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WALTHAM, Mass., June 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Novell(R) announced today it is collaborating with VMware to improve Linux performance in VMware environments by incorporating support for the VMware Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) into the SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise kernel. Demonstrating their commitment to provide open interoperability and optimization for virtualized environments, the companies have worked together to optimize SUSE Linux Enterprise for the VMware platform.

"Customers are looking to interchangeably deploy their server operating systems and their related workloads on both physical and virtual servers," said Al Gillen, research vice president, System Software at IDC. "The goal of any hypervisor is to deliver the flexibility of virtualization accompanied by the performance delivered by a physical deployment. This joint effort directly addresses those requirements for SUSE Linux Enterprise customers."

Announced at VMworld in September 2007, the enhancements have been in development for the past nine months, and the code was released as part of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP2 in May 2008.

Improved Performance

As part of this collaboration, Novell has modified the SUSE Linux Enterprise kernel to support the VMware Virtual Machine Interface (VMI), a communication mechanism between the guest operating system and hypervisor that simplifies the task of virtualization. Adding VMI patches to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server improves its efficiency as a virtualized operating system when running on VMI-compliant infrastructure and offers better interoperability by allowing the same kernel to run on physical machines. This simplifies virtualization and makes SUSE Linux Enterprise Server a more efficient guest operating system when running on VMI-compliant hypervisors.

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