"Customers need to know that they'll be able to deploy their Linux-based applications without any disruption to their business," said David Patrick, vice president and general manager, Linux, Open Source Platforms and Services for Novell, as his company - together with JBoss, Oracle, and HP - announced the validation of a leading-edge mixed stack which, he says, "allows customers to save time and money in modeling and pilot testing, as well as gives them peace of mind that the solution will work as promised."

The powerful application stack - comprised of software from Novell, JBoss and Oracle and servers from HP - is the first offering under Novell's recently launched Validated Configuration Program, designed to reduce what Novell terms "the risks for customers deploying integrated, multi-application solution stacks on Linux."

"Customers today are more comfortable deploying integrated application and database software combinations with Linux," said Martin Fink, vice president and general manager of open source and Linux, HP. "HP has already seen considerable success with its own HP Linux Reference Architecture offerings. By collaborating with Novell on its Validated Configuration program, both companies will be better equipped to deliver fully tested, optimized solution stacks for Linux and open source."

"JBoss is committed to making Professional Open Source a safe and reliable choice for enterprise customers," said Bob Bickel, vice president of strategy and corporate development, JBoss, Inc. "The combination of open source and commercial products in this important validated stack from Novell reflects the reality of the market today: to drive enterprise adoption of open source, vendors must work together to provide a successful path to open source implementations."

Under the Novell Validated Configuration Program, Novell and its partners will integrate and test all stack components with one another to ensure enterprise-class performance, document best practices for deployment, and develop recommended configurations.

This validated configuration, says Novell. is the first in a series of validated configurations from Novell, HP and Oracle that will provides customers with flexibility to implement a mixed source stack within their current environments.

This mixed source validated configuration consists of:

• SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9
• JBoss Application Server 4.0
• HP BladeSystem servers
• Oracle Database and Oracle Real Application Clusters