Fujitsu and Novell aim at dynamic cloud control

Novell and Fujitsu have announced a partnership to deliver dynamic server infrastructure management services via the cloud.

Fujitsu will run its Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) for Server platform, launched last year, on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell.

The platform will also use Novell's Intelligent Workload Management (IWM) technologies to offer hosted, pay-as-you-go, utility-like computing capabilities.

The companies said that the flexibility of IaaS for Server allows the use of IWM to deliver cost effective, mission-critical computing for physical, virtual, appliance and cloud deployments.

The pay-as-you-go offering is being made available via a secure connection to dedicated Fujitsu datacentres in continental Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India.

It is targeted at small-to-medium sized enterprises with little or no internal IT support, as well as large corporations looking to buy computing power in a more flexible way that allows for extra lower-cost capacity at peak times.

"By providing the interoperability and high-availability platform capabilities offered by SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell, our joint customers and partners will be able to purchase on-demand and managed datacentre services that cover the entire range of servers, memory systems and networks for the computing centre," said Rolf Kleinwächter, head of IaaS at Fujitsu Technology Solutions.

The vendors also said that the joint offering will yield further specialist solutions based on IWM and Fujitsu's Dynamic Infrastructure services.

"Management is arguably the most important factor in ensuring that users and customers receive good service quality whilst controlling operational costs," Tony Lock, programme director at Freeform Dynamics, told V3.co.uk.

"Both Fujitsu and Novell have some very good management tools, but it can be said that neither has as much visibility for these capabilities as they should. "

Lock pointed to recent research indicating that end users see major benefits in systems that reduce the stress of using multiple management tools.

"Management tool integration and simplification holds the potential for users to reduce service-impacting events, raise user experience and reduce operational costs," he said.