Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1 Announced

Update offers enhanced virtualization, improved high availability and more flexible maintenance and support options

Novell today launched SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1 (SP1), which delivers the industry's broadest virtualization capabilities, powerful advances in high availability clustering, and more flexible maintenance and support options. As a result, customers can take advantage of the latest open source technologies to run their mission-critical services cost effectively on any platform - physical, virtual or cloud - today, as well as in the future.

"As an Air Traffic Control service provider, we naturally place the highest demands on the quality and reliability of the software products we use," said Dr. Stefan Schimanski, Head of Linux Competence and Service Center, DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung. "SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 fully meets these requirements, which makes it our strategic choice for mission-critical systems. With Service Pack 1, Novell continues to improve the already rock-solid basis while making new and innovative features ready for the enterprise."

Major technical advancements from data center to desktop
SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP1 is optimized for all IT infrastructures - physical, virtual and cloud - and offers numerous advancements, including:

• Broadest virtualization support, including the latest Xen* 4.0 hypervisor with significantly improved virtual input/output performance, support for KVM, an emerging open source virtualization hypervisor, and Linux integration components in Hyper-V* - an industry first.
• Best open source high-availability solution, with clustering advances such as support for metro area clusters, simple node recovery with ReaR, the leading open source disaster recovery framework, and new administrative tools including a cluster simulator and web-based GUI.
• First enterprise Linux distribution with an updated 2.6.32 kernel, which leverages the RAS features in Intel* Xeon* processor 7500 and 5600 series, such as MCA recovery, improved MPIO hardware support; new floating point and cryptographic features that deliver improved performance and security like AES-NI, as well as Intel* Rapid Storage Technology enterprise, fully implemented for robust software RAID.
• New technology on the desktop, including improved audio and Bluetooth* support, as well as the latest versions of Firefox, OpenOffice.org and Evolution^TM, which includes MAPI enhancements for improved interoperability with Microsoft* Exchange.

"With our long history of collaboration, Intel and Novell share the common goal of developing solutions that provide our customers with Linux-based solutions ranging from basic infrastructure and high performance computing to mission-critical enterprise workloads," said Doug Fisher, vice president, Intel Software and Service Group and general manager, System Software Division. "The combination of Intel* Xeon* processor 7500 and 5600 series and SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1 provides even more opportunity for enterprise customers to run the most mission-critical workloads, replace costly legacy proprietary platforms, and deploy virtualized workloads for data center operational efficiencies."

New programs enable customer choice and better technology integration
With SP1, Novell is implementing more flexible support options that will allow customers to remain on older package releases during the product's life cycle, and will significantly lower the hurdle to deploy upcoming service packs. While current releases deliver the most value with proactive maintenance updates and patches, for customers that place a premium on stability, this program delivers superior control and flexibility by allowing them to decide when and how to upgrade. Long Term Service Pack Support will continue to be available for customers that want full technical support and fixes backported to earlier releases. Also with SP1, Novell announces enhancements to the Partner Linux Driver Program, a program that allows SUSE Linux Enterprise customers to receive the latest supported hardware drivers and kernel modules from the Novell partner ecosystem in a timely manner.

"IBM is committed to helping clients design, deliver and implement innovative Linux solutions that meet their unique business needs," said Dan Frye, vice president, Open Systems Development, IBM. "The Partner Linux Driver Program's tools and program support provide our joint clients with drivers and modules that integrate seamlessly with SUSE Linux Enterprise, and are well maintained and supported."

Josh Kahn, vice president of Product Management, Storage and Availability Management Group, Symantec, said, "The Partner Linux Driver Program allows us to rapidly bring to market the drivers and modules which enable our products like Veritas Storage Foundation to run on SUSE Linux Enterprise. Our joint customers benefit from the timely release of our respective technologies, and can more easily plan and manage their upgrade cycles."

IBM and Symantec are joined by other component, system and software vendors like AMD, Broadcom, Brocade, Dell, Emulex, Fujitsu, HP, Intel, LSI, Microsoft, nVidia, QLogic and SGI that leverage Partner Linux Driver Program tools, specifications, processes and program support to more easily and cost- effectively bring to market and support their third-party technology together with SUSE Linux Enterprise. Novell's partners provide more than 5,000 certified applications today for SUSE Linux Enterprise, twice that of the next closest enterprise Linux* distribution provider.

"Our customers have told us what they want, and we've listened," said Markus Rex, senior vice president and general manager of Open Platform Solutions at Novell. "With SP1, not only are we delivering technical innovations that allow them to run their mission-critical workloads reliably, securely and affordably, we're also providing commercial support and partner programs with unprecedented flexibility, innovation and control. SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP1 gives our customers superior investment protection through a low-risk, highly-capable platform that they can deploy and rely on for years."

Complete product line upgrade available
Designed to address customer needs for reliable, high performing and secure computing across the enterprise, SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP1 contains major upgrades to the following products:

•SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
•SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop
•SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension, an advanced clustering product that ensures uptime for mission-critical applications
•SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service, Novell's specialized Linux solution for retail computing
•SUSE Linux Enterprise Virtual Machine Driver Pack, a set of drivers which improves the performance of Windows* 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual guests

These upgraded products will be generally available on June 2. Preview DVDs are available today at BrainShare EMEA. For a limited time, qualifying customers can receive free training, migration assistance and unlimited virtualization support with their purchase of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscriptions. For more information, visit https://www.novell.com/promo/suse/sle11sp1.html.

About Novell
Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) delivers the best engineered, most interoperable Linux platform and a portfolio of integrated IT management software that helps customers around the world reduce cost, complexity and risk. With our infrastructure software and ecosystem of partnerships, Novell harmoniously integrates mixed IT environments, allowing people and technology to work as one. For more information, visit www.novell.com.