According to research from the Cloud Security Alliance and Novell, managing and enforcing security in the cloud is a top concern among IT executives considering cloud-based solutions. Novell hopes that the combination of Novell Cloud Security Service on Windows Azure will reduce security concerns by leveraging seamless cross-platform authentication, single sign-on and audit for users.

"Microsoft is excited to have Novell participate in the Windows Azure Technology Adoption Program. The Windows Azure platform enables Novell to deliver cloud-based services that extend the value of on-premise software without the need to manage technology infrastructure," said Robert Duffner, Director of Product Management for Windows Azure, Microsoft Corp. "Integrating Novell Cloud Security Service into Windows Azure ensures an identity, security and compliance management framework is in place to give our customers peace of mind without sacrificing investments in existing applications."

With Novell Cloud Security Service, developers using Windows Azure will be able to extend any business identity and access management infrastructure to Windows Azure. Changes made to user access permissions within an organization's application infrastructure using Novell Cloud Security Service will be immediately replicated in the cloud. The result will help customers using Windows Azure to deliver a consistent identity and security framework to address compliance needs in heterogeneous cloud environments, while keeping critical identity data secure behind customers' firewalls.

As cloud models mature and businesses look at cloud solutions to reduce costs and increase agility, security questions such as protecting data in the cloud and ensuring regulatory compliance are becoming increasingly important. Part of Novell's WorkloadIQ vision, Novell Cloud Security Service offers a multi-tenant environment with built-in metering, and auditing so cloud services providers, like Windows Azure, can offer a secure, compliant computing environment to their customers.

Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale and manage services on the Internet through Microsoft data centers. "Running applications and storing data in the cloud can have clear benefits," said Josh Dorfman, director of Global Alliance Marketing at Novell. "Today's enterprises are embracing cloud services, but security is top of mind when it comes to the cloud. We are pleased to be working with Microsoft to offer an interoperable set of identity, security and compliance management products for Windows Azure. Our goal is to give service providers the ability to enable cloud computing while mitigating risk and maintaining compliance".

Internet-based cloud computing is here to stay. In summary, it describes a scalable delivery model for IT services based on the Internet. Photo: www.imagine-your-world.com

"As more and more users move their workloads to the cloud and as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings become more prevalent, the need for more sophisticated and automated cloud management tools will be required," says Novell in a statement. "Baracus is the only solution in the market today that addresses this current technology gap and provides the most complete systems management possible."

Baracus provides hardware inventory, booting, building, cloning, imaging, rescuing and decommissioning for servers. It supports systems that run on popular Linux distributions, including RHEL, Fedora, Ubuntu, SLES and openSUSE, Solaris, and Windows operating systems. Many virtualizations platforms including VMware, KVM, XEN, and z/VM are also supported.

"As hosting providers adopt the Cloud model of provisioning and managing software-based services they are realizing the need for a boot/build mechanism that scales to tens of thousands of hosts and/or virtual machines," said Dave Cohen, chief cloud architect at EMC. "Baracus is positioned to satisfy this customer requirement."

Baracus can help administrators to manage the complete life cycle of system builds. It offers robust and complete command line and web interfaces, and users can fetch ISOs and build network installs with one command.

The open source project Baracus enables system administrators to manage highly scalable computer cloud deployments. Photo: www.imagine-your-world.com

OpenSUSE 11.3 uses KDE 4.4.4 as the default desktop environment. However, users that prefer Gnome can choose to install Version 2.30.1 or a preview of the upcoming Gnome 3.0 during the initial setup. Owners of netbook computers can use the lightweight LXDE environment, which debuts in the latest release.

"The openSUSE distribution is a stable, easy to use and complete multi-purpose distribution," Novell says on the openSUSE Wiki. "It is aimed for users and developers working on desktop or server. It's great for beginners, experienced users and ultra geeks, short it's perfect for everybody! OpenSUSE is also the base for Novell's award-winning SUSE Linux Enterprise products. The latest release … features new and massively improved versions of all useful server and desktop applications. It comes with more than 1,000 open source applications."

A first is the inclusion of Oracle’s Btrfs filesystems. While not recommended for production environments yet, users need to configure a separate boot partition to give it a test run since grub does not recognize Btrfs at this time.

The new version includes the updated Build Service 2.0 provides software developers with a tool to compile, release and publish their software, and a full collection of popular open-source programs such as OpenOffice and Firefox. The YaST2 system administration tool combines all programs users may need in one easy-to-use set of menus.

After the release of openSUSE 11.3, the development community starts to focus on version 11.4 that is scheduled to be released in March 2011. The project aims to release a new version every eight months. Critical updates will be provided for two releases plus two months, which at the current release cycle results in a support lifetime of 18 months.

Novell technology contributed to the emergence of local area networks (LAN), which displaced the dominant mainframe computing model. Today, Novell's primary focus is on developing open source software for enterprise clients. A multi-platform network operating system called NetWare was one of Novell's first products. The software used Novell DOS, formerly known as DR-DOS, as a boot loader. Ethernet cards, which were expensive at the time, did help the company grow and develop additional products like GroupWise, BorderManager and Novell Multi-Protocol Router.

AT&T's Unix Systems Laboratories, which was acquired in June 1993, gave Novell the rights to the UNIX operating system. Novell did buy WordPerfect and Quattro Pro in 1994 in attempt to better compete with Microsoft. The company sold both products only two years later to Corel and DR-DOS to Caldera Systems. Eric Schmidt, today head of Google, laid the groundwork to move Novell towards the Internet in 1997.

In an attempt to stop sliding sales, Novell tried to focus more on services and hoped that the acquisition of Cambridge Technology Partners in July 2001 would help. Shortly thereafter, Novell started to move into Open Source and Enterprise Linux. Ximian was acquired in August 2003, and SuSE followed 3 months later. In November 2004, Novell released the Linux-based enterprise desktop Novell Linux Desktop, based on Ximian Desktop and SUSE Linux Professional 9.1. SUSE Enterprise Server, released in March 2005, was Novell’s attempt to move current NetWare customers to Linux. In August 2006, the SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 (SLE 10) series of products were released.

A joint patent agreement between Microsoft and Novell, aimed to cover their respective products, scared many Linux users and resulted in reviews, open letters, and protests. While Novell adapted the OpenXML/ODF Translator for use in OpenOffice as a result, many feel that the agreement has come at the expense of long-term value and goodwill within the open-source community.

Today, Novell continues to sell support for its SUSE Enterprise Linux products, while German based openSUSE functions as the testing ground and distributes current version 11.2 freely under the GNU license.  Product development, sales, and services form the pillars for Novell now.

If the reports are true and Novell finally accepts a buyout bid, the company may not continue in its current form. Several reports suggest a scenario where it could be broken apart. Nobody really knows what this means for the open source community. A recent note on its website suggested that the openSUSE office in Nuremberg, Germany used an open house to refocus on its future strategy.

"There are 20 million versions of Linux running around the world," so SCO chief executive Darl McBride in an interview with the Associated Press. "Linux at the end of the day is a knock off of our Unix." SCO said the ruling paves the way for resumption of the court case.

In 1995, SCO Group bought the Unix operating system from Novell for $149 million. But it was not clear which company owned the copyrights, and years of litigation ensued. SCO Group filed for bankruptcy two years ago after a Utah federal judge said SCO Group was not the owner despite the $149 million deal.

A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the judge erred in August 2007 by granting the copyright to Novell. The panel ordered a trial to determine ownership.