Novell today announced its development plans for the next generation of its enterprise Linux* platform, SUSE® Linux Enterprise 11. The best-engineered and most interoperable platform for mission-critical computing, SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 will be designed to form the heart of the modern IT organization, providing a foundation for mission-critical workloads across the enterprise by leveraging new technologies for server virtualization, consolidation and appliances, as well as innovative client computing breakthroughs. As a result, customers will be able to experience unique new levels of flexibility, efficiency and agility, regardless of whether they deploy SUSE Linux Enterprise directly on the hardware or as a virtual machine guest. SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 will be a key component in Novell's efforts to harmoniously integrate mixed-IT environments, allowing people and technology to work as one.

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Virtualization will be a key focus of this next release. Novell plans to include the latest version of the Xen hypervisor (currently scheduled to be version 3.3) in SUSE Linux Enterprise 11, featuring support for cross-platform virtualization and quality of service for dynamic resources. As a result, customers should be able to easily consolidate Linux, Windows and NetWare® servers, implement rapid provisioning, and improve high availability. Work is also underway to develop a stand-alone virtualization platform that can be embedded in new hardware or can be deployed on existing hardware. In addition, new virtual appliance building functionality, complemented by Novell ZENworks® and PlateSpin* automated management, should enable customers to quickly create virtual machines and manage their complete lifecycles across physical and virtual infrastructure more easily than they manage traditional servers today.