10.18.08

Do-No-Evil Saturday – Part II: SUSE (SLES|SLED) Deployments

Posted in Australia, GNU/Linux, Novell, SLES/SLED at 5:32 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Eventful lizard

FOR SUSE, unlike OpenSUSE, this has been an events-packed week. Here is a quick rundown.

SLES

Rodney Gedda reports from Australia, claiming that a fire brigade has adopted SLES. Gedda himself is (or was) a SLED user.

The NSW Fire Brigades’ has adopted virtualisation for its new disaster recovery strategy and in the process moved its core services from Windows to SUSE Linux.

NSW Fire Brigades’ IT infrastructure operations manager, Matthew Robey, said with 60 physical servers in a single production data centre there were increasing server costs, no more “real estate” to accommodate servers and a limited DR capacity.

“We consolidated servers using Oracle RAC and VMware, and moved from Windows to SLES 10,” Robey said.

Servicing more than 140,000 incidents per year, NSW Fire Brigades is a $500 million a year organisation with 7000 employees, 340 fire stations and some 900 fire trucks. To improve its level of DR, Fire Brigades built a new production data centre and used its existing Sydney city data centre as the DR site.

Matt Asay offers a glimpse at this current discussion about Novell’s mixture of its past and future (SUSE) business.

NetworkWorld nails it with an article describing how proprietary licensing encourages companies to spend time protecting their past investments, rather than focusing on the future. While the article deals with Microsoft’s ongoing legal battles with Novell over WordPerfect (Remember that?),

[...]

Red Hat and other open-source companies, in other words, are focused on the future, because that’s what their model requires in order to earn renewals from customers.

SplendidCRM clearly seems like a lover of Mono, being the .NET-oriented company which it is. It’s likely that some of its deployments are set up on SLES.

This release takes advantage of a number of advances in Mono, including support for Master Pages and AJAX. “We are grateful to Novell and the Mono team as they make it incredibly easy to create a cross-platform application using Microsoft .NET and C#,” said Mr. Rony.

Jason Perlow (of IBM) has apparently pressured Novell regarding SLES and OpenSUSE.

Look, I like openSUSE. A lot. I fought to get SuSE Linux Professional released into Open Source when the idea wasn’t even a twinkle in Novell’s eye. I run openSUSE on several of my personal systems, and I have it virtualized up the ying-yang on VMWare ESX 3i. And while openSUSE is stable, it’s not optimized for server use, it’s more of a end-user/developer OS, even though it could be “purposed” as a server and I frequently do this myself. However, openSUSE’s 2-year support cycle makes it viable as a server only for the most agile software development shops.

IBM’s support of SLES is confirmed on POWER 6 servers, which still seem to be virtualising GNU/Linux under UNIX.

The Power systems, including the model 560 and the JS21 blades, can run IBM AIX, IBM i (formerly i5/OS and before that OS/400) or Linux. Specifically, they support AIX 5.2 up to the latest 6.1, IBM i from 5.4 up to the latest 6.1, and two Linux distributions: Novell SLES 10 SP1 or higher, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5 upwards.

ITJungle has some more information about it.

The machine supports AIX 5.3 or 6.1, i 6.1 (but not i5/OS V5R4, which is supported on other Power6-based rack machinery), and Linux with the 2.6 kernel (Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SP1 and SP2 and Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux 4.5 or later and 5.1 or later releases are certified on the machine).

Here’s a little gem about Teradata and SUSE. Teradata was mentioned a few times last month.

The Teradata Extreme Data Appliance, based on the field proven Teradata platform technologies, is an affordable, fully integrated, scalable platform with the quad-core Intel(R) Xeon(R) processor, industry standard high capacity storage, running on Novell(R) SUSE(R) Linux, and the marketing-leading Teradata 12 database and utilities. All components are pre-installed and the appliance is currently available.

SLED

SJVN is still a fan of SUSE on the desktop, despite his frustration about Novell’s patent deal with Microsoft.

My answer is that those requirements pretty much narrow it down to Novell and SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop). Novell, and its resellers, knows support and SMB.

The following article about OpenOffice.org 3.0 offers some special treatment to Novell and SUSE.

“For 95 percent of the users out there, we believe OpenOffice.org can fully replace Microsoft Office,” Grant Ho, senior product marketing manager of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, told InternetNews.com. Novell is a major contributor to OOo and includes the office suite as part of its SUSE Linux distributions.

Here are some SUSE revenue figures.

For those wondering how big Red Hat and Novell can become on operating-system revenue alone, keep that $61 billion number in mind. Most of that $61 billion is hardware-related, but it meant approximately $650 million in Linux server sales for Red Hat and Novell over the past year. As Linux eats into Unix, Red Hat and Novell can expect to grow linearly with it.

Novell’s business, and particularly its revenue, are still barely touched or affected by the SUSE component, which probably accounts for less than 10%, depending on the criterion one chooses for measuring it.

Sub-notebooks

Another new sub-notebook called “PicoBook” hits the market and it comes with SUSE.

It also has an in-built webcam and a 4-in-1 card reader. The machine will come in two versions, one sporting the traditional Windows XP Home (the OS that refuses to die!) and also one with user-friendly Suse Linux. While the Linux one cost £279, the XP version costs extra.

There is still some chatter about that IDG article which was mentioned last week. It was about SUSE and sub-notebooks. Here is some more commentary about it:

Use of open source OS in ‘web-devices’ is increasing exposure to alternatives to Windows claims Novell

OES2

Open Enterprise Server 2 SP1 is now a public beta.

Novell today announced the public beta of Open Enterprise Server 2 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), which brings interoperability between Linux, Windows, Macintosh and NetWare to the next level. Built on the SUSE Linux Enterprise platform, Open Enterprise Server 2 is the only secure, reliable and scalable alternative to Microsoft that is backed by the best services and support of any commercial Linux distribution on the market.

Here is some more information:

Novell, a company offering Linux based virtualisation products, today (15 October) announced the public beta version of its Open Enterprise Server 2 with Service Pack 1.

The press from the east covered this as well.

Novell today announced the public beta of Open Enterprise Server 2 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), which brings interoperability between Linux, Windows, Macintosh, and NetWare to the next level.

OES2 is based on SUSE. █

Share this post: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

Permalink Mail Send this to a friend

If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

Pages that cross-reference this one

What Else is New

Language Patent Lawyers Are Using to Warp the Debate and Decrease Public Understanding of Patents

The patent microcosm, trying to get the public all baffled/confused about the patent system, continues (mis)using words to convey things in misleading ways
USPTO FEES ACT Makes the US Patent Office a Money-Making Machine That Systematically Disregards Patent Quality

The lingering issues with patent assessment at the US patent office, which unlike US courts isn't quite so impartial an actor (it benefits more from granting than from rejecting)
Guest Post on Ronan Le Gleut and Benalla at the French Senate (in Light of Battistelli's Epic Abuses)

Thoughts on the possibility that Battistelli will belatedly be held accountable for his abuses, knowing that a senator representing French Citizens residing Abroad comes from the EPO
A Lot of US Patents Are Entirely Bogus, But Apple Was Willing to Pay for Them

Apple's resistance to Qualcomm's patent aggression was preceded by very heavy ("thermonuclear" by Steve Jobs' description/words) patent wars against Android and even legitimisation of clearly bogus software patents from Amazon
'Owning' Nature, Thanks to Patent Insanity and People Who Profit From That

Questionable patents on things that always existed and are merely being explained or reassembled; those sorts of patents typically serve to merely discredit the patent system and courts too increasingly reject such patents (e.g. SCOTUS on Mayo Collaborative Services and Myriad Genetics, Inc.)
Patents Stranger Than Fiction and 'Protection' From Fictional Things

Fictional things are being treated like "inventions" and insurance companies now look to exploit fear of fictional things (man-made concepts), such as ownership of mere ideas or words
Benoît Battistelli Refuses to Talk to the Media About Bringing Firearms to the EPO

Benoît Battistelli's highly aggressive approach has attracted the attention of French media; Battistelli has reportedly refused to comment on that matter, knowing that he lacks a defense (same thing happened after he had hauled millions of EPO euros to his other employer)
Patent Law Firms Have Become More Like Marketing Departments With an Aptitude for Buzzwords

What we're observing, without much reluctance anymore, is that a lot of patent lawyers still push abstract software patents, desperately looking for new trendy terms or adjectives by which to make these seem non-abstract
Interlude: The Need to Counter Misinformation From the Patent and Litigation 'Industry'

24,500 posts reached; so we pause and reflect, seeing that many sites/blogs of patent maximalists gradually ebb away
Advocacy of the Unitary Patent System Has Become Almost Identical to the 'Leave' (Brexit) Campaign

The charades of Team UPC carry on in Kluwer Patent Blog — a blog which for a very long time served no purpose other than Unified Patent Court (UPC) advocacy
Open Invention Network is Rendered Obsolete in the Wake of Alice and It's Not Even Useful in Combating Microsoft's Patent Trolls

Changes at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and in US courts' outcomes may have already meant that patent trolls rather than software patents in general are a growing threat, including those that Microsoft is backing, funding and arming to put legal pressure on GNU/Linux (and compel people/companies to host GNU/Linux instances on Azure for patent 'protection' from these trolls)
Bogus Patents Which Oughtn't Have Been Granted Make Products Deliberately Worse, Reducing Innovation and Worsening Customers' Experience

How shallow patents — or patent applications that no patent office should be accepting — turn out to be at the core of multi-billion-dollar cases/lawsuits, with potentially a billion people impacted (their products made worse to work around such questionable patents)
EPO is Like a Patent Litigation (Without Actual Trial) Office, Not a Patent Examination Office

Examination of patent applications isn't taken seriously by an office whose entire existence was supposed to be about examination; bureaucracy at the top of this office has apparently decided that the sole goal is to create more demand (i.e. lawsuits) for the litigation 'industry'
Philippe Cadre From the French National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) Wants to Join António Campinos

Yet another example of INPI's creeping influence if not 'entryism' at the EPO and this time too patent quality isn't a priority
Links 22/9/2018: Mesa 18.2.1, CLIP OS, GPL Settlement in Artifex/First National Title Insurance Company

Links for the day
Links 21/9/2018: Cockpit 178, Purism 'Dongle'

Links for the day
Criticism of Unitary Patent (UPC) Agreement Doomed the UPC and Patent Trolls' Plan -- Along With the Litigation Lobby -- for Unified 'Extortion Vector'

The Unitary Patent or Unified Patent Court (UPC) was the trolls' weapon against potentially millions of European businesses; but those businesses have woken up to the fact that it was against their interests and European member states such as Spain and Poland now oppose it while Germany halts ratification
It Wasn't Judges With Weapons in Their Office, It Was Benoît Battistelli Who Brought Firearms to the European Patent Office (EPO)

The EPO scandals deepen in light of a very major scandal which has occupied the French media for a couple of months
Links 20/9/2018: 2018 Linux Audio Miniconference and Blackboard's Openwashing

Links for the day
Links 19/9/2018: Chromebooks Get More DEBs, LLVM 7.0.0 Released

Links for the day
Links 18/9/2018: Qt 5.12 Alpha , MAAS 2.5.0 Beta, PostgreSQL CoC

Links for the day
Today's European Patent Office (EPO) Works for Large, Foreign Pharmaceutical Companies in Pursuit of Patents on Nature, Life, and Essential/Basic Drugs

The never-ending insanity which is patents on DNA/genome/genetics and all sorts of basic things that are put together like a recipe in a restaurant; patents are no longer covering actual machinery that accomplishes unique tasks in complicated ways, typically assembled from scratch by humans; some supposed 'inventions' are merely born into existence by the natural splitting of organisms or conception (e.g. pregnancy)
The EPO Has Quit Pretending That It Cares About Patent Quality, All It Cares About is Quantity of Lawsuits

A new interview with Roberta Romano-Götsch, as well as the EPO's promotion of software patents alongside CIPA (Team UPC), is an indication that the EPO has ceased caring about quality and hardly even pretends to care anymore
Qualcomm's Escalating Patent Wars Have Already Caused Massive Buybacks (Loss of Reserves) and Loss of Massive Clients

Qualcomm's multi-continental patent battles are an effort to 'shock and awe' everyone into its protection racket; but the unintended effect seems to be a move further and further away from 'Qualcomm territories'
Links 17/9/2018: Torvalds Takes a Break, SQLite 3.25.0 Released

Links for the day
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) Helps Prevent Frivolous Software Patent Lawsuits

PTAB with its quality-improving inter partes reviews (IPRs) is enraging patent maximalists; but by looking to work around it or weaken it they will simply reduce the confidence associated with US patents
Abstract Patents (Things One Can Do With Pen and Paper, Sometimes an Abacus) Are a Waste of Money as Courts Disregard Them

A quick roundup of patents and lawsuits at the heart of which there's little or no substance; 35 U.S.C. § 101 renders these moot
“Blockchain” Hype and “FinTech”-Like Buzzwords Usher in Software Patents Everywhere, Even Where Such Patents Are Obviously Bunk

Not only the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) embraces the "blockchain" hype; business methods and algorithms are being granted patent 'protection' (exclusivity) which would likely be disputed by the courts (if that ever reaches the courts)
Qualcomm's Patent Aggression Threatens Rationality of Patent Scope in Europe and Elsewhere

Qualcomm's dependence on patent taxes (so-called 'royalties' associated with physical devices which it doesn't even make) highlights the dangers now known; the patent thicket has grown too "thick"
Months After Oil States the Patent Maximalists Are Still Desperate to Crush PTAB in the Courts, Not Just in Congress and the Office

Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) inter partes reviews (IPRs) improve patent quality and are therefore a threat to those who profit from spurious feuding and litigation; they try anything they can to turn things around