SUSE eyes wider horizons for enterprise open source
The Computer Weekly Developer Network and Open Source Insider team is digging into four days of open source goodness at SUSECON.
SUSE these days describes itself as a provider of enterprise-grade open source software-defined infrastructure and a set of application delivery tools.
As SUSE regional director for EMEA West region Matt Eckersall has already told Computer Weekly, SUSECON is not just dedicated to SUSE enterprise-class Linux, the event also opens its focus to OpenStack, Ceph storage, Kubernetes, openATTIC, Cloud Foundry plus a range of other open source (and some proprietary) projects.
Proprietary projects include SAP HANA — SUSE reminds us that its SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) was the first operating system for SAP HANA and the organisation insists that it remains a co-innovation partner for solutions such as SAP S/4HANA, SAP Cloud Platform, SAP Data Hub and other elements in the total SAP arsenal.
Day zero
As is the trend these days, SUSECON doesn’t start on day one, it starts on day zero.
SUSE CEO Nils Brauckmann spoke to press during the day zero kickoff at 9am on April Fools’ day… with what he promised to be fully open, honest and true statements.
“Those of you that don’t know us will be surprised at how open we really are,” said Brauckmann.
Brauckmann underlined the assertion that the company’s recent move to its independent privately owned status runs in line with the firm’s ambition to become the largest independent open source company.
He also noted that with an increased level of growth in software-defined infrastructures, there will be more focus on SUSE application delivery solutions in the coming weeks, months and years.
“We plan to remain committed to open open source. This is meant to not just describe how we develop and license our source code… it’s about how we work with partners and customers to create a culture of mixed innovation in mixed cross-platform multi-cloud environments,” said Brauckmann.
Brauckmann says that SUSE will now grow with a mix of organic and non-organic (i.e. acquisitions) style developments. The CEO pointed to enterprise tech growth areas the gravitate towards cloud and datacenter solutions along with the growing need for hybrid and multi-cloud solutions, application delivery, containerisation and microservices.
Overview of product news…
We will dig into SUSECON’s major product news elements individually, but as an overview of what platform developments were announced, the following summary provides an overview:
SUSE Cloud Application Platform 1.4 will be available this April 2019 — it is the first software distribution to introduce a Cloud Foundry application runtime in an entirely Kubernetes-native architecture.
SUSE is now a Kubernetes Certified Service Provider — a development that the company says will see it provide support and service to IT shops using SUSE Cloud Application Platform and SUSE CaaS Platform application delivery products.
In partner news, the company notes that, “SUSE announced the availability of the first enterprise Linux image for SAP HANA Large Instances on Microsoft Azure. The SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications image on Azure provides an improved customer experience by offering consistent build and management capabilities on Azure.”
SUSE’s latest enterprise-ready OpenStack Cloud platform will also be available in April as SUSE OpenStack Cloud 9. Based on OpenStack Rocky, SUSE OpenStack Cloud 9 is the first release to integrate the best of SUSE OpenStack Cloud and HPE OpenStack technology into one, single-branded release.
… and finally, the company unveiled support for 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors, formerly codenamed ‘Cascade Lake’, following on the heels of becoming the first enterprise Linux optimised for Intel Optane DC persistent memory with SAP HANA workloads earlier this year.