VERITAS and SUSE Linux Team to Accelerate Open Source Adoption in Enterprise Data Centers

October 27, 2003


VERITAS to deliver storage management and high availability software on SUSE; Key Linux partners IBM and MySQL applaud new partnership

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA and OAKLAND, CA

VERITAS Software Corporation (Nasdaq: VRTS), the leading storage software provider, and SUSE Linux today announced an engineering and marketing partnership for the development, certification, support and sale of VERITAS storage management and high availability software on the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server platform - helping to eliminate many of the barriers for Linux deployment in enterprise data centers.

VERITAS -- currently conducting a beta program for its SUSE Linux products with customers in finance, banking, healthcare, government and technical computing -- is planning to offer its core VERITAS File System, VERITAS Volume Manager and VERITAS Cluster Server software products on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server in Q1 of 2004. VERITAS Foundation Suite™ and VERITAS Cluster Server software have become the de-facto standard in mission-critical Fortune 500 enterprise environments. Making them available for SUSE Linux provides customers with the key building blocks to construct a highly available, scalable and performance-driven Linux infrastructure.

"IDC is seeing a transition in the Linux market where customers are increasingly looking to Linux as a solution for database and application deployment. The introduction of enterprise-oriented Linux distributions supports this shift," said Al Gillen, research director, system software at IDC. "With Linux as one of two operating systems expected to grow in new license shipments and installed base through 2007, VERITAS' support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server will enable SUSE Linux customers to create software configurations that increasingly approach Unix functionality."

Industry leaders IBM and MySQL have announced support of the VERITAS and SUSE Linux partnership -- citing key benefits for customers who want to leverage Linux solutions to help reduce operational IT costs and simplify the management of complex storage environments.

"IBM is a recognized industry leader offering Linux support across all of our product lines," said Carol Carson, Director, IBM eServer xSeries Linux. "We are pleased to see VERITAS' enthusiastic support for open source software, especially for these VERITAS products that are available for the first time on SUSE, as this will provide additional choices for customers who are moving their infrastructures to IBM eServer xSeries."

In addition to hardware suppliers, database providers also support the new SUSE-VERITAS partnership. "Open source software is increasingly being used to solve high performance computing needs, across all industries," said Marten Mickos, CEO, MySQL AB, developer of the world's most popular open source database. "Customers will benefit from increased choice for deploying MySQL applications with enterprise-level availability and performance on Linux with new open source solutions from MySQL partners, VERITAS and SUSE Linux."

"Our partnership with SUSE is in direct response to customer demand for a SUSE-VERITAS solution. They want SUSE's modular flexibility and stability coupled with the VERITAS-provided benefits of centralized storage management, increased availability and performance," said Mark Bregman, executive vice president, product operations, VERITAS Software. "Customers have made clear that they desire full, enterprise-class storage management solutions on Linux to help them face the pressures of lowering costs and meeting higher service levels."

"We believe that this collaboration will vastly accelerate open source adoption in the data center," said Uwe Heine, chief alliance officer, SUSE Linux. "VERITAS products offer the tools SUSE customers are looking for to help bring the security, cost savings and stability of Linux to their enterprise storage environment."

About VERITAS Software

With revenues of $1.5 billion in 2002, VERITAS Software ranks among the top 10 software companies in the world. VERITAS Software is the world's leading storage software company, providing data protection, storage management, high availability and disaster recovery software to 99 percent of the Fortune 500. VERITAS Software's corporate headquarters is located at 350 Ellis Street, Mountain View, CA, 94043, tel: 650-527-8000, fax: 650-527-8050, e-mail: vx-sales@veritas.com, Web site: www.veritas.com.

About Novell
Novell, Inc. is a leading provider of information solutions that deliver secure identity management (Novell® Nsure™), Web application development (Novell exteNd™) and cross-platform networking services (Novell Nterprise™), all supported by strategic consulting and professional services (Novell NgageSM). Active in the open source community with its Ximian and SUSE Linux brands, Novell is firmly committed to open source and offers comprehensive Linux products and services for the enterprise, from the desktop to the server. Novell's vision of one Net - a world without information boundaries - helps customers realize the value of their information securely and economically. For more information, call Novell's Customer Response Center at (888) 321-4CRC (4272) or visit http://www.novell.com. Press should visit http://www.novell.com/pressroom.

Novell is a registered trademarks; Nsure, exteNd and Nteprise are trademarks; and Ngage is a service mark of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. SUSE is a registered trademark of SUSE Linux AG. * All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.