Is Novell changing the game with Virtualization Security?

In an intriguing Network World Article today, “Novell grabs for big role in virtualization security”, Ellen Messmer previews Novell's plans to capture a big piece of the Virtualization “hype” by building on their established leadership in Identity Management, Linux, and Network Management.


But can they pull it off? I doubt it and here is why:


Identity and Access Management

• As arguably the inventor of modern Application User Provision with DirXML, a key tenant of Novell's strategy is leveraging their IAM leadership and hardwiring the technology into the VM Management and virtual appliance deployment.
• Having been closely involved in the early adoption of IAM technologies like SiteMinder at Netegrity and Entitlements at BEA, and User Provisioning at Oracle it is very clear that IAM technologies are highly sticky.
• Even when customers want to migrate solutions it is often too expensive, painful, or risky to do so. Therefore convincing non-Novell customers to move to their IAM suite will be challenging.

Building Virtual Appliances

• The initial product targeted for release is called “Workshop” to build/deploy workloads for Linux or Windows environments.
• However there has been an industry building these “micro kernels” for several years now, including much more comprehensive solutions for patch updates, live monitoring, etc. from players like rPath
  
• Even within the realm of SUSE Linux there is an existing solution “SUSE Studio”, called a quick/easy appliance builder
  

Change Management

• Novell's strategy also includes solutions PlateSpin "Bluestar" for to address requirements for physical server change and configuration management across platforms with monitoring
• However between CA, HP, and even BMC, there are well established solutions with large footprints and existing innovation on Virtualization

Market Share:

• While Zen VM has broad appeal and adoption, VMware continues to enjoy significant marketshare, tight relationships with Intel & Cisco.
• Additionally Microsoft and Oracle's position's within the Enterprise give them technical and sales advantages in addressing this market against Novell

I have great respect for Novell and their role as an innovator across the industry and across decades can not be over stated, however they have substantial barriers here.