Based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, OES provides communication, collaboration, and application services, and gives NetWare customers a migration path to Linux. Codename Cypress, version 2 was first announced at last year’s Novell BrainShare use conference and is scheduled for release later this year.
Speaking at this year’s BrainShare, the Waltham, Massachusetts-based company’s VP of workgroup solutions and identity and security management solutions, Kent Erickson, said the new version would enter beta testing soon and deliver a number of new technologies such as virtualization and dynamic storage.
As previously reported, OES 2 complete the migration of NetWare services to Linux and sees NetWare supported as a virtualized environment. OES 2 will be based on the forthcoming Service Pack 1 of SLES, which was also announced by Novell, having been delayed at the end of last year.
New functionality previewed by Erickson included Dynamic Storage Technology, an information lifecycle management software play that archives unused data to lower-cost storage devices in order to improve back-up time and storage costs.
Also new is Domain Services for Windows, a new server-side authentication offering that provides integration between Active Directory and Novell eDirectory, enabling Windows users to authenticate to Novell’s eDirectory without the need for a separate Novell client on the desktop.
Additionally, Novell also launched a new desktop offering called Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise thin client. About 50% of the customers that are coming to us and talking to us about the desktop are asking about thin clients, said Nat Friedman, the company’s chief technology officer for open source.
