The “key product” is GSX server – their “lower end” software that runs on a Windows or Linux server. The re-branded product is now sinply called VMWare Server, and is completely free.

My guess is that with competition from the open-source efforts like Xen and OpenVZ, they want to get you hooked on their products, in hope that you will eventually upgrade to their more advanced ESX Server. No matter if you pick an open-source or commercial product, the cost to virtualize your servers is now officially $0.00! (With VMWare server annual support starting at $300, it’s still a great deal!)

So far, parts one, two, three and four of the seven part series are online.

NX seems like very slick technology – coming very close to the promise of any application on any device anywhere at anytime.

As is becoming more commonplace, there is an open-source version, FreeNX, and the commercial version, nomachine’s NX server/client. The 1-2 CPU version of the unlimited client enterprise edition server is only ~$300 with educational pricing ($600 list), so it’s not exactly a budget breaker.

There is currently server support for Linux and Solaris, with client support including: Linux, Solaris, Windows, OS X, and PlayStation2.

It’s worth checking out – I’m brewing up a few ideas on how this could be implemented on my network.

To clarify what Novell means when it says it is “opening” SUSE, Mancusi-Ungaro says “SUSE Linux is already open from a code perspective. [It] has not been open from a development perspective. Development was closed, beta was closed, and there was little opportunity for users and external developers to help us shape the product. Now there will be, through the OpenSUSE project.”

The project has an interesting roadmap:
Phase One: (August 2005)

• Establish the openSUSE community
• Deliver the essential community infrastructure: website, downloadable builds, and source. Open Bugzilla, IRC, and channels.
• Accept patches for SUSE Linux 10.0 beta through bugzilla
• Open beta testing of SUSE Linux 10.0.

Phase Two: (targeted spring 2006)

• Simplify the patch submission process and establish a formal code checkout/checkin system
• Personalized developer accounts to allow easier participation in the openSUSE development process

Phase Three: (targeted summer 2006)

• Introduce a complete community infrastructure – with the publicly accessible build server, packagers can quickly create packages and incorporate them into test versions of the entire distribution.

At this week’s BrainShare conference, Novell made some nice announcements about GroupWise. Announced upcoming features are: enhanced client code for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and the Web, support for Microsoft Outlook, and new SOAP/XML interfaces to support integration.

They also will be kicking in a free copy of SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server starting with GroupWise “Sequoia”, so it looks like they will keep focusing on making GroupWise work on Linux in addition to the Netware stack.

Finally, the extension of the support window for GroupWise through 2015 makes those of us who continue to run GroupWise able to breathe a little easier, knowing we’re not sailing on an already sinking ship.

Under Linux you can use a command similar to:
cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=0,6,0 -data file_name.iso

You can get the BUS, ID, AND LUN (the three numbers you must specify in the dev portion in the above code) with the command:
cdrecord -scanbus

Under Windows, I use a powertoy called ISORecorder by Alex Feinman that ads .iso burning (and creation) to the right-click contextual menu. There are two different versions on the site – make sure you’re using the beta if you’re running XP SP2! A great tool – thanks Alex!