Sources close to the news confirmed that date for the launch of the latest version, which is expected to put greater emphasis on migration technologies, virtualisation, interoperability, ‘green’ computing and even desktop Linux.
Earlier this month, Novell announced at its BrainShare conference in Salt Lake City its development plans for the next generation of its enterprise Linux platform. It was reported at that time that it wouldn’t hit general availability until around the middle of the year.
At the time of the roadmap announcement, Novell said SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 was planned to offer a variety of products designed for use across the enterprise, from edge and infrastructure servers, to data centre and real-time servers, to desktops in thick- and thin-client modes and technical workstations.
In addition, Novell said it plans to make SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 available as an appliance, supported by a new toolset designed to build specialized images. A new embedded version of SUSE Linux Enterprise is also planned so independent hardware vendors can embed virtualisation and operating systems directly in their hardware.
Novell also plans to deliver optimised versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise for specific independent software vendor (ISV) stacks. In addition, planned investments in new desktop virtualisation technology will decouple end users’ computing environments from the underlying hardware and allow them to work anywhere, anytime, according to the firm.
Novell says SUSE Linux Enterprise is the only Linux platform that has been endorsed by Microsoft, SAP and Capgemini. It also claims that it saw invoicing for SUSE Linux Enterprise grow by 200% in fiscal 2007, with new customers including Wal-Mart, Office Depot, Siemens IT Solutions & Services, Casio and HSBC.
When it announced its roadmap in Salt Lake City, Novell said the six key themes for SLES 11 are mission critical data centre technologies; Unix migration; virtualisation; interoperability; green IT and desktop Linux innovation, including, new features for usability, collaboration and security, enabling greater productivity and lower cost of ownership for business users.
