VMware is going to OEM SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and sell and support the thing. It’s also going to standardize its virtual appliances on the Novell operating system.

Since VMware doesn’t have a proper operating system of its own like Microsoft does and since Novell is on the block and could be sold off in pieces, one wonders if this new alliance portends anything. Red Hat of course while the Linux leader has its own virtualization ambitions; VMware is the leader in virtualization and would like to keep it that way.

VMware senior VP of virtualization and cloud platforms Raghu Raghuram seems to have visions of delivering SLES with every VMware vSphere subscription but users who want to deploy the now-styled SLES for VMware in vSphere virtual machines will get a subscription to the stuff along with patches and updates as part of their vSphere license and support subscription. The deal extends to resellers, with the technical support coming from VMware.

The arrangement is supposed to reduce the cost and complexity of deploying and maintaining an enterprise operating system with VMware solutions.

In making the announcement the companies said they intend to provide customers with the ability to port their SUSE-based workloads across clouds.

Several VMware products are already distributed and deployed as virtual appliances on a mish-mash of Linux distributions. VMware said standardizing on SLES will simplify their deployment and ongoing management, shortening the path to ROI.