VMware teams up with Novell on Suse Linux

VMware will standardize its virtual appliance-based products on Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server, a move intended to help ward off a growing threat from Microsoft.

Under the partnership, announced this week, customers buying certain vSphere licenses will be eligible to receive a subscription to Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) patches and updates for SLES instances deployed in vSphere virtual machines. The companies are also working to make it easier to port SLES-based virtual machines across clouds.

VMware offers virtual appliances--self-contained virtual machines preconfigured with an OS and the application--as a way of making them easier to deploy and maintain. As part of the new deal, SLES will become the standard OS for those appliances.

The announcement expands on a February 2009 deal, under which the two teamed up to work with software makers to develop SLES-based virtual appliances. The deal is a step toward addressing VMware's dependence on Windows guests, according to Gartner analyst Richard Jones. He estimated Windows as comprising more than 80 percent of the operating systems that run on VMware's hypervisor.

Read more of "VMware teams up with Novell on Suse Linux" at ZDNet UK.