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Generate Revenue Through IT Using Business Service Management
Sponsored by HP
Making sure that your business applications are available to their end users is an important part of running your business smoothly. Business operations have evolved to where IT must now broaden its focus to help the company attract, retain and grow customer relationships and increase customer satisfaction. Business service management (BSM) helps lay the foundation by managing services in dynamic support of business requirements. »
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Managing the Modern Network
Sponsored by HP
Networks are more than vehicles to transport e-mail and Web pages. In a global economy where information crosses the globe in an instant, and where Web-based applications power business, it's more important than ever to ensure your network is safe from threats and optimized to deliver the data your business needs. »
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Storage Networking 2, Configuration and Planning
Sponsored by HP
In Part 1, we discussed storage area networks (SANs) and fibre channel. In Part 2, delve into best practices and cover the general concepts you must know before configuring SAN-attached storage. The most critical, sometimes tedious, part of setting up a SAN is configuring each individual disk array. This guide examines configurations for SAN-attached servers and disk arrays, and also includes a look at the future of IP storage.
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Is Your Disaster Recovery Plan Good Enough? Get Disaster Recovery Right
Sponsored by HP
Preparing for a disaster is more often than not part of the storage planning process, and without question it is one of the most difficult task, since it includes local hardware and software, networking equipment, and a test plan to ensure that you can recover from the disaster. Learn how to put your organization on the proper disaster recovery plan, now. »
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SUSE Linux 9.2: Let the Branding Begin!
Differentiating Novell and SUSE

Bill von Hagen
Thursday, December 16, 2004 02:58:41 PM
Ever since Novell acquired SUSE, the Linux community has been
wondering when and how SUSE Linux would change. Novell's release of
the Novell Linux Desktop (NLD) struck fear and confusion into many
long-time SUSE users and Novell watchers.
The big red 'N' and Novell
red are pervasive in NLD, but NLD is really orthogonal to Novell's
SUSE Linux 9.2. Unfortunately, Novell hasn't done a very good job of
explaining its Linux strategy except to say "we like it" and "Linux is
the foundation for our future."
With the release of SUSE 9.2 and various statements about the new
NetWare, things seem to become more clear. What we now know as SUSE
Linux will continue, though it will be increasingly branded as a
Novell product. You can see that in the installer splash screen that
accompanies SUSE 9.2 (see Figure 1), where SUSE is clearly "A Novell
Business."
While NLD is a descendant of SUSE Enterprise Linux and
targeted towards the business desktop market, what we have always
known as SUSE Linux should continue to thrive, perhaps with increasing
query-replacement of SUSE with Novell and an increasing focus on
English rather than German. For traditionalists, SUSE still provides
LIESMICH files as an alternative to the more common READMEs.
As an aside, I'm intrigued and excited by upcoming releases of
NetWare, which are reputed to live atop either a traditional NetWare
or shiny new Linux kernel. As a long-time NetWare fan and admin, this
is great news because NetWare and Linux integration has always been
somewhat of a black art. The Linux ncpfs tools are powerful but
obscure, accessing NetWare through Samba is somewhat cheesy, the
Novell Directory Services have never really penetrated the Linux
market (though eDirectory shows promise), and a quickly euthanized
integration product from Caldera (long ago) didn't help things
any. But I digress.
SUSE Linux has a long tradition of being the most frequently released
Linux distribution, and Novell is staying true to that heritage. SUSE
9.2 follows SUSE 9.1 by a few months, and many people haven't even
unpacked SUSE 9.0 yet. To thrive in a market where community
distributions such as Fedora and Gentoo are constantly being updated
and improved, commercial Linux distributions have to offer the same
level of constant improvement to their customers. Not only is it
critical to continue to push the latest versions of the 2.6 Linux
kernel, but hardware evolution such as the increasing penetration of
64-bit systems make "release early, release often" a good commercial
Linux mantra, as long as it's backed up by excellent product
support. Novell may have acquired SUSE, but SUSE acquired Novell's
top-notch product support group, staffed by people with impressive
technical and product knowledge. A pleasant time is guaranteed for
all...
Next: Installing SUSE 9.2 »