Achtung Penguin! SUSE tunes up Linux for SAP
It seems natural enough that SUSE Linux and SAP would be technical allies; both hail from Germany and both try to peddle business-grade software to enterprises. SAP, which has a huge installed base of Windows customers and a considerable number of Unix customers, cannot be seen to be playing favorites with its OS suppliers just because of nationalism. But it cannot stop – and would not stop – SUSE Linux, the commercial Linux distributor now owned by Attachmate, from making optimizations to its OS stack that make SAP apps run better.
SUSE Linux and SAP cosied up their respective technical support organizations five years ago, and started making tweaks to the SLES stack shortly thereafter on an informal basis, with SLES 10 and the SAP FastTrack installation tool. Read more...
NetWare-Linux love child turned up to 11
Novell and SUSE Linux may technically be separate companies, but they are owned by the same Attachmate conglomerate and they still have to work together on specific products, such as Open Enterprise Server, which bolts NetWare print and file services to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
In the wake of buying Novell for $2.2bn back in April, SUSE Linux was broken out as a separate division and its headquarters moved back to its Nuremburg, Germany, stomping grounds.
The identity management, security, directory, NetWare support contracts, and Open Enterprise Server, an amalgam of NetWare services ported to run atop SLES, were kept in a separate Novell division headquartered in Provo, Utah, which is Novell's old stomping grounds. An alien visiting earth would never even know the $210m Novell acquisition of SUSE Linux occurred in November 2003 and would think that the two units had partnered to create a hybrid that in essence makes Linux look like NetWare. Read more...