IBM and Novell announced a new single subscription option for the IBM BladeCenter chassis that will provide customers with increased flexibility and
choice, making it easy to buy and administer subscriptions to Novell’s
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server based on their individual needs. This
single subscription will cover all blades within the BladeCenter
chassis, regardless of CPU type or quantity, and aims to help lower the
cost and complexity of procuring and licensing Linux for blade server
environments.
This new chassis subscription model will help customers maintain
control over the cost of computing by potentially reducing subscription
administration requirements and the need for separate subscriptions on
each blade server. By creating a simple-to-administer and flexible
environment, users will be able to configure, re-provision and expand on
demand within an IBM BladeCenter chassis with up to 14 blade servers
without having to purchase additional subscriptions to SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server. Customers can mix-and-match any number of blade
servers with Intel, AMD and Power-based CPUs in a single chassis
with this single subscription. This subscription model will help
customers quickly and efficiently implement scalable, multi-tier and
heterogeneous Linux workloads.
“As a key business partner of both IBM and Novell, rs-unix is very
pleased to see the leaders in Linux offer customers an easy and
cost-effective way to subscribe to Linux on the IBM BladeCenter
platform,” said Jeff Medeiros, CEO of rs-unix. “Our primary goal is to
provide solutions to solve our customers’ business problems, and this
combination will allow us to more easily achieve that goal.”
Recent second quarter 2005 market share results show that IBM
BladeCenter has been the leading blade server in the industry for eight
successive quarters. IBM was also number one in overall Linux-based
server revenue worldwide in the second quarter of 2005. Unlike
competitive offerings which bundle multiple traditional server
subscriptions and tie them to chassis orders, IBM’s BladeCenter chassis
subscription is a complete chassis subscription and will help further
reduce the cost and complexity of implementing Linux-based solutions and
workloads. Depending on the blade configuration, customers could see
reductions in their subscription costs of up to $17,000.
“From the inception of IBM’s BladeCenter offering, IBM has worked with
industry partners to deliver the industry’s most open, flexible blade
server platform to meet the dynamic business needs of our customers,”
said Doug Balog, vice president and business line executive, IBM
BladeCenter. “With this new BladeCenter chassis subscription, we are
enabling customers to simply and flexibly manage their IT infrastructure
at potentially reduced overall cost.”
“Our work with IBM aligns with the current industry trend to simplify
data centers and overall infrastructure management,” said Ron Hovsepian,
Novell executive vice president and president, global field operations.
“Unlike competitive offerings which simply bundle existing server
subscriptions, the new Novell and IBM subscription model offers
advantages for heterogeneous environments and virtualization needs,
allowing customers to customize their data centers while potentially
lowering the system’s total cost of ownership.”
IBM and Novell are also working together on the formation of Blade.org,
a planned collaborative organization aimed at spurring solution
development and innovation around IBM BladeCenter. Novell’s SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server is the first Linux to support all IBM hardware
platforms, including the first on IBM POWER and IBM zSeries.
Pricing and Availability
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 for IBM BladeCenter chassis offerings
provide customers with the ability to purchase a single SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server 9 offering and deploy SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9
on any IBM BladeCenter server configured within a BladeCenter chassis,
including Intel x86-based, EM64T-based, AMD64-based, or POWER-based IBM
BladeCenter servers, whether 2 or 4-socket servers. This new pricing
model starts at $2,792 per annual Novell upgrade protection subscription
and will be available in October 2005.
