Microsoft and Novell Open Interoperability Lab

[Sunite]

Microsoft and Novell Open Interoperability Lab
By Mark Long
September 12, 2007 11:29AM

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The first priority for the engineers at the new Microsoft-Novell Interoperability Lab will be to find ways for enhancing interoperability between the respective virtualization technologies developed by the two companies. The goal is to make it easier for customers to run virtualized Linux on Windows or virtualized Windows on Linux.

Related Topics
   Novell
   Microsoft
   Virtualization
   Linux
   Windows
   Open Source
   Open XML
   Open Document

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   Microsoft Relevant Products/Services and Novell have unveiled their new Interoperability Lab, which is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Interoperability Lab was announced last autumn as part of a five-year collaborative agreement between the two companies.

The 2,500-square-foot workspace will serve as a test bed for resolving the interoperability issues that currently inhibit the capabilities of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Windows Server 2008 software when running in the same environment.

"We are eager to roll up our sleeves and continue the challenging technical work required to make Windows Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise interoperability a reality for our customers," said Microsoft's director of Linux interoperability Tom Hanrahan.

A Disciplined Effort

The new Interoperability Lab houses more than 80 servers of varying architectures as well as a storage area network. Microsoft and Novell said they will be including other technologies as the lab environment evolves over time. The goal is to create a heterogeneous environment that reflects the current interoperability challenges facing enterprise customers, the two companies said.

The joint development facility will enable in-house technical experts to design and test new software. The two companies said they expect, over the long-haul, to open the lab to customers and members of the Linux community that might need to build, test, and support their own technologies for resolving interoperability snafus.

"This kind of technical interoperability work requires disciplined effort and dedicated resources, and that's what this lab is built around," said Novell's Interoperability Lab manager Suzanne Forsberg. "Enterprise customers are demanding exactly the kinds of interoperable solutions that will be the focus of this lab's work and output."

Lab Priorities

The first priority for the lab's engineers will be to find ways for enhancing interoperability between the respective virtualization technologies developed by the two companies. The goal is to make it easier for customers to run virtualized Linux on Windows or virtualized Windows on Linux, allowing customers to choose the OS that best fits their specific application and business needs.

Another lab priority is to address unresolved issues surrounding the WS-Federation specification developed by Microsoft, Novell, BEA Systems, IBM, VeriSign, and other companies. WS-Federation establishes the mechanisms for enabling disparate security Relevant Products/Services systems to exchange information on identities, identity attributes, and authentication. In this case, the immediate goal will be to make Microsoft's Active Directory compatible with Novell's eDirectory.

Other areas of Lab focus are expected to include standards-based systems management as well as the compatibility of office document formats. Specifically, the lab experts will be looking to foster the development of new translators that can improve interoperability between Office documents based on the Open XML file format developed by Microsoft and rival OpenOffice files created through the use of the Open Document Format.