NFSv4 for Linux Released, Available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Distributions

October 25 2006

The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), the global consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux(R) and open source software, today announced that the Network File System v4 (NFSv4) for Linux is available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux from Red Hat and SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell. This milestone reflects the maturity of NFSv4 for Linux in the enterprise and coincides with Network Appliance's latest donation of $100,000 to the NFSv4 testing community.

"NFS testing has been a key priority for OSDL and the Linux development community, and we have passed a significant milestone for it to be ready for enterprise validation," said Stuart Cohen, CEO of OSDL. "Large and small enterprises can contribute to the product's overall stability and performance by validating it in their environments and providing feedback and patches, which gives them an opportunity to improve the product for their specific environments and to fully participate in the community."

NFS is a mechanism for sharing files across a broad range of platforms. Enterprises have relied on NFS to support mission-critical applications for several decades; however, in recent years, other shared file systems have been developed to provide features that earlier versions of NFS lacked. To close the gap and address real Linux user needs, NFSv4 client and server code was developed for Linux in 2005. Over the past two years, OSDL has assisted in the establishment of a testing community for NFS that now includes the enterprise. For more information, or to provide general testing feedback, please visit http://linux-nfs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nfsv4 .

"We first enabled NFSv4 in Fedora Core 2 and have been working with the Linux community ever since to provide a forum for innovation that benefits developers and end users alike," said Ken Reilly, senior director of operating system development, Red Hat. "Red Hat truly appreciates OSDL's contributions to testing to make NFSv4 an enterprise-ready technology. With NFSv4 in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we will continue to provide our customers with the most robust platform possible."

"Novell shipped NFSv4 as part of our SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 platform in July 2006," said Carlos Montero-Luque, vice president of product management for Linux and Open Platform Solutions at Novell. "A cornerstone of the SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 platform is its interoperability. NFSv4 enables SUSE Linux Enterprise to easily and quickly integrate into a customer's heterogeneous IT environment. We appreciate the hard work that the OSDL and the entire open source community put into NFSv4 to make it ready for the enterprise."

Network Appliance has made a number of contributions to the NFSv4 testing community via multiple cash donations ranging from $25,000 to $60,000. The company recently donated $100,000 to the NFSv4 project. "Due to the diligent work of the NFSv4 testing community, NFSv4 has been stressed and tested on Linux under a number of conditions and we're happy to support its growing maturity for the enterprise," said Trond Myklebust, Linux NFS file maintainer, Network Appliance.

NFSv4 is a protocol defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Several community members and organizations are involved in the development and testing of NFSv4 on Linux. OSDL has developed testing procedures and tools for NFSv4 and provides test data as a service to the community on an ongoing basis. The latest results of the NFSv4 Linux testing community were presented at the Ottawa Linux Symposium (OLS) by representatives from information technology company Bull, Bryce Harrington of OSDL, Bruce Fields of the University of Michigan and Olaf Kirch of Novell: http://developer.osdl.org/dev/nfsv4/site/index.php and http://crucible.osdl.org/ .

About Open Source Development Labs (OSDL)

OSDL -- sponsor of Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel and other key Linux developers -- is dedicated to accelerating the growth and adoption of Linux-based operating systems in the enterprise. Founded in 2000 and supported by a global consortium of major Linux customers and IT industry leaders, OSDL is a nonprofit organization that provides state-of-the-art computing and test facilities available to developers around the world. With offices in China, Japan and the United States, OSDL sponsors legal and development projects to advance open source software as well as initiatives for Linux systems in telecommunications, in the data center and on enterprise desktops. Visit OSDL on the Web at http://www.osdl.org .

NOTE: OSDL is a trademark of Open Source Development Labs, Inc. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Third party marks and brands are the property of their respective holders.

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