SUSE ships Studio 1.2

SUSE has launched version 1.2 of SUSE Studio , the web based application for building and testing virtual appliances. The new version comes in two editions: SUSE Studio Standard for ISVs and SUSE Studio Advanced for enterprises. The latter version adds support for IBM System Z workloads. Both versions offer the ability to create virtual machine images in VMWare, Xen, KVM or OVF formats and deploy them. The Studio application stores all the build-related information for the created VMs; integrated version control and change logging allows the VM creator to audit changes. Once created, the images can be turned into ISO files for live CD images or raw files on hard disks or USB sticks. The generated appliances can also be deployed into Amazon EC2.

The company is aiming SUSE studio at ISVs who wish to convert their applications into ready to run virtual appliances. It is available as part of SUSE's PartnerNet and SUSE Appliance Program at no charge for ISVs who want to distribute applications pre-configured with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. The SUSE Studio Advanced edition is aimed at IBM System Z users who have images or workloads they wish to manage more effectively. Pricing for the SUSE Studio products is available on request from SUSE.

SUSE, now an independent division of AttachMate, is slowly extracting its web presence from that of Novell; the launch of SUSE Studio coincides with suse.com going live, although not all the pages are under the suse.com domain yet and users may find themselves redirected to the old Novell site.

(djwm)