Novell Unfolds Roadmap For Next OES, Linux

The next version of Novell's Open Enterprise Server (OES) will further the convergence of NetWare and Linux significantly, the company said.

Novell managers aired details about the next-generation OES, due to ship within two years, and Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10, due to ship in the first quarter of 2006 at BrainShare last week in Salt Lake City.

The Novell Linux Desktop 10, code-named Cassidy, is also due in 2006 and will feature tight integration with OES and SLES 10, and a new open-source search engine, code-named Beagle, Novell executives also said.

Cypress is due to ship in 12 to 24 months, said Rick Fowler, OES product line manager at Novell. The first version of OES, code-named Sawtooth, shipped earlier this month.

Dennis Challe, CEO of Infinity Technology, a Novell Platinum Partner in Green Bay, Wis., said the convergence of NetWare and OES is an excellent migration path for NetWare VARs. "It's a logical progression," he said.The Cypress version will offer enhanced Linux clustering and storage, unified monitoring and management, better Windows-to-OES integration, unified workload consolidation and cross-protocol file support including support for NCP and Samba. It also will support global SSO security authentication. The upgrade likely will ship in 2007 and is aimed for SLES 10 or 11. No beta date is available.

The next SLES for enterprise customers, dubbed Code 10, will incorporate commercially supported Xen virtualization, consolidated software management, Common Information Model (CIM) systems management and API and flexible add-on capabilities to allow ISVs and service partners to hook in products and services.

In August, the SLES 10 upgrade will move into beta testing and Service Pack 2 for SLES 9 will be released. It will support multicore processors, SATA2 storage scalability, No Execute security features in processors and Linux desktop updates for wireless LAN support.

Code 10 also will integrate the SUSE YAST Online Update code and Novell's ZenWorks Linux Management platform into a single software update solution.

Further out, Novell plans to ship SLES 11, which will be complemented by Novell Linux Desktop 11, code-named Etta, in 2007.0