SLES is the flagship Linux distribution from SUSE. Version 12 was released last year and many of the major new features have been discussed previously in Open Horizons Magazine. SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 offers increased data centre uptime, greater operational efficiency and accelerated innovation, so that you can be more responsive to business needs and support revenue growth. It delivers enterprise-quality resiliency, security and manageability, in physical, virtual and cloud environments, and reduces your risk of vendor lock-in and technology obsolescence.
Now Service Pack 1 is due for release and a number of new and improved modules are being made available.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP1 consolidates the functionality SUSE has introduced with SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 GA (general availability) and adds new functionality required by our customers and partners, specifically in the areas of hardware support; containers and Docker; increased availability; and ease of use, as, for example, provided by the ability to roll back on service pack migrations. New modules include:
Certifications Module
The Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) Publication 140-2, (FIPS 140-2) is a U.S. government computer security standard used to accredit cryptographic modules. With this certification, customers will have more confidence to handle sensitive information on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12. In the context of the FIPS 140-2 certification, the status of specific packages needs to be unchanged or frozen. The Certifications Module provides those package versions separated from the packages in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server which get regular maintenance updates.
Containers Module
There has been much activity around containerisation and specifically Docker, which can be thought of as a next-generation application delivery system. Docker is an open platform for distributed applications that allows developers and IT administrators to build, ship and run applications anywhere, and of course is supported in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 for production environments.
Consisting of Docker Engine, a portable, lightweight runtime and packaging tool, and Docker Hub, a cloud service for sharing applications and automating workflows, Docker enables applications to be quickly assembled from components and deployed into a production environment. In SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12, Docker is fully supported to improve operational efficiency in a customer’s enterprise environment.
This module contains several packages revolving around containers and related tools, including Docker and pre-packaged images for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.
New functions included in the latest release of the Docker in Containers module in SLES 12 are:
- Full support for on premise registry and UI (Portus)
- Analysis and reporting of update status of images and containers
- Simple patch&update of images
- Integration with SUSE OpenStack Cloud
- Support for System z and Power (POWER LE)
- Continuous build of custom images (OBS)
- Documentation and guidance for securing containers
High Availability Extension 12 SP1
SUSE has been driving the modernisation of open source high availability towards Pacemaker with improved usability and security. In 2011, the Linux Foundation High Availability (HA) Working Group accepted Pacemaker, thus standardising Linux HA.
Today, SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 12 provides mature and industry-leading open source high availability clustering technologies that are easy to set up and use. It can be deployed in physical and virtual environments, providing maximum service availability for your mission-critical workloads. New features and functionality in SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 12 SP1 include:
- Easier monitoring
The High Availability Web Konsole (Hawk) is a web-based GUI for managing and monitoring Pacemaker HA clusters. SP1 includes technical preview of the next generation of HAWK. The GUI updates make it more intuitive and easy to use for new customers of HA. In addition, it brings a consistent look and feel across many SUSE products.
- New setup wizards and templates
The SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension provides setup wizards to simplify the deployments for certain workloads. New templates and wizards are provided for:
- Standard storage stack with MD-RAID, LVM, Ext3/XFS/btrfs
- Maria DB
- Oracle
- DB2
- DB2 HADR
- Web service with a shared disk config
There are new features and functionality in Geo-Clustering for SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension12 SP1 including:
- Take advantage of external networks
In earlier versions, you had to set up geo-clustering nodes and an arbitrator node in private networks, limiting the ease of use. With the new authentications function in SP1, you can now easily set up and monitor nodes and the arbitrator in clouds such as AWS.
- Higher security level
Geo-clustering for SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 12 SP1 raises the security level by authentication. As a result, there are multiple administrators and locations now allowed to connect to the geo-cluster.
JeOS v2 (Just enough Operating System)
In private clouds and virtualised datacentres today, fast deployment is critical to achieve operational efficiency. How can you quickly fire up an image in your virtual data centre or private cloud without worrying about the certifications? Facing hundreds of virtual machine images, how do you make sure they are standardised in configuration so as to be efficient?
The answer is JeOS. Everything you need for virtual application images or appliances and nothing more. You can create a customised, lightweight configuration of SUSE Linux Enterprise that is easy to deploy and maintain; consumes fewer resources, and improves security. SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS is a slimmed down configuration of SUSE Linux Enterprise that provides only the functionality that you need.
You can tailor your systems for your data centre, or create virtual application images or appliances for simplicity and speed. Whatever your goal, SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS helps you get there without any excess baggage. You decide which packages and elements to include based on what you need—whether you are building a virtual appliance or imaging a new server.
SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS is a customisable configuration of SUSE Linux Enterprise designed as a bare minimum bootable image formatted for:
- VMware
- Xen
- KVM
- 64 bit x86
You can use this JeOS to boot, configure basic utilities, and connect to SUSE to download additional SUSE Linux Enterprise packages. This means you get to decide which packages and elements you include based on what you need—whether you are building a virtual appliance or imaging a new server.
SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS helps you meet your customer’s needs and deliver an OS that reduces support costs and enhances the user experience. “Just enough” is better than “more than enough” when you care about reducing support costs, improving security, and enhancing the end user experience for your customers. With SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS, you can trim the size of the OS to only those packages that are critical to your needs. This reduces support costs by lowering the number of packages and patches that have to be managed and applied.
Further, the number of potential vulnerabilities is substantially reduced as you remove unnecessary packages. This improves the security of the operating system and overall solution. The reduced footprint consumes fewer system resources, improving performance for the end customer. SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS delivers all of this and more, allowing you to focus your time where it matters most: your products.
With SUSE Linux Enterprise Server JeOS, you can get the most out of your SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscription to fit your needs. If you are certified on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server today, you do not need to re-certify for JeOS. JeOS is based on the same code base as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. For no extra effort, you get the same enterprise-grade, mission-critical performance, stability and services.
Finally JeOs serves as a silver image KIWI template. KIWI is a system for creating operating system images and is included in the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 subscription, KIWI simplifies the process of producing the gold image. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server JeOS is also delivered as a KIWI template that makes large scale configuration management easy.
This article was forst published in OH Magazine Issue 31, 4/2015, p17-18. Please SUBSCRIBE if you wish to see the full article.