Novell releases SUSE Gallery for publishing, sharing Linux-based appliances

Novell today released SUSE Gallery, a new online showcase for registered SUSE Studio users to publish their appliances and cloud-based applications.

With SUSE Gallery, end-users can browse published appliances for the solution to their particular commercial or personal need, and then download the appliance free of charge.

With an appliance, the end-user avoids the typical installation and configuration headaches that come with many traditional software applications. For independent software vendors (ISVs) and other software developers, SUSE Gallery represents an opportunity to broaden the exposure of their application and reach an entirely new audience.

“A year after its debut, the SUSE Appliance Programme has helped ISVs simplify distribution and deployment of their applications, get to market faster and reduce support costs for themselves and their customers,” said Parag Patel, vice-president, global strategic alliances, VMware. “SUSE Gallery is another step forward in helping software vendors accelerate their customers' evolution to a virtualised data centre as they progress on the journey to cloud computing.”

SUSE Gallery is the latest addition to the SUSE Appliance Programme, which is celebrating its one-year anniversary today. The SUSE Appliance Programme is a comprehensive business and technology programme that helps ISVs simplify appliance creation, reduce development and support costs, and extend applications to the cloud. A key technology component of the SUSE Appliance Programme is SUSE Studio, the industry's most successful Web-based appliance creation tool with more than 82 000 registered users worldwide. The programme also includes the SUSE Appliance Toolkit, which enables ISVs and enterprises to build, manage and update appliances regardless of location.

“With software appliances, ISVs now have the opportunity to simplify the packaging of their solutions for multiple environments, allowing them to test, deploy and scale their offerings to their customers' specific needs,” said Brett Waldman, senior research analyst, software appliances and virtualisation at IDC. “In effect, software appliances present a significant market opportunity, making it possible to 'mass customise' application delivery and furnish a fully-integrated solution faster and more efficiently than before.”

SUSE Gallery offers a free, Web-based venue for ISVs and other users to publish and market their appliances. ISVs, corporate developers and enthusiasts can now share, promote, collaborate and freely exchange their appliances with others. Novell will not charge developers for putting their appliances in SUSE Gallery, nor will Novell charge end-users for downloading appliances. SUSE Gallery provides a friction-free venue for the exchange of ideas, innovation and best practices across all sectors of the software industry.

To celebrate the launch of SUSE Gallery, Novell is also announcing the First Annual “Dister Awards”, a SUSE Studio award contest that will run from 27 July to 30 September 2010. Novell is looking for inventive minds to build the most innovative software appliances in two categories: “Community Use” and “Commercial Use”. After Novell narrows the field to a list of finalists, a panel of industry-leading judges will then select and award each of the two winners a $10 000 grand prize. For more information, click here.

“The SUSE Appliance Programme has enabled us to simplify appliance creation, reduce development and support costs, and enter new markets,” said Paul A Scripko, vice-president, business development at ROC Software Systems, provider of enterprise output management and job scheduling solutions. “With SUSE Gallery, the process becomes even easier. Now we can build and market a fully-supported appliance all with one easy-to-use interface.”

Novell launched the SUSE Appliance Programme in 2009 as a key component of its strategy to lead the rapidly emerging intelligent workload management market. As enterprises develop their business and technical strategies to leverage virtualisation and cloud computing, software appliances will become the leading form factor to move applications across different environments. The SUSE Appliance Programme was conceived to enable both ISVs and enterprises to leverage appliances.

Software appliances - pre-configured combinations of an application, middleware and operating system, integrated into a single image and tailored to run on industry-standard platforms - offer new possibilities for efficient and cost-effective software application deployment. As a result, IDC forecasts the software appliance market to grow to $1.18 billion by 2012.(1)

During its first year, the SUSE Appliance Programme met a number of key milestones, including:

* Significant ISV and enterprise support: Since its July 2009 release, the Web-based appliance-building tool SUSE Studio has built more than 415 000 appliances and gained more than 82 000 registered users worldwide.
* Broad collaboration with VMware: VMware and Novell announced an expansion to their strategic partnership with an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement.
* IBM delivers Linux-based software appliances: Novell announced that IBM is delivering a portfolio of software appliances across IBM brands. Leveraging the SUSE Appliance Programme from Novell, this broad-based initiative enables IBM to deliver “plug and play” appliances that substantially lower the cost and complexity of deploying applications for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and helps ISVs significantly expand their routes to market.
* Product innovation: Novell announced the availability of the SUSE Appliance Toolkit, a suite of tools designed to make building, configuring, testing and updating appliances fast and easy.

“In the last 12 months, customer and partner interest in the SUSE Appliance Programme and uptake have far exceeded our expectations,” said Markus Rex, senior vice-president and general manager of open platform solutions at Novell. “The addition of SUSE Gallery further extends the solutions Novell already offers for the intelligent workload management market, and makes the SUSE Appliance Programme the only solution that takes an ISV from appliance development to appliance market in a few simple steps, making it even easier to address new market opportunities. Through our unique combination of technology, support and go-to-market capabilities, our ISV partners gain the assistance they need to increase their customer satisfaction and grow revenue faster than ever.”

Availability:

SUSE Gallery is available now at www.susegallery.com or in the browse feature of SUSE Studio Online. For more information on the SUSE Appliance Programme, visit http://www.novell.com/appliances.