Citrix Systems, Inc. and Novell, Inc. today announced a collaboration that expands choice for customers through increased virtualization interoperability and new assessment tools to help pinpoint the economically most advantageous approach to virtualization. Through this new partnership, Novell has certified SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server as a “Perfect Guest” running on Citrix® XenServer® and both companies will provide joint technical support to customers. As a result of this agreement, the more than 4,500 enterprise applications certified as Novell Ready for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server are now Citrix Ready® community-verified when running in a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server guest virtual machine on XenServer.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is the only Linux operating system that has been optimized to be the perfect guest on all major hypervisors, with outstanding performance when running on XenServer. Now customers and cloud providers gain the added value of the free XenServer as an enterprise-class virtualization platform for Linux and Windows environments, providing them with an expanded set of technologies and processes to run and manage heterogeneous data centers.

In addition, Citrix will participate in the PlateSpin® Recon for Assessment Program, which enables Citrix Solution Advisors (CSA) channel partners and the Citrix internal services organization to begin offering customers virtualization, server consolidation and cloud readiness assessments using the Novell® toolset. PlateSpin Recon from Novell is a data center workload profiling, analysis and planning tool that combines consolidation planning with capacity management to give customers an ongoing view of their physical and virtual infrastructure. PlateSpin Recon takes the guesswork out of complex server consolidation and capacity planning initiatives and helps accelerate the move to virtualization.

“Our partnership with Citrix gives our many joint customers and partners a better way to manage their virtual infrastructures,” said Joe Wagner, senior vice president and general manager of Global Alliances, Novell. “We are providing a deeper and better integrated set of enterprise-class solutions that provide the tools to make intelligent decisions on data center virtualization, and the world-class infrastructure to run high-performance virtual environments.”

“Working with Novell to offer a best-of-breed, open approach to virtualization and management provides customers with not only the best technology, but also the greatest flexibility in running and managing virtual infrastructures, regardless of operating system,” said N. Louis Shipley, group VP and GM, XenServer Product Group, Citrix Systems. “Enabling the large SUSE Linux Enterprise customer base to be certified on XenServer significantly furthers our efforts to deliver XenServer as the best and most cost-effective virtualization platform for enterprise and cloud infrastructures.”

The collaboration between Citrix and Novell is strongly supported by leading technology vendors across the IT community, such as HP: “Customers require a seamless transition between virtual and physical environments to lower their risk of system downtime,” said Scott Farrand, vice president, Infrastructure Software and Blades, HP. “This new capability from Citrix and Novell, when combined with industry-standard HP ProLiant server platforms, will allow organizations to simplify virtualization management while extending the value of their hardware.”

Availability

The interoperability between SUSE Linux Enterprise and XenServer, which is YES Certified™ through the Virtualization Compatibility Program from Novell, is effective immediately. Access to the PlateSpin Recon Assessment Program by the Citrix CSA partners will be rolled out over the next two months. For more information about Novell’s participation in the Citrix Ready program, please visit: https://www.citrix.com/ready/partners/novell.