Microsoft and Novell today announced the opening of the Microsoft and Novell Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Mass. Announced last fall as part of Microsoft and Novell’s collaboration agreement, the opening of the lab delivers on a promise the two companies made to work together to create a joint development facility at which Microsoft and Novell technical experts will design and test new software solutions and work with customers and the community to build and support technologies that allow Microsoft Windows Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise to work well together.

Located in Cambridge, the 2,500-square-foot lab and workspace will be home to a combined team of Microsoft and Novell engineers focused on making Windows Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise work better together. The first priority for the lab team will be to ensure interoperability between Microsoft and Novell virtualization technologies. Additional work will include standards-based systems management, identity federation and compatibility of office document formats.

The lab houses more than 80 servers of varying architectures as well as a storage area network.