Continued Innovation and Value for Linux on System z – Multi-IFL subscriptions for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z

Novell has been busy these past few months celebrating our 10 year anniversary of Linux on System z at Novell Brainshare Salt Lake City, SHARE, WAVV, CEBIT and other industry events. We’ve been across the globe meeting with customers and business partners to discuss how Linux on System z can be used as an effective workload consolidation tool. We’re excited to announce that in conjunction with the 10th anniversary we have an important new pricing model for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z around Multi-IFL (Integrated Facility for Linux) subscriptions.

If you are new to the System z marketplace or you are scratching your head wondering what is an Integrated Facility for Linux you have come to the right blog! First, to understand the new pricing you need to understand the benefits of an IFL. IFLs are specialty processing engines for Linux on IBM System z. IFLs provide customers with economies of scale and price performance benefits.

Multi-IFLs means multiple or many IFLs. In short, this pricing model is a discount model for customers when purchasing multiple IFLs. The discount ranges from 15% to 46% depending on the term and quantities of the order. This new pricing model gives our customers and partners new opportunities to realize all the benefits that Linux on System z has to offer. The Multi-Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) pricing for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z was introduced last month and is available now as a new list price addition to the existing single-IFL subscription pricing. The multi-IFL subscription pricing provides customers with a better price ratio per IFL via volume sale. Thus it enables customers to better manage their total cost of acquisition and their total cost of ownership when consolidating workloads to Linux on IBM System z.

One of the core value propositions for Linux on System z is cost savings. Savings can manifest themselves as annual system maintenance, network connectivity, software support, skill consolidation, cooling/power savings or increased stability or uptime. The cost of running incremental workloads on the mainframe goes down as total workload grows; while the cost is near linear for distributed systems.

Novell recognizes the challenges customers are facing in enterprise data centers, including server sprawl, cost of cooling and space, and less-than-optimal virtual guest-to-host ratios. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z helps customers meet the demands of agile business to control costs, reduce facility expenses and consolidate workloads on a reliable, highly-available and secure computing platform. Hence, Novell believes this new multi-IFL subscription pricing will make it even easier and more price attractive to deploy workloads on Linux on System z.

For more information on multi-IFL pricing and the latest innovations Novell has for the mainframe, please visit: http://www.novell.com/mainframe or http://www.novell.com/partners/ibm/mainframe/multiifl.html