IBM today announced the availability of its wide-ranging portfolio of middleware and systems platforms which will support Novell's new SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 offerings, as the new SUSE developments include the open source Xen virtualization software to help businesses increase server utilization and lower management costs.

"This combination of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 and Xen offers clients the most innovative open technology solution in the market today for running virtualized IT environments," said Scott Handy, vice president, Worldwide Linux and Open Source, IBM. "IBM is committed to Xen because we believe it is a powerful open source technology that will help accelerate a standard virtualization technology platform to enable high levels of simplicity across diverse platforms."

According to the agreement, IBM will support Xen technology as part of the Virtualization Engine portfolio on the company's Intel and Opteron processor based server and IBM BladeCenter systems. The company's representatives also added that it intends to support SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 from Novell across its entire IBM systems hardware line and IBM middleware portfolio and provide services support.

More precisely, Xen is an open source virtualization software that enables multiple operating systems to run concomitantly on the same physical server, permitting customers to consolidate their current workloads onto a single server.

"IBM was an early supporter of the Xen project," said Ian Pratt, Xen project leader, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, and founder of XenSource, the open source company leading Xen development. "Their contributions have spanned many parts of Xen to help us reach this latest milestone with Novell."

"These announcements are the latest initiative in IBM's continuing strategy to embrace virtualization across its entire product portfolio. By 2007, IDC expects the virtualization market to reach $18 billion. Already, IBM offers products and services to help virtualize and manage more than 80 percent of a heterogeneous IT environment," added IBM representatives.