton conference last week. By federating a SaaS vendor’s access control mechanism with existing enterprise mechanisms we provide cloud security within the existing model of an enterprise.

Another key piece of the cloud infrastructure provided by Novell!

Log Management

Also last week, we announced our Sentinel Log Management product. This has immediate value to today’s enterprises as they struggle with masses of data that need to be processed to assure compliance. With respect to cloud computing, we can only imagine that these compliance needs will become more demanding, data sources more disparate, and organization of this data more critical. Sentinel Log Management is focused on today’s compliance needs but this asset will also provide value to secure the cloud.

Earlier today, Microsoft released 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux community under GPL.

There are many angles to reflect on. The growth and broadening of the open source community. Microsoft’s increasing embrace of open source. Corporate strategies. The effectiveness of Greg Kroah-Hartman’s Linux driver project. I’m sure many people will comment and will applaud this continued progress. Hopefully the knee-jerk naysayers will appreciate the progress as well.

These broad perspectives refer to the transformation of software development models and transformative industry developments. As a refresher from these intergalactic discussions, I’ll try a more prosaic approach.

Focus on the Customer

Novell and Microsoft created our partnership primarily to focus on customer needs. We heard from customers that there was a need for greater interoperability between Linux and Windows. We launched a broad partnership collaborating in technology and business to meet customer needs. This was often misunderstood—we were criticized for it—but both companies stuck to our guns because the customer need was the overarching consideration.

The thread called “customer need” continues to pull us in our partnership. A byproduct is that Microsoft finds that it needs to participate more intimately in the open source community.

I’ve blogged often about this. In November of 2007, I outlined how Novell and Microsoft extended our partnership to include accessibility. The Moonlight project saw a greater embrace by Microsoft of the open source Mono project, and has enabled Microsoft to add value to the Linux desktop.

Linux Drivers

Part of our original partnership was to ensure that in virtual environments Windows is optimized to run as a guest under SLES, and SLES is optimized to be a Windows guest. Clearly optimization is a customer requirement! Noone can afford performance penalties running virtual. In time, we have found that optimization is best achieved by the creation of additional Linux driver code. Microsoft recognized the performance opportunity and recognized the obligation to release the code using GPLv2.

I’m proud of Novell’s role in this. I’m proud that our partnership brought clarity on the technical optimization need. I’m proud of the personal role played by Novell Fellow Greg Kroah-Hartman and the Linux driver project.

But with all of the broad implications for open source, and my pride at the milestone—I’m most proud to see how the main mantra—satisfy the customer—remains the primary driver.

Third in a series about Novell’s comprehensive approach to cloud computing.

Reprise

In the June 15th posting, “The Cloud“, we identified five cloud infrastructure priorities:

• Connect
• Secure
• Manage
• Develop
• Collaborate

Developing for the Cloud

There will be many cloud platform interfaces that developers will choose from. Some providers will provide unique interfaces to allow developers to optimize for their platform. Others will take a standard approach. Some providers will focus on proprietary interfaces. Others will be open. Taken together, this new model—cloud computing—creates a new playing field and stimulates innovators to explore different ideas to exploit the opportunity.

This expansion of possibilities also creates an expansion of confusion for the developer. Which cloud am I optimizing for? Am I focused on clouds, physical devices, or virtual devices? Which hypervisor? Which management interfaces?

I would prefer if this were not a concern for the developer. What if there were a toolset which made it possible for the developer to develop once and run everywhere?

Novell and Appliances

Fifteen months ago Novell announced its appliance program. We stated a simple purpose—simplify application development for ISVs by allowing them to create software or virtual appliances using our toolset. A key approach is to allow ISVs to use less than the full operating system—such as our JeOS (Just Enough Operating System) and still carry certification.

Also important to developers is the ability to create appliances that can run as images for a variety of hypervisors. In our April 2008 announcement, we did just that. This was a Novell announcement —but we are more effective when we work with key infrastructure partners. So, we announced in February of this year that we are working closely with VMWare to ensure that the virtual appliances that customers build with SLES are VMWare Ready. This reflects the partnership approach we’ve talked about consistently for virtualization.

The Cloud

As mentioned above, ISVs and developers would like their code to run everywhere. How can they achieve this? Simple. Build an appliance on an appliance building platform that allows them to deploy anywhere.

With our existing approach to create software appliances and virtual appliances it is not a big leap for us to focus our toolset to allow developers to target applications for a variety of clouds. So our appliance program is precisely the right basis for Novell to be the company that enables “develop for the cloud”.

In my last posting, I outlined the significance of cloud computing and Novell’s architecture to provide infrastructure for the cloud. Herein I will provide some detail for the piece called connecting to the cloud via devices enabled by Moblin.

Novell’s Cloud Architecture

To reprise our cloud architecture, we discussed five key elements.

• Connect
• Secure
• Manage
• Develop
• Collaborate

Connecting to the Cloud

Everything will connect to the cloud. Every client will need services from the cloud and every server will interact with the compute cloud. So when we talk about connecting to the cloud, we are not referring to a unique new communications protocol or specialized device.

Rather, we are focused on the operating environment for a device whose primary function is to access services from the network; the Web; or the compute cloud. That is why we refer to Moblin as the key component for connecting to the cloud.

The cloud introduces the need for a new family of devices to be used by consumers and enterprise users alike. These devices have as their primary role to connect to these services. Some of these devices are more capable—approaching PC class in nature, others are strict communicators.

Intel has taken the lead in designing the operating environment most suited for these devices. Logically, they are leveraging Linux since key ingredients such as openness and low cost are critical. Intel’s variation of Linux—Moblin—further optimizes for devices whose primary role is connectivity. Optimization helps drive lower power chip sets and small screen sizes. It allows simplification of the user interface since it is not a general desktop.

Travel in Asia—Feel the Excitement

I spent the last two weeks in Asia—Taiwan, China, and India—and being in a different part of the world focused my attention on the value of cloud computing. You can see the potential. Powerful communicators / computers will open up computing to a new class of users. In these new “segments”—people will get their first introduction to computing via services from the cloud. In our industry, every time that we open up computers to a new class of users it drives change in our system design. Thus, desktop Linux will succeed in this new environment because it can flex to this design point.

No wonder that it was at Computex in Taipei earlier this month that Moblin made such a big hit.

Novell and Moblin

Novell has announced that we will support a SUSE version of Moblin and make it available on netbooks. We announced our Taiwan laboratory in May and followed it up with our Computex demo in June. We are contributing to Moblin and leveraging it. Moblin is a key infrastructure for cloud computing where Novell will play a large role as part of our cloud infrastructure strategy.

Much has been written about computing in the “cloud”. Within these pages references include “Software delivery models and SAP” and “Service-Driven Data Center“. Today is the first of several blogs where I give a comprehensive view of Novell’s approach.

The Significance of the Cloud for IT

Every so often there are sufficient changes in technology and customer buying patterns that the entire industry turns on its end.

In the 1960s, mainframes dominated and provided the first broad platform for computing.

In the 1970s, minicomputers proliferated. Computing became available for small businesses and departments. New companies rose to take advantage; new languages were popularized; and there was an explosion in professionals in the industry.

After the introduction of personal computing in the 1970s the 1980s saw mass adoption of PCs. New applications such as personal productivity and consumer related applications resulted from this shift. The paradigm of client/server and sharing within departments became prominent. Novell’s NetWare played a key role (which continues with Open Enterprise Server).

As we rolled into the 1990s the Internet and World Wide Web became the model for public access to data, and related intranet technologies were used inside of companies. Wide access to information became commonplace and programming technologies adapted to feeding information into people’s browsers.

Cloud computing is next. It will be equally transformational. The web provided clicking for “information” and cloud computing will provide clicking for “information resources”. Over time this will revolutionize every part of IT.

Within the rubric of cloud computing, IT organizations have different attitudes about how to optimize information technology. To address this, there are variations on cloud computing, including Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Each has their own value and solves its own problem. A user that needs instant access to a capability may employ SaaS, a developer looking for a platform may employ PaaS, and someone in search of capacity may employ IaaS.

Novell and the Compute Cloud

With Novell’s position in core infrastructure, Novell intends to play a major role in cloud computing. Several technology choices for the cloud are favorable to Novell— Linux is the favored operating system used by cloud providers; XEN—which we have discussed often— is the favored virtualization technique. Moreover, Novell’s strength in technology areas such as management and security is relevant.

Novell has key technologies but also has the right attitude. The compute cloud will democratize computing by utilizing open interfaces and avoiding platform lock-in. This is harmonious with our brand promise of “Making IT Work as One”. It is also characteristic of Novell as a company who is passionate about Open Source, yet willing to work on interoperability with vendors who are committed to proprietary platforms. No surprise that Novell is a supporter of the Open Cloud Manifesto.

The potential of cloud computing is great, but it won’t happen overnight—just as the other paradigm changes did not happen overnight. There will be many participants in this all playing different roles. For example there will be companies that provide cloud computing, and others -like Novell—that provide infrastructure software that are used by cloud providers or enterprises. Many layers of the compute stack will change to support the move to the cloud. Novell will not invest in all of them—no one vendor can have that impact. However, in the cloud infrastructure Novell will play a key role.

Novell’s Cloud Architecture

There are numerous components that are required for the cloud. Some of the key components were mentioned above—the Linux operating system and virtualization. Many of the other key components intersect areas of Novell focus.

We have been investing in these areas leveraging the ideas of our technical leaders and looking at market input. Many of the most outstanding ideas came from our breakout move initiative, while others came from activities in and across our business units; listening to customers and partners. Here are some of the key areas. With space running out I will only itemize the areas here—look to future postings for elaboration:

• Connect. The first part of our architecture is to connect to the cloud. The nature of client devices and their appropriate operating environment will change as we move to the cloud. Our work in operating systems, including our work in Moblin will be critical here.
• Secure. This access must be done with security. We will leverage the technologies of our Identity and Security Management business unit.
• Manage. Clouds have a different paradigm for resource utilization so they need a different paradigm of managing these resources. Each previous revolution in computing also revolutionized how resources are managed. We will leverage our Service Driven Data Center approach.
• Develop. Applications needs to be developed for the cloud. The key technology stacks will continue to be based on Java and .Net. We will leverage our unique combination of skills—the LAMP stack available with Suse Linux and Mono for .Net to play an enabling role here.
• Collaborate. Novell has a strong portfolio of collaboration technologies. This will enable us to play a role here as well.

My first entry to the Novell CTO blog was entitled “The Linux Desktop has arrived“. How well have we done? Where are we today? What can we expect in the immediate future?

Not Too Bad!

Based on industry data, the Linux desktop has achieved respectable growth since this blog entry. The number of Linux desktop units has grown from 9.6M in 2006 to 13.9M in 2008, a compound growth rate of 20%. Given Microsoft’s marketshare at the beginning of this period, even an excellent growth rate of 20% is less than I would have hoped. On the other hand, given their market presence one can argue that the rate of 20% is substantial.

How do we get greater momentum? In my original blog entry, I focused on feature, function, and cost. The basic message was—the Linux desktop has all the desired features at a fraction of the cost—so the value proposition is compelling. In later blogs, I also added the emphasis on interoperability. So our desktop has desirable features, an attractive cost, and it interoperates with Microsoft. Yet we are still stuck at the 20% growth rate!

Distribution

It’s interesting to go back to the Comments on my blog and see the wisdom that was out there three years ago. Pcfixer posted the following observation:

[what] major linux distros are missing right now is two things

1. the lack of resellers
   The products are greater than they have ever been but if a customer can’t find a computer preinstalled with them they will end up paying for win xp or whatever Microsoft is producing for the moment.
2. you need some of the major hardware wendors like IBM HP or Dell selling your products pre installed and available in shops not only in the US but in every city around the world.

Pcfixer has a point. So we have focused on distribution. For example, in LinuxWorld 2007 we announced premium distribution partnerships to accelerate the Linux desktop.

The Next Step in the Massive Expansion of the Linux Desktop

We continue to expand our partnership with distribution partners. We have focused on the lower end of the market. For this environment, after the customer has spent modestly to get an outstanding workstation, they are highly incented to find an operating environment which matches the low-cost of their hardware.

Last month, HP announced their HP ProBook seriers, focused on the small and medium business user. Users in this market segment want Linux. So selected models will offer SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 11 preinstalled.

The next attractive target is the rapidly growing market for Netbooks. Intel Corporation has done a great service to the community by launching and incubating Moblin—a Linux platform for Mobile devices. The Linux Foundation has similarly stepped up—by agreeing to host this community going forward. This community needs a substantial Linux distributor to carry these enhancements into a supported distribution. So last week, we stepped up—announcing with Intel our agreement to collaborate further, and to open a laboratory in Taiwan to foster the adoption of Moblin.

We are passionate about the Linux desktop. We now have function, innovation, interoperability, low-cost, and distribution. Two recent events—HP ProBook and Netbooks—have reinforced the momentum for the Linux desktop.

For several years Novell has been building a vision of the next generation data center that addresses new customer needs. These needs are to leverage new technologies that reduce cost and complexity, but manage the risk of introducing them. Our Service Driven Data Center (SDDC) provides the cost reduction in a well managed fashion.

Cost Reduction Technologies

Key technologies that reduce the cost of a data center are:

• Open source in general and the Linux operating system in particular have a lower price tag. They also reduce cost by allowing faster exploitation of hardware technologies that further reduce cost, such as low-power and virtualization assists.
• Virtualization reduces cost by allowing physical processors to consolidate workloads.
• Cloud computing provides a means for a user to grab capacity without a lengthy approval process. Moreover, capacity can be ordered as needed. There is no danger of acquiring over-capacity that won’t be needed in the end.

These three technologies result in a low-cost data center. However, if they are left unmanaged, they can do more harm than good. Without a management framework, an enterprise can create stovepipes that optimize in the short-term, but are costly over time. Without knowing where workloads are being deployed, the CIO is left with complexity and risk.

Enter the “Service-Driven Data Center”

Last week, Novell unveiled our vision and offerings that manage workloads in a way that reduces cost and complexity but avoids the risk. We coined this the Service Driven Data Center (SDDC) to emphasize that a CIO’s focus is on the service they provide. We also explained how this is is done. The enterprise Builds the data center, at that point it can be Managed, and then continuous improvement arises when the enterprise Measures its data center. Let’s now take it one level deeper by elaborating on our unique offers.

• Build. The build offer proposes that the next generation data center be built on a platform that provides the low cost of computing offered by Linux, and leverages that platform for virtualization and cloud computing. With our recent SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) 11 announcement, we have provided a platform that is ready for physical, virtual, cloud, and appliance deployments. While our management solutions work well irrespective of the platform choice used by a customer for build, we also believe that SLE is the best platform for many workloads.
• Manage. The manage offer emphasizes that optimization arises with tools that assess the best place to deploy workloads. Don’t trust tools that come from vendors that only want deployment on their own platforms. Since we acquired PlateSpin we insisted that our management technologies are agnostic of any particular platform—including our own! This was emphasized in last fall’s workload announcement—managing the data center requires agility to move workloads to the right place—on a physical server, a virtual server, or in the cloud.
• Measure. In addition to building and managing the data center, the CIO needs to continuously monitor, optimize, and inspect a dashboard, to be certain that (s)he has met end user needs. Agile tools that move workloads to different servers and into clouds introduce risk. Risk management balances the agility that comes with workload flexibility. So our measure offer applies the principles of Business Services Management to assure that the enterprise can manage, optimize, and inspect to a set of Service Level Agreements with the rest of the firm.

A Deliberate Strategy to Amass this Solution

Novell has been creating assets and acquiring companies to build out this vision and offers. We can now assemble the pieces into a single compelling package.

• The build piece began with the acquisition of SUSE Linux many years ago. There has been continued Novell investment and partnership with the open source community to make SLE 11 the desired platform to build the SDDC.
• The centerpiece of the SDDC is the ability to manage and optimize in an interoperable fashion. The ZENworks family of management products are now enhanced with the virtualization products from PlateSpin.
• The final acquisition was to add the Business Systems Management framework from Managed Objects.
• The technical vision, roadmap, and architecture which describes how to evolve these technologies to provide agility, is our Fossa architecture.

Last week, Novell unleashed SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) 11 at the Open Source Business Conference. The major focus of the announcement was the business value provided by the latest and greatest Linux operating system. With SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Novell is providing value in several key areas:

• Ubiquity—the range of platforms; servers, clouds, appliances, and desktops where SLE is deployed.
• Interoperability—with other systems, protocols, and management infrastructures.
• Mission critical—high availability, clustering, reliability, and support.

These are the best indicators of the business value of SLE 11. But SLE 11 also represents the power of the open source community to innovate. Let’s look at some of the examples.

Communities: Linux, openSUSE, Mono

The open source development methodology amplifies Novell’s efforts in building SUSE Linux Enterprise. SLE is not a product built exclusively by Novell. It is built by packaging hundreds of projects that are created by upstream communities that make their work available to the world under free and open source licenses. It all starts with the Linux kernel, GNU utilities and tools, Apache, X.org, and hundreds of other projects that make up a Linux distribution.

Beyond that, the openSUSE Project creates the openSUSE distribution. Novell relies on the work of countless colleagues who work on openSUSE—which is a solid foundation we then build on to create SUSE Linux Enterprise.

Many other communities have work that flows into SLE. A prime example is the Mono community—whose work appears in our SLE Mono Extension. With SLE 11, Novell provides commercial support for Mono, making it suitable for mission critical deployments of .Net applications on Linux.

Optimization

Outstanding performance in virtual environments is critical. We develop deep understanding of core processing within an operating systems; how virtual machines compete for resources; and how hypervisors allocate resources to get performance. Our close partnerships with hypervisor vendors (including ourselves!) assures the depth. On the hypervisor side, our participation in the open source XEN community makes sure that we tune and optimize the performance of the XEN hypervisor based on this understanding.

And, to be sure, there is considerable work in working with the community to optimize for a physical desktop or server as well.

Appliances

Full enterprise operating systems are too feature-rich for certain deployments. We need a single Linux distribution which provides the richness when needed—and slims down when all customers need is Just Enough Operating System (JeOS) to run an application. That involves a careful analysis of each function and retaining only the core features that are needed. This innovative approach has led us to provide a variation—SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS which removes unnecessary functions for appliances. Plus, we have an associated toolkit that allows customers to leverage the scale from turnkey to feature-rich.

Hardware Exploitation

The open source community works together to exploit new hardware features. This is a superior approach to conventional proprietary operating systems. With proprietary operating systems, a hardware vendor (for processors, storage, networks, etc.) might create an innovative new feature to address some current problem. But then it takes a long time until this is surfaced through the operating system. With the Linux kernel’s rapid development cycle, hardware vendors can see to it that the advanced hardware features are supported and exploited faster, and make their new features available to customers more quickly. SLE 11 features enhancements in virtualization and power management as two key examples of this. The “green” or power management innovations include having granular power profiles and tickless idle.

Mono

In the UNIX/Linux world, applications focus on the Java stack. However, the .Net stack is popular in Microsoft environments, and we have always believed that .Net developers will find more value in being able to run their applications on Linux. Mono allows companies to retain their investment in .Net applications by deploying them on Linux with minimal changes.

We’re continually impressed by Miguel de Icaza and the entire Mono community—to see how quickly they add Mono features. It has reached the level of maturity that we are supporting SLE Mono Extension as an innovative, supported version of Mono.

Summary

SLE 11 sets a new standard in business value for Linux. Numerous other initiatives within Novell, such as our ISV initiative are examples of how we add business value. But it is important to also acknowledge the open source innovation that goes into SLE.

Whether we view this from the breadth of “the power of the community”, or we look at specific innovations such as optimization, appliances, hardware support, and Mono—we have clear re-affirmation of the value of community developed software.

In 2008, I introduced our Fossa project (Fossa, Fossa, continued and Fossa, further continued). The purpose was to create and articulate Novell’s technical vision. Specific use cases highlighted that IT organizations need a greater degree of agility than previously available. Several blog entries highlighted changes that are needed in identity management, Linux, virtualization, policy, orchestration, compliance, and collaboration to achieve this agility.

Fossa Document

Over the past year, Novell Fellows, Distinguished Engineers, and other thought leaders contributed to the development of this architecture. We are making the work available in several ways:

• We have published a 60 page paper which describes the architectural principles. It is available at http://www.novell.com/company/architecturalfoundations/. This is the most comprehensive description of a future architecture for software infrastructure that yields agility.
• We want the individual ideas to be accessible. Many of the inventions are available in the public domain. One of the key methods is through patents—we have submitted more than 30 patent applications related to this architecture.

The Need for Agility is Increasing

With Fossa we have a vision, architecture, and strategy to achieve agility. The continued evolution of the industry over the last year has re-inforce this need for agility. With virtualization deployments continuing apace, and with cloud computing and SaaS growing in popularity the need for agility is evident. Appliance computing, Web 2.0, are related trends. These more flexible modes of delivering software and service come in numerous varieties—so the bet we made on achieving agility in a heterogeneous, platform-agnostic fashion has proved to be critical.

Next Steps

In the last year we have seen issues in financial markets and resultant concerns about risk management and compliance. Will this reverse the drive towards agility and cause focus on control?

I think not. Agility is unstoppable. After all, this is not the first time that security concerns and risk have risen to the surface. Did security stop the Internet? Did risk stop e-business? Did hackers cause harm that is worse than 9/11? Every time that these issues have arisen—the answer has been no! Progress, agility, and capability is vital.

On the other hand, while security concerns do not stop progress—the concerns are real. The result is that we need to manage the concerns—at the same time that we achieve the agility. Some of this is built in to the current Fossa document. Recent Novell acquisitions (Managed Objects and Fortefi) have further positioned us to address these management issues.

Earlier this month Novell acquired privileged user management technology from Fortefi Corporation. We extended our leadership in Identity management and furthered our differentiation in Enterprise Linux.

Technology

Linux and Unix users and/or administrators often require root access which enables them to make broad changes to their system. This is a feature; UNIX and Linux are easy to configure. It is also a risk. Administrators may change responsibilities or leave a corporation, or there may be sensitive information residing on these systems that even the administrators of the system should not be accessing. Without “tracking tools” there are security and compliance exposures.

Fortefi’s technology allows the management of root access capabilities. Their tools provide control of access to privileged accounts, granular tracking of who has accessed these accounts, and audits these permissions for compliance. Novell is building these technologies into a new product—Novell Privileged User Manager.

Leadership in Identity Management and Compliance

We are recognized for our identity management portfolio. With this acquisition, we extend our leadership position. We will take this excellent technology, strengthen its quality, and integrate it with the rest of our identity offerings.

We focus our leading technologies towards the critical area of compliance. Since my last posting on this topic, compliance has become a larger issue in our economy. Without Privileged User Management, customers have compliance risks. We close this gap.

In a related technology area, I have noted our commitment to Enterprise Single Sign-on. Earlier this month we also announced that we were acquiring a perpetual source-code license from ActivIdentity for this technology. This will allow further integration, faster innovation and improved support.

Enterprise Linux

Novell has an additional motivation in acquiring technology for Privileged User Management. We pride our Linux distribution, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for its mission critical capabilities. Soon we will be releasing SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 which will take mission-critical to a new level.

A primary customer concern for mission-critical deployments is security. This concern is amplified with the current focus on Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC). The flexibility afforded by root access has always been popular for UNIX and Linux. But with the compliance focus, this flexibility must be tempered through improved management by the proper set of tools.

For Novell, we now have a unique capability to provide the Linux distribution as well as management tools such as Novell Privileged User Management. Customers receive a compliant Linux by acquiring several products from a single vendor.

To be sure, our security management tools are platform agnostic. Novell Privileged User Manager will manage root access for other Linux and UNIX variations. Still, the integration provided by this acquisition will directly benefit SLES customers.