Novell has customized a version of its Suse Linux Enterprise Server software for heavy users of SAP software, the company announced Tuesday.
For SAP shops, deploying this version of the Suse Linux, called SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, could cut time and work needed for installation and upgrades, the company claims.
Novell worked with SAP to iron out all the potential tricky parts in deploying SAP applications on servers running Suse Linux. The package can easily deploy a wide range of SAP applications, including SAP Business Suite software, SAP Business All-in-One solutions, the SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Search, SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Accelerator and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer.
The distribution is based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 with SP1 (Service Pack 1). It features a framework designed to ease installation of SAP applications by using a workflow that knows which applications to install first. The package also has the prerequisite libraries and other tools that are needed for these programs to run.
The company claims that by using these tools, installations can be automated and completed in a matter of hours, instead of days as is the norm.
The distribution also offers a number of other features to extend the use of SAP software in different environments. It includes a copy of the SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension, which allows administrators to set up off-site backups of the applications that can be quickly pressed into production should the main servers go offline for some reason. It has also been tweaked to support large databases that can run entirely within the working memory of one server, or a cluster of servers.
On the hardware side, both Fujitsu and IBM have pledged to support this package on their own servers.