SUSE Appliance Program

Technology

The SUSE Appliance Program is a complete, end to end solution that provides both technical and business capabilities to help ISVs build, create, test and get to market quickly with software appliances. The SUSE Appliance Program provides a suite of advanced, breakthrough technologies:

SUSE Studio Online. SUSE Studio Online is an innovative, easy-to-use hosted tool that enables ISVs to rapidly build and test appliances based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server or openSUSE®. With the integrated Supportability Assessment Module, custom configurations of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server created in SUSE Studio are fully covered by our award-winning support. Further, appliances created in SUSE Studio can be deployed and supported on a wide range of platforms, including ISO, LiveCD, VMware, XEN, and soon will include OVF, Hyper-V and Amazon EC2.

KIWI. KIWI is an open source command line tool that builds software images from a description file; it is the core image creation engine integrated into SUSE Studio. Available as a separate download, KIWI enables ISVs to build SUSE Linux Enterprise based appliances rapidly. A scriptable command line tool, KIWI is particularly helpful for ISV's using automated build tools, as a KIWI script can be called to create new appliances automatically when a new build is available. KIWI provides much of the core build capabilities in SUSE Studio, and supports or ships with other Novell products, including thin client and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. KIWI is provided free to the community. Download KIWI.

SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS. Just Enough Operating System (JeOS) is a minimum bootable, fully-supported, pre-formatted configuration of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. JeOS provides customers a starting point for manually creating appliances based on installations of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. As a configuration of SUSE Linux Enterprise, SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS users inherit ISV certifications, enabling them to certify applications once on SUSE Linux Enterprise, and deliver them in numerous formats.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for Amazon EC2. SUSE Linux Enterprise is the ideal platform for extending applications to the cloud. Need a SaaS offering for your customers? The SUSE Appliance Program offers ISVs the flexibility to create appliances ready for the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a Web service that makes Web-scale computing easily available to ISVs and customers.

Support

The SUSE Appliance Program provides award-winning enterprise quality support. The support components include:

Appliance TPS Support. When the customer calls in the middle of the night with a problem, and that problem seems to be in the operating system, you want to be sure you can call someone and get it resolved fast. With the SUSE Appliance Program, you can elect to purchase a Technology Partner Support (TPS) agreement designed to meet the needs of partners building and shipping software appliances. These appliance support contracts integrate with our standard support agreements are designed for any size and scale appliance program.

Go-to-Market

Novell offers proven distribution channel match-making, joint marketing, pricing, and redistribution agreements that reduce the time to get an evaluation or production appliance ready for the market and open new market opportunities. This includes:

ISV PartnerNet® Program. To gain even more value from your partnership with Novell, we offer PartnerNet. PartnerNet includes a growing base of ISV partners, resellers and global technology firms that provide an opportunity for members to tap into an extensive partner community, exclusive access to distribution channels and unique community marketing opportunities. Novell can connect ISVs to partners, help identify joint partner appliance opportunities, provide marketing assistance, and develop opportunities for ISVs to showcase their appliances to the Novell partner and customer community.

Free Evaluation Redistribution. Through a simple online agreement, ISVs can provide free trial evaluations of appliances built on SUSE Linux Enterprise to prospects and customers. This helps shorten sales cycles with easy-to-demonstrate appliance proofs of concept. And Novell is unique in the ease in which we provide online agreements to redistribute SUSE Linux Enterprise—a fully supported operating system—in evaluation appliances.

Common Sense Pricing. Novell offers a proven, flexible pricing model, designed to meet the needs of ISVs. Pricing is based on a percentage of net revenue. Whether deploying appliances to the cloud on a pay-per-use basis, selling software directly to customers, or selling hardware appliances through OEMs, Novell's pricing allows ISVs to derive the maximum value from their operation.

Coming Later This Year

The SUSE Appliance Toolkit

Additionally, the SUSE Appliance Program is providing a preview of our new SUSE Appliance Toolkit, everything an ISV needs to build, remotely configure and update software appliances. The SUSE Appliance Toolkit, available later this year, consists of:

SUSE Studio Onsite. SUSE Studio Onsite is a local, behind the firewall version of our online appliance creation tool, SUSE Studio Online. SUSE Studio Onsite will provide the same configuration, easy to use interface and integrated testing features that make SUSE Studio Online popular, but will provide them on a server hosted within an ISV's data center. This provides a level of security that enables ISVs to comfortably control the complete software appliance build process.

 WebYaST. WebYaST is a tool for enabling remote, Web-based configuration of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. It is based on YaST, an integrated part of SUSE Linux Enterprise. As YaST does not support Web-based configuration, WebYaST provides a framework for remote appliance configuration. ISVs will be able to create custom configuration modules and embed them in their appliances, such as license kill switches, to meet unique remote appliance management needs.

Access the WebYaST technical preview from the openSUSE Build Service.

     

SUSE Lifecycle Management Server. This innovative product handles the authentication, entitlement and access control required for appliance vendors to distribute updates to their customers. The Lifecycle Management Server is primarily responsible for creating and then managing access to update repositories by appliances.

KIWI Support. Novell's award winning support, extended to cover the open source project KIWI. The image creation tool behind SUSE Studio, KIWI is an excellent command line tool for creating appliances. Through Novell support we offer patches and updates, as well as technical support assistance for ISVs using KIWI as part of the Appliance Toolkit.

For more information on the SUSE Appliance Program, contact us at SUSEApplianceProgram@novell.com. To get started building an appliance right now, visit our Getting Started page.