With SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, Novell is delivering the Linux platform to allow customers to economically deploy workloads wherever and however they choose, with complete support from Novell and its global partner ecosystem of solution and hardware providers and independent software vendors (ISVs).

SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 delivers innovations across the enterprise. The platform contains major enhancements to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and delivers two new extensions – SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension, the product that enables customers to run fully supported Microsoft .NET-based applications on Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension, a clustering product that ensures uptime for mission-critical applications while slashing the cost of ownership for high availability. As the operating system for the next-generation IT infrastructure, SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 was designed using three core themes: ubiquity, interoperability and mission-critical computing.

As part of a complete solution, SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 will be supported by Novell’s global strategic partners – including Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, Oracle and SAP – and its entire ecosystem of solution, integration, hardware and software partners. Together, Novell with its partners deliver the world-class implementation, technical support and training services customers have come to expect. Novell has also invested significant resources in building an expansive independent software vendor application catalog for SUSE Linux Enterprise.

Novell is also announcing the availability of Novell ZENworks Linux Management 7.3, which extends policy-driven automation to SUSE Linux Enterprise 11. Managing both desktop and server systems, ZENworks Linux Management makes it easy to deploy, manage and maintain Linux resources with advanced policies for desktops and servers. When used with SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, ZENworks Linux Management enables customers to reduce the time and cost spent managing their IT infrastructure.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 runs on x86-32, x86-64, Itanium, IBM POWER and IBM System z hardware platforms. In addition, SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 has been optimized to run at near-native performance on all major hypervisors, including VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V and Xen.

For deploying Linux in the cloud, SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 will be certified and supported in Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Novell is collaborating with IBM to deliver SUSE Linux Enterprise 11-based virtual instances of IBM DB2, Informix Dynamic Server, WebSphere sMash, IBM Lotus Web Content Management and IBM WebSphere Portal instances for cloud environments. Currently, customers deploying Linux desktops have been able to obtain SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop preloaded from leading hardware vendors, including Dell and HP. With SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11, Novell will continue to bring desktop Linux ubiquity to the market across a variety of devices, including desktops, notebooks, netbooks, nettops and thin clients.

Novell is delivering SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS (Just enough Operating System) and a suite of tools that enables ISVs to assemble a virtual appliance with just the pieces of SUSE Linux Enterprise necessary to support their specific application. Appliances that pass Novell’s supportability algorithm will receive technical support for their custom JeOS configuration of SUSE Linux Enterprise 11.

Thanks to its partnership with Microsoft, Novell has engineered SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 to work seamlessly with Microsoft Windows in the areas of cross-platform virtualization, systems management, identity/directory federation, document compatibility, Moonlight (Microsoft Silverlight on Linux) and desktop accessibility for the disabled. In addition to new support for Silverlight, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 features the ability to play Windows multimedia file formats and the latest version of OpenOffice.org Novell Edition that supports a range of Microsoft Office file formats.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension is a new product that provides the first commercial support for the open source Mono project’s application platform, enabling enterprises to seamlessly run .NET applications on Linux without having to recompile. Novell is also offering the SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension for customers performing mainframe-based workload consolidation. This allows them to run .NET-based applications on IBM System z, the first time this has been offered by any Linux vendor.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 enables customers to migrate workloads from UNIX to Linux. SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension delivers an integrated suite of open source clustering technologies that help customers reduce unplanned downtime while providing an affordable alternative to expensive proprietary offerings. A new support infrastructure provides enhanced problem resolution to assist customers in resolving inquiries quickly and accurately.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 supports swap over the NFS (Network File System) protocol to leverage remote storage for local server needs and avoid costly application downtime. In addition, SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 provides the fastest package update stack of any enterprise Linux distribution, with new technologies to automate and accelerate installing, removing, upgrading and configuring software packages.

Later this year, Novell plans to release the next version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time Extension, which will leverage the SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 code base to reduce latency and increase predictability and reliability of time-sensitive, mission-critical applications.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11, SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension and Novell ZENworks Linux Management 7.3 are available now. SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS will be available in April and SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension will be available in the second quarter of this year. Later in 2009, Novell plans to release updates to SUSE Linux Enterprise Point of Service, SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time Extension and SUSE Linux Enterprise Thin Client.