Timed to coincide with this year's linuxworld expo, Novell has announced SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.
Though Novell's SuSE division has marketed a commercial Linux distribution based on the v2.6 kernel, this is the first to be granted the more stringently qualified enterprise designation.
Besides kernel-level improvements and the usual collection of updated software packages, this release offers improved fail-over, clustering, and resource management. It comes bundled with Novell's ZENworks configuration management software for Linux.
The company claims that its AutoBuild system allows it to offer identical configurations for a variety of platforms, including x86 (both 32- and 64-bit), Itanium, IBM Power, and IBM mainframes.
Free evaluation downloads are available now and support subscriptions start at $US349 per dual-CPU server.