Novell today announced that SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Server 10 from Novell(R) with integrated Xen* virtualization technology is now available for SAP* NetWeaver* and mySAP* Business Suite. Jointly tested by Novell and
SAP, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Xen met or exceeded SAP's stringent performance requirements for SAP applications in a virtualized environment. Virtualization of the IT infrastructure for SAP deployments can result in enormous advantages for businesses, such as consolidation of workloads onto fewer servers for reduced capital and management costs. With this new validated solution, customers can confidently deploy their SAP applications in a virtualized environment using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, resulting in a more reliable, flexible and cost-effective platform for mission-critical computing.

"By integrating Xen into SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Novell has made virtualization 'real' for customers," said Roger Levy, vice president and general manager of Open Platform Solutions for Novell. "SAP is a key component of its customers' IT infrastructures, and SAP has very high standards for performance. By passing SAP's test for performance in a virtualized environment, Novell continues to demonstrate its commitment to deliver reliable and cost-effective data center products to run customers' mission-critical applications."

Xen 3.0 is the emerging open source standard for virtualization software. SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 is the first enterprise platform to include a fully integrated and supported version of the Xen hypervisor. With virtualization using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Xen, it's possible to consolidate and allocate workloads far more efficiently and increase server utilization levels to more than 70 percent. Testing was done by Novell and SAP engineers in the SAP LinuxLab on Intel*-based server hardware provided by IBM* to evaluate and demonstrate both stability and scalability when running SAP software on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server in a Xen paravirtualized data center environment.

Alexander Krauth, senior SAP NetWeaver consultant at REALTECH AG, said, "Xen gives our customers the ability to tackle the hot topic of virtualization of SAP systems while satisfying performance and stability requirements in a Linux system environment. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a comprehensive one- stop solution for our customers." 

For more information about SAP NetWeaver and mySAP Business Suite paravirtualized on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Xen, visit http://www.novell.com/sap. For more on SUSE Linux Enterprise offerings from Novell, visit http://www.novell.com/linux. Information about Novell's virtualization solutions, including customer implementations, can be found at http://www.novell.com/virtualization.