IBM ports SAP onto Netfinity with Linux

Somers 10 Aug 99 IBM t is cooperating with German software firm SAP AG to optimize a Linux version of the business application SAP R/3 for Netfinity servers. IBM also announced the opening of LinuxLab with SAP, a newdevelopment center in Germany. IBM and SAP are working together to optimize SAP R/3 for Netfinity servers through Linux Lab, an outgrowth of IBM's global International Competency Centers.

Each company has shared its expert knowledge of mission critical business applications to provide customers with high performance and ease of implementation for specific configurations of IBM Netfinity servers and options.

"IBM continues its commitment to provide customers with a range of solutions for running their Linux in their business environment," said Mike Riegel, IBM Netfinity Global Executive for e-business & Linux.

"Reliability, scalability, and high performance have been hallmarks of the Netfinity servers--now we are bringing these industry-standards working on several fronts to deliver these benefits to the Linux platform."

The announcement follows the recent launch of 90-day worldwide Server Startup service and support across 165 countries for customers running Linux on Netfinity servers. The news, made at LinuxWorld '99 (San Jose, CA), also covered:

-- General availability of the source code for the Netfinity ServeRAID driver, the software that provides enterprise-level storage solutions to the Linux operating system. Release of the source code for the driver is viewed as been announced as a significant contribution to the open software movement by the Free Software Foundation and Linux community.

-- The Netfinity 3500 M10 model, a low price, small business server that will offer new installation and configuration support with added power --two 600MHz ( Intel processors and up to 1GB of memory-- has been optimized for running all major versions of Linux including Caldera, Red Hat, SuSE and TurboLinux.

-- DB2 and WebSphere have been validated through the Netfinity ServerProven ( program for running on Linux.

Applications with the ServerProven designation have been pre-tested and pre-configured for Netfinity servers.

-- An e-commerce demonstration at LinuxWorld '99 presenting a WebSphere-based Web-storefront supported by the interoperability of a Netfinity and RS/6000 both running Linux.

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