SUSE LINUX S/390 Released

Nuremberg, Germany and Oakland, CA — 10/31/2000 — Today, SuSE Linux, the international technology leader and solutions provider in Open Source operating system software, announced the general availability of SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server for S/390. SuSE�s Linux distribution for the mainframe allows enterprise customers to scale Linux from PC clients to host systems.

"We are glad to be the only company today delivering a worldwide Linux distribution for IBM S/390 servers," said Roland Dyroff, CEO of SuSE Linux AG. "SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server for S/390 is the result of the unique partnership between SUSE and IBM. SUSE technological leadership and expertise in combination with IBM's strength and reliability make SUSE LINUX for S/390 systems the operating system of choice in the enterprise server environment."

With the general availability of SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server for S/390, SUSE supports more IBM server platforms than any other commercially available Linux distribution. "It�s great to have the SUSE LINUX for S/390 distribution generally available and ready for our customers to put into production", said Nancy Roath, IBM Vice President Enterprise Server Brand Marketing. "SuSE�s Linux for S/390 and our S/390 and zSeries servers together provide an industrial strength that�s ready to support mission critical server applications."

SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server for S/390 supports IBM�s G5 and G6 servers as well as the popular IBM Multiprise 3000. There are three methods for installation of SUSE LINUX. First, in a logical partition (LPAR). Secondly, as a guest under the operating system VM (Virtual Machine), and finally, within the Virtual Image Facility (VIF), which allows to implement several thousand independent Linux images on one machine.

"We used the same source code base and build process for SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server for S/390 as on our other platforms," explained Marcus Kraft, development manager for SUSE LINUX on S/390. "This quality attribute makes SUSE LINUX unique." With common APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) Software developers can create applications on a PC and migrate them easily to their preferred target platform. Administrators benefit from common setup and configuration. "It was a major effort to ensure we have a well tested, real Linux distribution, not just some code that runs on S/390," said Kraft.

SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server for S/390 includes more than 700 application packages specifically tailored for the enterprise environment. SUSE LINUX S/390 also includes a rich set of support and service options for any kind of enterprise needs, including installation planning, training, performance measurement and tuning.

Here you will find a review of the IBM eServer z900 (formerly S/390).

Further information on the product and how to place orders is available on http://s390.suse.de/en