Although it promises on-demand computing at a lower total cost of ownership, cloud computing can be highly disruptive for IT departments. Cloud computing fundamentally changes the way technology providers engage with business customers and individual users.

SUSE Studio takes a lot of the pain out of cloud computing. It virtually eliminates the inefficient manual processes for application deployment by streamlining the entire process of building applications for physical, virtual and cloud environments. It offers a simple, intuitive interface where you can build and test Linux configurations and applications, and share and download these applications as file images.

SUSE Studio encapsulates an application's dependencies in a pre-integrated, self-contained package allowing fast and flexible deployment. It assembles operating system, middleware and software applications for on-demand delivery to private and public cloud environments.

For added convenience, it offers several templates that can be used as a starting point, including SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS.

As a developer, you can configure and optimize the SUSE Linux Enterprise variant with just the code you need for a specific use case.

With SUSE Studio you can create software application images or appliances in several formats, making it easy to deploy them on physical hardware, in virtualized environments, or to cloud environments. You can build ISO files for making installable Live CDs or raw disk images that can be written directly to physical hard drives or removable media such as USB sticks. You can also generate virtual application images in the standard formats supported by VMware, Xen, KVM or OVF. With one click you can also deploy your cloud application directly to Amazon EC2.

SUSE Studio stores all build-related information as well as the configuration of your application images. At any time, you can reproduce your application image or appliance. Integrated version control and change logging enable the review or audit of changes before any application image or appliance moves into production. Integrated "test drive" functionality allows the testing of the application image or appliances before download. Once approved, the application image becomes the baseline to which further changes may be applied in future. This saves you hours of download time, and allows you to securely test your application image before you download and deploy it.

SUSE Studio is available in two editions:

• SUSE Studio Standard Edition
• SUSE Studio Advanced Edition
• SUSE Studio Advanced edition enhances the capability of SUSE Studio Standard Edition by providing a new and simple method to create, maintain and deploy System z images or workloads.

Benefits for IT departments:

• Extend new and existing applications to private and public cloud
• Automate the creation, deployment and maintenance of cloud applications
• Keep the flexibility to deploy an application to a public or private cloud based on your business demands
• Minimize your maintenance costs
• Deploy to Amazon EC2 with one click

Benefits for Software Vendors:

• Extend your existing applications to the cloud
• Provide cloud applications without the large capital outlays traditionally required to target a new platform
• Expand your reach and enter new markets
• Stay ahead of the competition and adapt quickly to cloud computing
• Provide your customers with an optimized and portable solution
• Avoid extensive re-architecting and configuration for cloud deployments
• Maintain flexible deployment options for different environments including private and public cloud