Odd couple Microsoft and Novell are reaffirming vows to let their products play nice together with an announcement of full joint support of SUSE Linux run as a guest operating system on Window's virtualization hypervisor, Hyper-V.

The deal spins from Microsoft anointing Novell as its pet Linux distribution back in 2006, while the software giant was attempting to cool off other distros with (apparently idle) threats of IP infringement.

"For customers standardizing on Microsoft's hypervisor who also have a mixed-source IT environment, this virtualization solution give that choice," said Bob Kelly, veep of server marketing at Microsoft. "For channel partners who need a cross-platform hypervisor offering, our work with Novell gives them an easy starting point."

Speaking of channel partners, the companies said Dell is the only major systems vendor to be participating. It's presently testing and validating software on PowerEdge server blades and rack-mounted systems at the Microsoft/Novell love nest. Others signed on include Insight, Computer Integrated Services Company of New York, Continentel Resource, Total Tech Systems, and 21Vianet.

While running SUSE in a VM under Server 2008 may not be ideal for everybody, it's certainly a good thing to have someone definite to cry to when things go pear-shaped. ®

Related stories

• Red Hat and Microsoft ink virt interoperability deal (16 February 2009)
• ARSes crush Novell profits (4 December 2008)
• Microsoft and HP gun for Hyper-Victory with SMEs (17 November 2008)
• X64 server virtualization maturing already (17 October 2008)
• IBM blades and racks get all-you-can-eat VMs (1 October 2008)
• Microsoft slaps another $100m on Novell interop pile (20 August 2008)
• Microsoft slackens VM licensing rules (19 August 2008)
• Hyper-V climbs into Windows (26 June 2008)
• Novell strips SLES down to its undies (23 April 2008)