REDMOND, WA, USA: Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. are announcing the availability of a joint virtualisation solution optimised for customers running mixed-source environments.

The joint offering includes SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Server from Novell(R) configured and tested as an optimised guest operating system running on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, and is fully supported by both companies' channel partners, including Dell Inc., which will test and validate this offering at the Microsoft and Novell joint Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Mass.

The new offering represents significant progress in the Microsoft-Novell collaboration and business model first announced in November 2006, which delivers seamless integration of SUSE Linux Enterprise and Microsoft Windows, providing a bridge between proprietary software and open source software.

The virtualisation solution is the first to include technology developed by both companies at their joint Interoperability Lab, including virtual machine adapters built to optimise SUSE Linux  Enterprise Server as an optimised, or often referred to as enlightened, guest operating system on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, providing optimised performance to SUSE Linux guests.

Bob Kelly, corporate vice president of infrastructure server marketing within the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft, said: "The collaboration between Microsoft and Novell has been built by our desire to meet our customers' and partners' IT needs, and to deliver solutions that support customers' mixed-source environments. For customers standardising on Microsoft's hypervisor who also have a mixed-source IT environment, this virtualisation solution gives that choice. For channel partners who need a cross-platform hypervisor offering, our work with Novell gives them an easy starting point."

The new offering represents more than 18 months of technical collaboration undertaken between Microsoft and Novell in response to customer demand for a virtualisation solution that provides high performance and ease of deployment, and is tested and supported. The joint solution is fully supported by Microsoft, Novell and participating channel partners, including Computer Integrated Services Company of New York LLC (CIS), Continental Resources Inc., Dell, Insight, Total Tec Systems Inc., and 21Vianet.

The original November 2006 Microsoft-Novell agreement included four areas of technical collaboration: virtualisation, standards-based systems management, identity federation and document format compatibility. Since then, the companies have announced three other areas of collaboration: Moonlight, accessibility and a new SUSE Linux Enterprise Server management pack for Microsoft System Center product.