Novell Looks to Define Intelligent Workload Management

Novell plans to release eight new Intelligent Workload Management (IWM) solutions during the next 12 months as part of a strategy designed to position itself as a leader in the burgeoning IWM marketplace.

IWM solutions integrate identity and systems management capabilities into an application workload, turning it into a self-contained unit of work and increasing its security and portability across physical, virtual and cloud environments.

To help enterprises and independent software vendors build intelligent workloads, Novell is adding two applications to its existing SUSE appliance program. SUSE Appliance Toolkit will be a new suite of tools designed to improve the efficiency of deploying and maintaining Linux-based appliances in physical and virtual environments, including update, access and configuration management capabilities. Novell Workshop will help users build and edit intelligent workloads with embedded manageability, security and compliance for both Linux and Windows-based applications.

In the area of security, Novell will add two new solutions, as well. Novell Identity Manager 4 will be an update to the company’s flagship security application featuring real-time provisioning, reporting and roles management functionality. Novell Cloud Security Service will enable enterprises to impose their individual identity and security protocols on software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) vendors.

In the area of management, Novell will release three solutions that extend workload management capabilities to the cloud. PlateSpin Atlantic will be a self-service provisioning portal that allows automatic optimization of application deployment, and PlateSpin BlueStar will be a new physical server change and configuration management and monitoring system. ZenWorks Workbench will be a master repository and change/control system for workloads, from which they can be deployed on-demand to any environment.

To aid compliance, Novell will release Novell Compliance Automation, which will integrate existing compliance, business and event management and security applications to deliver identity-aware, real-time monitoring of events happening throughout the IT infrastructure.

Virtualization and cloud computing can greatly increase the scope and efficiency of enterprise operations, but they can also pose challenges in areas such as security, application deployment, and compliance monitoring. Especially as regulations regarding how data is handled and transmitted become stricter, enterprises will need to have centralized control and monitoring of their data and the applications which use that data. IWM solutions enable companies to build necessary security, deployment and compliance safeguards into workloads that travel across distributed and virtualized enterprises. As virtualization grows, so should the demand for IWM solutions, and Novell is making a smart attempt to take an early leading role in the IWM space.