Likewise Software announced support for IBM zSeries servers that are using either Red Hat or the Novell SUSE Linux platforms. Customers that rely on zSeries for their mission critical applications can now use Likewise Software products to directly join their systems to MicrosoftR Active Directory.

zSeries servers are used by IBM customers for business-critical installations where scheduled and unscheduled downtime costs are high.

zSeries machines can provide a lower total cost of ownership than other platforms for organizations where the risk is very high for system failures and service outages. Mainframes such as zSeries are often used in government, financial services, retail, and manufacturing industries.

"The world's top banks and retailers are relying on the security features in zSeries servers to ensure sensitive business transactions," said Barry Crist, CEO of Likewise Software. "Now these enterprises can improve their TCO by running RHEL and SUSE on zSeries and authenticate to Active Directory via Likewise. Literally everyone wins in these scenarios."

Likewise Software solutions join non-Windows systems such as zSeries servers running Linux platforms to Microsoft Active Directory. Once the Linux/UNIX/Mac machines have been joined to AD, a user who has been provisioned for UNIX, Linux or Mac access can now interactively login to the Linux/Unix/Mac machine with his or her Active Directory credentials. The user can also access any kerberized services that the Linux/UNIX/Mac machine hosts.

 "Linux is in the third phase of an evolution toward becoming a recognized data center operating system environment," according to Gartner.  "The first phase was its use in basic infrastructure and network edge; the second phase began more deployments in Web serving and applications; and the third phase is in secure, reliable, mission-critical applications and databases..  In 2008, 20% to 25% of user expenditures allocated to Linux will be for mission-critical applications."

For more information on Likewise Software or IBM contact Susan Majerus, susan@tyackmajerus.com