Once bitter rivals, Microsoft and Novell have become allies and now are recruiting new friends to join their open-source party and put some meat on the bones of a landmark interoperability deal. Dell is the first of what the two tech titans hope will be several computer makers to bless the partnership by agreeing to help server customers migrate to SUSE.

Microsoft and Novell inked their agreement to jointly build, market, and support new solutions to improve interoperability between their products six months ago in response to what they described as customer demand for greater interoperability and intellectual property assurance. Now, Dell is citing a similar reason for aligning with the companies.

Rick Becker, vice president of solutions at Dell Product Group, said Dell’ customers have told the company they want interoperability and expect technology vendors to work better together.

“This move is a huge success for the industry and, more specifically, for customers who haven’t purchased Linux through Dell and who want to migrate to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for the intellectual property assurance and interoperability benefits,” Becker said in a statement.

Dell’s Part of the Deal

Practically speaking, Dell’s part of the deal is to purchase SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates from Microsoft and establish a program to migrate existing Linux users who are not Dell Linux customers to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Dell will establish a customer marketing team that will focus on three areas: interoperability workshops, migration proof of concepts, and migration services.

Dana Gardner, a former Yankee Group analyst and principal at Interarbor Solutions, said this alliance could appeal to several classes of users within the enterprise: end users looking through the lens of a single-license approach, others who are concerned about indemnification, or still others who are tasked with migration challenges.

“This is geared toward companies that are dealing.

- Dell, Microsoft, and Novell Talk Linux

Blade servers have been gaining significant ground in the data center since their introduction about six years ago. As a result, data center managers are benefiting from the improved power, cooling efficiency and serviceability of the blade form factor. They are able to upgrade and repair their data centers by simply exchanging old or defective blades and other components.

Even with the improvements that the blade form factor offers, these systems are built into processes, procedures and lifecycles of the existing rackmount-centric data centers. The full modular potential of blades has yet to be realized.

Data centers and computer resources are typically upgraded in incremental cycles of three to five years or more. This approach causes disruptions in service, but budget constraints, depreciation and data center facility lifecycles make breaking the three-to-five-year rule difficult. All of these limitations are independent and conflict with the simplified upgrade capabilities of a blade architecture.

An alternative to this forklift approach is to develop a methodical way to continually upgrade through constant monitoring and replacement of the minor components of the data center. By creating an ecosystem of constant renewal, I.T. can successfully develop an “evergreen” data center.

One benefit of an evergreen data center is higher computing performance. Recent Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC) CPU benchmark results show system performance improving with such a data center by roughly 20 percent to 40 percent annually. If this trend continues over a five-year lifespan, available hardware shows a 150 percent to 400 percent performance improvement. Companies are thus paying a performance penalty for old gear they have not had the time or budget to replace.

For customers using I.T. as a competitive weapon, performance is a key differentiator. Better performance means customers can execute the trade, discover the drug or design the product faster. Being the fastest is quickly becoming.

- Redefining the Data Center Lifecycle

Tiny files called ?cookies? are the lifeblood of online advertising.

- Drilling Down: Computer Cookies and How They Crumble

TV Reviews: Television loves the inherent drama of trials but chafes against the complexities of the law, which is why the intriguing “Damages” — an FX drama starring Glenn Close — both warrants a second look and merits a note of caution.

- Damages