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SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 - Systems Management

Comprehensive Linux Systems Management Capabilities

Are you ready for Linux server management software? For most IT professionals, administering a small network is not particularly challenging. Adding extra servers, peripherals or users can be trivial, but this gets much harder as the network grows. At some point, most IT departments realize they need a more robust approach to enterprise server management to handle the challenges of scale. Different types of networks such as Windows, UNIX and Linux need to interoperate. Security vulnerabilities need to be continually monitored, and patches need to be applied as soon as they are available. Finally, as the business grows, more applications are deployed, which requires more servers and even more maintenance.

SUSE® Linux Enterprise operating systems are designed to be perfectly ready for mass management infrastructures and, at the same time easy-to-use for single instances either locally or remote, so we provide all the tools to simplify your SUSE Linux Enterprise server management chores. The Linux server management tools included in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server address these challenges:

YaST and AutoYaST: Easing the Burden of Linux Server Management

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 ships with a unique set of server administration, configuration and deployment tools (called YaST and AutoYaST) that ease the burden of linux server and systems management.

YaST: Single Linux Server Management

For single server management tasks in general, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server offers the graphical user interface tool suite YaST. For better remote accessibility YaST also offers a text console interface with the same functionality as the graphical user interface. The modular design of YaST allows for a unique user experience across the main server management areas, like system installation, hardware setup, network configuration, software and packages selection, and services setup. What makes YaST unique is that it is used to configure and manage every aspect of the server. So no matter if you are adding users or configuring applications—such as DNS, Apache Web servers, Samba fileshares or Xen virtual servers—YaST is there to help.

YaST is also open source, and third-party companies can provide YaST "plug-ins" so that you can easily administer their applications, too. Its scalable design makes it very easy to add hardware and software configurations or new administrative plug-ins to the frame set.

With the releases of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 Service Pack 4, many important improvements have been included in YaST. The first-boot experience has been greatly improved by simplifying the creation of root passwords and local user accounts, and the setting up of time zones and system clocks. The YaST package manager has seen a significant increase in performance and offers improved error handling. YaST now visually displays the progress of downloads and other operations, and lets you save, import and export a list of all installed software packages and patterns. The YaST iSCSI module supports Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS), a protocol that allows for automated discovery, management and configuration of iSCSI and Fibre Channel devices on a TCP/IP network. The updated YaST storage module allows for online resizing of the ext3 file system. And finally, YaST modules have been added for configuring SGS Thomson Microelectronics fingerprint readers and for saving dumps over the network.

AutoYaST: Automated Linux Systems Management for Large Enterprises

AutoYaST is an extension to YaST that automates installation to a large number of machines. AutoYaST saves a significant amount of time because installations can be performed in parallel and without user intervention. Enhancements for AutoYaST in Service Pack 4 not only include user interface improvements for signature-handling and partitioning, as well as the option to provide profiles via USB device and to resize existing partitions, but also offer complete iSCSI support.

Novell Customer Center: Integrated Updates and Support for Easy Linux Server Management

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 seamlessly integrates with Novell Customer Center so that customers and partners can easily manage their subscriptions and support entitlements. This ensures uninterrupted access to software updates and security patches.

Subscription Management Tool for SUSE Linux Enterprise

The Subscription Management Tool for SUSE Linux Enterprise is a package proxy system that helps customers manage their SUSE Linux Enterprise software updates while maintaining corporate firewall policy and regulatory compliance requirements. The Subscription Management Tool for SUSE Linux Enterprise is integrated with the Novell Customer Center and provides a repository and registration target that is synchronized with it, thus helping in tracking entitlements in large deployments. It maintains all the capabilities of the Novell Customer Center while allowing a more secure centralized deployment. The Subscription Management Tool for SUSE Linux Enterprise is included with every SUSE Linux Enterprise subscription.

Check out the Subscription Management Tool for SUSE Linux Enterprise, the proxy solution for accessing Novell Customer Center from your internal network and see yourself how easy it is to manage your SUSE Linux Enterprise subscription.

Open Common Information Management (CIM): Seamless Interoperability for System and Server Management Solutions

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 has adopted the open common information management (CIM) standard as a vendor-independent framework for system management. This allows other CIM-enabled system management solutions to easily run on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server systems. The architectural design of CIM contains a systems management daemon (openWBEM in the case of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10) as well as the CIMOM and CIM providers which plug into that daemon to allow for accessing the data they collect. As Novell leads the market in the adoption and the promotion of open source CIM management, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Service Pack 4 include additional CIM providers and management user interfaces (UI) to continue the improvement of systems management capabilities and interoperability.

ZENworks Linux Management

As enterprise networks grow, Novell ZENworks Linux Management can be used to augment the YaST tools and provide centralized control over any system in the enterprise. ZENworks Linux Management can provide desktop lockdown, imaging, remote control, inventory and software management, efficiently managing systems and lowering IT costs. With the Service Packs for version 10, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server provides additional easy-to-use graphical user interfaces for ZENworks Linux Management which allow for single management tasks in that area.

ZENworks Orchestrator and ZENworks Virtual Machine Management

ZENworks Orchestrator and ZENworks Virtual Machine Management from Novell complement the picture by adding high-level virtualization management capabilities—another advantage for SUSE Linux Enterprise. ZENworks Orchestrator allows you to manage a group of physical servers—not just Novell servers—and virtual machines in a data center. ZENworks Virtual Machine Management provides for failover of failed VMs in some scenarios, live migration for paravirtualized guests, a host-based management interface for VM management, saving and restoring of paravirtualized guests, automatic balancing of VMs across physical nodes, a well-designed management interface for the whole of the data center, and cross-platform VM management. The ZENworks Virtual Machine Management tool can manage virtual machines from Xen, Microsoft and VMware.

Talk to us today about the Linux Server Management tools in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. +

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