Novell and SAP have taken one step closer to each other by announcing a cooperative agreement to serve customers running SAP applications on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Developed, tested and validated by both companies, the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications operating platform is intended to try and help SAP customers reduce the complexity of their application deployments.

Focused on both physical and virtual deployments of SAP solutions, as well as SAP's emerging in-memory platform, the company says that through this solution it hopes to provide evidence of its commitment to deliver support for open source solutions.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications comes six months after the companies' previous joint announcement made at March's BrainShare conference, which was focused on enabling customers to manage mission-critical operations on Linux. This week's news supports SAP's recommendation of SUSE Linux Enterprise for use with SAP Business Suite applications and the SAP Business All-in-One offering for small businesses and midsize companies.

"SUSE Linux Enterprise Server has long been recommended by SAP as a preferred platform for customers who are looking to lower the costs and complexity of application deployments," said George Mathew, group vice president and general manager, Business Intelligence and In-memory Analytics, SAP. "Our close collaboration with Novell has resulted in a unique offering which now provides customers with immediate access to an integrated, one-stop resource for support of their deployment of the Linux operating system and SAP applications."