SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware – and our alliance with VMware inked in September 2010 – continues to offer vSphere customers a proven enterprise Linux distribution for their virtualized environments. This is yet another proof point of SUSE’s commitment to deliver the best products, services and solutions to our customers.  According to a statement from Nils Brauckmann, President and General Manager of SUSE in a May 2011 press release:

"By operating SUSE as a separate business unit focused on the Linux marketplace, we can accelerate our delivery of high-value Linux solutions that help organizations enhance growth, reduce costs, tame complexity and spur innovation. We have the world-class engineering resources, partners and state-of-the-art technologies to succeed. Now we are sharpening our focus on making SUSE Linux Enterprise the preeminent Linux distribution across physical, virtual and cloud environments."

If you’re attending VMworld this week, stop by booth #747 to learn if you qualify to:

• Get SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware vSphere
• Receive patches and updates to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware at no cost
• Run unlimited number of virtual machines per qualified vSphere host

In addition, vSphere customers can streamline their support experience by receiving technical support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware directly from VMware.

For more information, check out VMware's announcement and download the Getting Started Guide.

With the recent acquisition of Novell by Attachmate, there has been some uncertainty around the future of the SUSE Appliance program. However, with today's announcement of SUSE Studio v1.2, the newly formed SUSE group has put that uncertainty to rest. The updated version of SUSE Studio will be available in two editions -Standard Edition which is primarily targeted towards ISVs and Advanced Edition which is primarily for enterprise organizations. One of the new features that is only included in Advanced Edition is the support for System Z. SUSE Enterprise Linux has long been the market leading Linux on System Z, so it is no surprise that customers have been clamoring for such a feature.
Other updates that are included in both versions of the products include 1-click deployment to Amazon EC2, enhanced versioning, rebuilding and changelog, and better integration with other SUSE products like SUSE Manager and Sentinel Log Manager.
IDC believes software appliances can play a key role in building out cloud deployments. This is why IDC forecasts the packaged software appliance market to grow to $3.7 billion by 2014. The ability to create and maintain one piece of software and deploy anywhere is an essential piece to automating your private, public and hybrid cloud deployments. And now with SUSE Studio's support for System Z, enterprises can use one tool for version control across x86, public cloud and System Z deployments reducing the overhead associated with managing a heterogeneous environment.

In the first annual HPC in the Cloud  Readers' and Editors' Choice Awards, Novell was recognized with the Editors' Choice: 2010 Cloud Security Leader award. Novell tied with IBM for its leadership in data security and cloud innovation. It was presented at the 2010 Cloud Expo in Santa Clara, CA by the HPC in the Cloud team.

The award was happily welcomed by Dipto Chakravarty, VP of engineering for Security Management and Operating Platforms, and his team at Novell. For more details, read the the full release.

Today Novell announced the general availability of Novell Identity Manager 4 Advanced Edition.  As Novell's "WorkloadIQ Guy," I thought I'd share a post from my blog about why identity management is central to WorkloadIQ. And since it's baseball playoff season, I think comic geniuses Bud Abbott and Lou Costello explain it best, “look Abbott, if you’re the coach, you must know all the players.”

Their classic Who’s on First routine can depict what it’s like to attempt a move to cloud computing without first establishing an enterprise-ready identity foundation.

Before you consider moving workloads around, you need to know who has access to what, what proprietary data is in the workload, what will happen once the workload has executed—as well as a host of other important characteristics and processes necessary to ensure reliable performance, security and policy compliance.

Identifying who has access is well understood. Employees, partners and vendors all have identities at this point, and most organizations understand their roles. Companies have invested millions of dollars to define policies that limit what people in these roles can and can’t do.

Identities must go beyond who to include what. That’s because you must be able to manage what people have access to. Therefore, identities must include technologies—everything from desktops, laptops, printers, databases, storage devices, line-of business applications—the list goes on to include virtual resources as well.

Identity is the common characteristic that spans all information systems—both physical and virtual—which is why Novell believes identity is the point of integration for intelligent workload management. Identity management products such as Novell Identity Manager 4 greatly simplify this process by automating provisioning, user access and policy management. Not only does identity manager provide a standard view of identity across physical, virtual and cloud environments, it integrates with security information and event management (SIEM) products such as Novell Sentinel and SIEM products from other vendors to ensure policy compliance and increase management control.

The process of integrating identity with today’s network-connected resources can be an arduous task. Identity Manager 4 greatly simplifies identity integration, offering plug-and-play integration drivers for more than 300 leading business applications, databases, email systems, directories, operating systems and phone systems.

Establishing an enterprise-ready identity foundation provides significant benefits today to help you control costs, manage complexity, ensure compliance with business and regulatory mandates, and protect your company’s intellectual property. Regardless of where you are with cloud-deployment today, infusing your enterprise with identity intelligence will help you push intelligent workloads beyond your firewall with confidence when you’re ready. Without errors or confusion.

Tonight, Novell Cloud Manager will be one of the innovations being recognized at Mass Innovation Nights, a local Massachusetts organization created to provide innovators with ways to connect with the media, the marketplace and each other. If you're in the area, please come and join us.

In two conference presentations, Novell experts detailed how cloud-enabling technologies like the SUSE Appliance Program, Novell Cloud Security Service and Novell Cloud Manager are helping enterprise organizations solve the complexities of cloud computing by helping them better understand and leverage the intelligent workload management market.

Novell appliance architect, Skip Paul’s presentation, “Virtual Appliances: Simplifying Application Deployment and Accelerating Your Journey to the Cloud,” discussed how software appliances can dramatically simplify application deployment, thus accelerating an organization’s shift to cloud computing. Paul also pointed out how the strategic partnership between Novell and VMware is delivering innovative appliance versions of VMware products running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. The session ended with recommendations to software vendors to simplify delivery of software, perform appliance lifecycle management and extend applications to the cloud. End-user organizations were encouraged to reduce the time spent creating and updating core OS images by 90 percent or more. His presentation can be found here on SlideShare.

Novell’s Richard Whitehead, director of intelligent workload management, and Ben Goodman, principal strategist, teamed up for a presentation titled “IDC says, ‘Don’t Move to the Cloud,” citing that IDC recommends organizations don’t just “move” to the cloud, but “embrace” it. Without a proper identity strategy, Whitehead and Goodman say taking advantage of cloud computing is pointless. The duo discussed how Novell’s unique identity-centric approach – whereby organization’s infuse the capabilities identity management offers into their entire IT ecosystem – is central to what Novell calls “WorkloadIQ,” our differentiated approach to tackling the complexities of the intelligent workload management market, which helps organizations ensure their cloud environments are manageable, secure and compliant. Their presentation is found here on SlideShare.

Working with Harris Interactive, we've just wrapped-up a detailed research project into cloud adoption, and the results are fascinating. We talked to over 200 senior-level IT executives from around the world, asking them their views and experiences with virtualization, cloud, and more.

Initial results suggest that the pace of adoption of cloud computing is much higher than previously reported, at least in many industry sectors. And when we looked at the types of technologies being adopted, and at the issues respondents are facing as they move to cloud, we found even more surprises.

We'll have more results to share in the coming weeks. Have a great holiday weekend.

VMworld features various sessions during the week-long event, often holding presentations, panels, interviews and demonstrations. David Vallante, Co-Founder of The Wikibom Project, conducted the interview with Joe Wagner on Wednesday, Sept. 1, at 1:00 PM. Wagner answered questions such as:

- What news do you have to share from VMworld?
- Why did Novell and VMware make this agreement?
- What value will VMware customers get from this?
- How can one get more information about this new partnership offering?

Novell and VMware have a long-standing relationship in further developing infrastructure technology. Their recent agreement enables VMware to distribute and support the SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server operating system. Under the agreement, VMware intends to standardize its virtual appliance-based product offerings on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. You may read the release here: http://www.novell.com/news/press/vmware-and-novell-deliver-suse-linux-enterprise-server-for-vmware

Joe Wagner serves as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Global Alliances at Novell. He is responsible for driving strategic objectives and establishing major partnership ecosystems on which to build market relevance and growth businesses at Novell. This encompasses building strategic global partnerships with leading technology companies including VMware.

Novell is an infrastructure software company that is leading the intelligent workload management market with its differentiated approach, WorkloadIQ. Novell helps organizations securely deliver and manage computing services across physical, virtual and cloud computing environments with its solutions for identity and security, systems management, collaboration and Linux based operating platforms.

Viewers may watch the interview and follow up on other VMworld events through VMware’s Social Media and Blogger Lounge, found at http://www.vmworld.com/blogs/vmworld/2010/08/28/social-media-blogger-lounge-with-live-video-coverage.

CA certainly has been on a buying spree recently to try to move itself into the Cloud space.  With the space predicted to grow at more than a 15% CAGR, it's little wonder as to why.  However, this recent acquisition smacks of putting a square peg in a round hole.

Arcot has a nice solution for strong authentication but as an authentication play, it's not that interesting.  It's about time that CA patched that hole in their SiteMinder portfolio.  Other providers (Novell included) offer token-less strong authentication.  I'm left scratching my head and wondering if this is truly a cloud security play or merely paying a lot for a technology labeled "cloud."

The second part of the Arcot acquisition is a solution for providing single-sign on for cloud applications.  I think it's missing in a couple of fundamental aspects:

• It's only hosted by Arcot.  Other state-of-the-art players, such as Novell and Ping Identity, are working with cloud providers to offer this to their existing customers instead of trying to build a new channel.  If you're an enterprise in the middle of the move to the cloud do you really want to have to deal with yet another vendor?
• It misses the fact that single-sign on in the cloud is about a lot more than just sign-on.  Providers need to provide auditing, logging, and the foundational technology needed to ensure compliance.

Identity and Security in the Cloud are on everybody's mind these days — particularly with the VMWare conference this week — but this was an big acquisition by CA that will require a lot of integration work and cause yet more churn.

The other day, I was talking to my colleague, Richard Whitehead, about how partners should integrate the cloud delivery model into their current offerings. He threw out a simplified analogy of a local bank, which I paraphrase here:

Several years ago, the key to a bank’s profitability with its customers was a checking/savings account. The bank went out of its way to establish and maintain accounts with local customers and businesses. This account is similar to the physical infrastructure and personal relationship solution providers have with their customers.

Then, the banks started offering overdraft protection on those accounts. This was a way for the customer to have a line of credit just when they needed it – and it was a profitable business offering for the bank. This is analogous to the flexibility provided by a virtualized infrastructure that a solution provider may provide its customers.

Subsequently, the banks started offering their customers additional credit by providing credit cards. The bank didn’t create its own credit card brand, but used existing infrastructure, processes, and branding established by large credit card companies (Visa, MasterCard, etc) and became a sales and billing arm for those large companies. This is similar to what is currently available in the cloud computing model for solution providers.

You should note that the banks never stopped pushing to acquire and maintain accounts, because that is where they have great value. However, they make their most profitable money by leveraging their account relationship with their customers and providing additional products and services to those customers. These additional products and services are very profitable, simply because they don’t have to pay for the infrastructure or maintenance of those products themselves – it is done by another company.

To push the analogy a bit, in the banking industry, there are very few credit card companies (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, Diners Club) and no new ones have sprung up for years. Conversely, hundreds of new banks, each founded on a base of local accounts and value-added services, are started each year in the US (according to the FDIC).

I believe that today’s solution provider market is similar. There is limited opportunity to start a cloud provider business – this will dominated by a few, large companies.  There are, however, tremendous opportunities for solution providers to help existing and new customers integrate new cloud-based products and services into their existing IT infrastructure.

How do you help your customers integrate cloud services into their existing infrastructure?