SUSE Appliance Toolkit From Novell Makes It Easy to Build and Deliver Applications to the Cloud

WALTHAM, Mass., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Novell today announced significant advances to its SUSE® Appliance Toolkit, which features the award-winning solution SUSE Studio™ and a comprehensive suite of tools designed to make Linux-powered applications portable and cloud-enabled. This latest version of the toolkit supports the creation of Amazon EC2 images, new virtualization formats and advanced data center capabilities. As a result, independent software vendors (ISVs) and enterprises can build optimized application images in minutes rather than days for deployment in private and public clouds.

SUSE® Appliance Toolkit, a WorkloadIQ™ product, is a comprehensive collection of tools that help independent software vendors (ISVs) and enterprise IT departments reduce the complexity of software deployment, maintenance and support costs across physical, virtual and cloud environments. ISVs and enterprises can accelerate the delivery of applications to the cloud through SUSE Appliance Toolkit's guided appliance building and integrated "testdrive" feature that enables rapid testing and iteration.  

"As the industry's first open source video stack, our customers use our technology to enhance their websites with video and interactive rich-media functionalities," said Ron Yekutiel, chairman and CEO at Kaltura. "With SUSE Studio and the SUSE Appliance Toolkit, we can quickly expand our value-added service offerings with the creation of virtual appliances, providing our customers with customized versions of our integrated video capabilities that can be quickly installed in their physical, virtual and cloud computing infrastructures."

New to SUSE Appliance Toolkit 1.1

Novell has enhanced the many tools available in SUSE Appliance Toolkit – SUSE Studio Onsite, WebYaST, SUSE Lifecycle Management Server and support for KIWI – by adding features including:

• Build Amazon EC2 images – announced in August 2010 as part of the SUSE Cloud Program, Amazon Web Services will soon offer on-demand instances of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with hourly pricing; now ISVs and enterprises alike can build SUSE Linux Enterprise-based application images for Amazon EC2 using SUSE Appliance Toolkit.
• Support for KVM and OVF virtual machine formats – expands the breadth of virtual environments for which ISVs and enterprises can quickly package their applications, enabling greater flexibility and, with OVF, greater portability.
• Support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 – delivers the industry's broadest virtualization capabilities, powerful advances in performance, reliability and security, and more flexible maintenance and support options, thus enabling enterprises to reduce cost and risk whether they are consuming ISV appliances or building their own cloud-enabled application images.
• Advanced capabilities for enterprises – expands the scope of supported applications and use cases. New enhancements including network booting via PXE, reassembly of larger physical disks into logical disks using LVM, and importing of existing KIWI and AutoYaST scripts. ISVs can also use these features to meet the needs of their large data center customers.  

"Cloud computing offers the promise of agility and speed to market, but organizations often lack the tools to quickly and efficiently deploy their applications to cloud environments," said Markus Rex, senior vice president and general manager of Open Platform Solutions at Novell. "The software appliance form factor – a pre-configured combination of operating system, middleware and application – provides the ideal bridge to the cloud. With SUSE Appliance Toolkit, enterprises and technology providers can create, test and enhance applications for cloud infrastructures, all in a few minutes."

About the SUSE Appliance Toolkit

SUSE Appliance Toolkit is part of the SUSE Appliance Program, a comprehensive business and technology program that helps ISVs simplify appliance creation, reduce development and support costs, and extend applications to the cloud. A key component of SUSE Appliance Toolkit is SUSE Studio, the industry's most successful web-based appliance creation tool with more than 85,000 registered users worldwide.

SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS (Just enough Operating System), a minimal configuration of SUSE Linux Enterprise included with SUSE Appliance Toolkit, offers a highly compact starting point for building optimized application images, thus minimizing resource requirements and maximizing security. SUSE Studio, a component of SUSE Appliance Toolkit, allows users to build application images for physical, virtual and cloud environments, all in a matter of minutes.

Leading ISVs and technology providers have shown widespread support for the SUSE Appliance Program, including Adaris Technologies, Black Diamond Software, Codice Software, Commvault, Extis GMBH, GroundWork Open Source, HP, IBM, Infobright, Ingres, Kaltura, Lymeware, Messaging Architects, Mindtouch, PurposefulClouds, REDE, ROC Software, SAP AG, SEP, Sonoa Systems, VMware and Zmanda.

Availability

SUSE Appliance Toolkit is available now. For more information about the product, visit www.novell.com/toolkit. For more information about the SUSE Appliance Program, visit www.novell.com/appliances.

About Novell

Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL), a leader in intelligent workload management, helps organizations securely deliver and manage computing services across physical, virtual and cloud computing environments. We help customers reduce the cost, complexity, and risk associated with their IT systems through our solutions for identity and security, systems management, collaboration and Linux-based operating platforms. With our infrastructure software and ecosystem of partnerships, Novell integrates mixed IT environments, allowing people and technology to work as one. For more information, visit www.novell.com.

Copyright 2010 Novell, Inc.  All rights reserved.  Novell, the Novell logo, the N logo, openSUSE and SUSE are registered trademarks and SUSE Studio is a trademark of Novell Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. *All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Novell, Inc.