Novell announced it is collaborating with VMware to improve Linux performance in VMware environments by incorporating support for the VMware Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) into the SUSE^® Linux Enterprise kernel. Demonstrating their commitment to provide open interoperability and optimization for virtualized environments, the companies have worked together to optimize SUSE Linux Enterprise for the VMware platform.

As part of this collaboration, Novell has modified the SUSE Linux Enterprise kernel to support the VMware Virtual Machine Interface (VMI), a communication mechanism between the guest operating system and hypervisor that simplifies the task of virtualization. Adding VMI patches to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server improves its efficiency as a virtualized operating system when running on VMI-compliant infrastructure and offers better interoperability by allowing the same kernel to run on physical machines. This simplifies virtualization and makes SUSE Linux Enterprise Server a more efficient guest operating system when running on VMI-compliant hypervisors.