Novell has unveiled a package of tools for the development of software appliances, which rolls the application, application server, OS and database into a single virtual machine image.
The new product, Novell Suse Appliance Toolkit, is aimed at independent software vendors, but can also be used by IT departments. It enables deployment of appliances configured across physical, virtual and cloud environments.
"A software appliance is a new way to package enterprise application software," says Matt Richards, director of emerging technology marketing at Novell.
"Users buy one thing, called a software appliance," Richards says. An appliance is downloaded from a website, copied to a server and booted.