Novell has rolled out SUSE Appliance Toolkit, which features an onsite version of the company’s appliance-building offering SUSE Studio and new management tools for independent software vendors (ISVs) and enterprises.
The company claims the suite of new tools reduce the time and cost for ISVs and enterprises to develop, deploy and manage software appliances. The new toolkit will help it to deliver a complete and integrated suite for building, testing, updating and configuring software appliances across physical, virtual and cloud environments.
According to Novell, the SUSE Appliance Toolkit is a part of the SUSE Appliance Program, which enables ISVs to build, update, configure and go-to-market with fully-supported software appliances. These allows ISVs to deliver existing applications to physical, virtual and cloud computing environments, reduce sales cycles and pursue new market opportunities.
The new Toolkit provides enterprises with services that gives benefits of software appliances in-house and reduces complexity of managing deployed applications. It allows developers to choose to build their appliances on either SUSE Linux Enterprise or openSUSE, Novell said.
The company said that the SUSE Appliance Toolkit equips SUSE studio onsite, a local, behind-the-firewall version of the online appliance creation tool, SUSE Studio Online; WebYaST, a tool for enabling remote, web-based configuration of the SUSE Linux Enterprise.
In addition, the toolkit also includes SUSE lifecycle management server, a tool for authentication, entitlement and access control that makes it easier to distribute software patches and updates; and support for KIWI, the image creation tool behind SUSE Studio.
Members of the SUSE Appliance Program include Adobe, Black Diamond Software, BitRock, GroundWork Open Source, IBM, Ingres, SEP, ROC Software and Zmanda.
Markus Rex, senior vice president and general manager of Open Platform Solutions at Novell, said: “The SUSE Appliance Toolkit makes it easier for enterprises and ISVs to quickly create, deliver and configure tailored, ready-to-use installations of their applications for physical, virtual and cloud computing environments.
