Bonum Certa Men Certa

BrainShare 2008 Press Roundup: Part II

This is the second part of a series which started here.

Identity Management



Here is some humour/viral marketing, which has just been added to YouTube. It seems like shameless promotion for identity management at Novell:



Novell is now boasting 6,000 customers for identity management (and security too).

Large and small enterprises, representing financial services, healthcare, education and government, are securing user identities and meeting compliance requirements with Novell


ActivIdentity made an announcement that talks about its relationship with Novell.

ActivIdentity Corporation announced today that the integration of the ActivIdentity Smart Employee ID and the Novell Identity Assurance Solution will be demonstrated at BrainShare 2008, showcasing the next generation in physical-logical access convergence solutions.


Here is an article about it:

ActivIdentity, Novell integrate products

ActivIdentity Corp., Fremont, Calif., and Novell Inc., Waltham, Mass., have combined products that may make it easier for corporation to use one ID card for both physical and logical access, the companies announced.


From Novell, the following generic and broad announcement was made:

Novell Extends Identity and Security Management Capabilities With New Technology Partners

Responding to customer needs for a seamless end-to-end identity and security infrastructure, Novell today announced seven new vendors have joined its identity and security management technology partner ecosystem. Enterprises today are faced with defending against increasing security threats and meeting compliance in a complex and heterogeneous IT environment. By teaming with these vendors, Novell helps customers cost-effectively increase security and streamline their identity infrastructure by delivering a broader choice of solutions. Products from the new partners, when combined with Novell's identity and security management offerings, will enable enterprises to further leverage Novell's solutions to solve specific business challenges.


Another company that works with Novell in this area is Layer 7 Technologies, which issued this press release.

Layer 7 Technologies, a leading provider of security and governance solutions for Service Oriented integration architectures, today announced a go-to-market partnership with Novell to secure programmatic Web services, leveraging Novell eDirectory and Novell Access Manager identity solutions.


Lastly, there is also The Blackbird Group.

The Blackbird Group today announced it has joined Novell's identity and security management partner ecosystem. Under the terms of the agreement, Novell's global sales channel will market and recommend Blackbird's DeTroubler for their customers' directory backup and recovery needs as part of Novell's identity and security management framework.


About a fortnight ago we saw a success story in a hotel (or a chain thereof). Here is a timely article about this.

The Novell-led Bandit project aims to address the challenges of cost effectively connecting disparate systems in the hotel and hospitality sector while streamlining administration and meeting compliance requirements.


Ireland



Some good signs for Novell in Ireland, according to its own claims. Here is one sign among several.

Firms operating in the compliance market have enjoyed some good form of late with companies such as Dublin-based Norkom performing well. The Bear Stearns incident might yet create more opportunities in this market as regulators could crack down even further, meaning that bad news for the market might be good news for firms such as Novell.


The following is even more optimistic and clear:

Irish operation drives change at Novell

Novell's Irish operation is playing a key role in the reshaping of the infrastructure software firm, according to Novell's president of EMEA, Volker Smid.


We heard from Volker quite a bit recently [1, 2, 3]. We had quite a bit of coverage in the past about Novell in Ireland, including expansions.

OES2



Syncsort plugs into OES.

Backup Express from Syncsort Incorporated is now available for Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 (Linux). The seamless integration of the two solutions allows joint customers to successfully protect their data, applications and servers while also taking advantage of the Xen-based NetWare paravirtualization available in OES2.


The same goes for Moonwalk.

Moonwalk announced its latest Moonwalk software suite, with support for Novell’s Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES2).

Novell’s Open Enterprise Server 2 combines workgroup services from Novell with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, completing the Open Enterprise Server shift to providing workgroup services entirely on Linux. It includes dynamic storage technology for user-defined policies, storage management enhancements and Netware virtualization.


Guys and Dolls... and Muppets



There were quite a few puns available here and bloggers took the opprtunity. Novell hooked up with Sesame Street.

Novell today announced that Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational organization behind the ground-breaking children's television program "Sesame Street," has selected Novell to streamline its hardware and software infrastructure. Using Novell€® ZENworks€® Asset Management, which provides a complete and accurate view of the organization's software licenses, inventories and usage, Sesame Workshop is now better able to comply with audit requests and properly manage its leasing contracts. By consolidating its Web server infrastructure using Xen* virtualization on SUSE€® Linux Enterprise Server, Sesame Workshop is lowering server hardware costs, increasing flexibility and enabling its data center to dynamically respond to the needs of its business.


Watch how sys-con.com, home of O'Gara 007, merely rewrites that press release to make a bogus 'article'. Compare the words below to the ones above.

Novell Helps Sesame Workshop by Implementing Xen Virtualization

Novell announced that Sesame Workshop has selected Novell to streamline its hardware and software infrastructure. Using Novell ZENworks Asset Management, Sesame Workshop is now better able to comply with audit requests and properly manage its leasing contracts.


Very original, sys-con.com. We will soon show another example.

ZDNet's BTL has commented on this announcement and so did Matt Asay.

Novell on Tuesday announced that Sesame Workshop, the non-profit behind Sesame Street, is a reference customer using ZENworks Asset Management and Xen virtualization on Suse Linux Enterprise Server.


Fossa



Fossa was mentioned very briefly yesterday. Here is some more coverage of it.

Novell says ZenWorks key to Fossa Project success

Novell has positioned its ZenWorks systems and identity management product line as a central piece to its newly unveiled “Fossa Project” strategy, which aims to turn compute infrastructure into collaboration infrastructure.


Novell outlines Fossa plan

"Enterprise computing will change and we will be at the center of it," said Jeff Jaffe, Novell's CTO, said during the opening keynote of the company's annual Brainshare conference. He said the key word would be "agility," which he said would be defined in large part by policy and identity enablement within the Novell infrastructure software stack.


TechWorld has some more specific details.

The company said its new strategy, code-named Fossa, aims to allow companies to dynamically assign workloads to server resources within their datacentres. It will also include enhancements to Novell's virtualisation, Linux, orchestration, policy, identity, compliance, and collaboration tools.


CRN also alludes to this in an article about Novell's "adaptive infrastructure" (big fancy words that sound good to CIOs).

Jeff Jaffe, Novell's CTO and EVP of business units, outlined the company's technical vision at this week's BrainShare 2008 conference in Salt Lake City, codenamed The Fossa Project. Jaffe explained that a fossa is an agile, cat-like animal native to Madagascar with no known predators. Fossa, he mentioned, also serves well as an acronym for "Free and Open Source Software with Agility."


The third (and last) part is on its way. It requires more editing. Apologies for all the typos.

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