Novell to offer software mix-and-match
Anything you like as long as it's Novell.
By John Fontana, Network World (US) | Published: 13:37, 18 March 2008
Novell has laid out a technical strategy to let users mix and match physical and virtual machines, along with management tools, identity services, collaboration software, and open source operating systems.
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.
"Enterprise computing will change and we will be at the centre of it," said Jeff Jaffe, Novell's CTO, during the opening keynote of the company's annual Brainshare conference. He said the key was "agility."
A fossa is the largest carnivore on the African island of Madagascar, known exactly for that. But Jaffe drew a laugh from his audience when he said Fossa stood for "free and open source software plus agility."
For Novell, Fossa is a way to rationalise how all its infrastructure tools, from Linux to ZENworks, fit together into what can be thought of as a single architecture.
The development of flexible, adaptable infrastructure isn't revolutionary as vendors such as HP, IBM and Microsoft have been working toward that goal for several years.
"The question is what is fundamentally different from what Novell wants to do with Fossa over what they are doing today," said Mark Levitt, an analyst with IDC. "This feels more like an internal review of their vision and roadmap and I don't think Fossa will be a dramatic change but a validation of the direction they have been going."
However, an IT manager from a large health care company (who asked to remain anonymous) said of Fossa, "this is the kind of stuff we want to be using."
