I’m pleased to share that G2, the world’s largest and most trusted tech marketplace, has recognized our solutions in its 2023 Winter Report. We received a total of 15 badges across our business units for Rancher, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), SLE Desktop and SLE Real Time – including the Users Love Us badge for all products – as well as three badges for the openSUSE community with Leap and Tumbleweed.

We recently celebrated 30 years of service to our customers, partners and the open source communities and it’s wonderful to keep the celebrations going with this recognition by our peers. Receiving 15 badges this quarter reinforces the depth and breadth of our strong product portfolio as well as the dedication that our team provides for our customers.

As the use of hybrid, multi-cloud and cloud native infrastructures grows, many of our customers are looking to containers. For their business success, they look to Rancher, which has been the leading multi-cluster management for nearly a decade and has one of the strongest adoption rates in the industry.

G2 awarded Rancher four badges, including High Performer badges in the Container Management and the Small Business Container Management categories and Most Implementable and Easiest Admin in the Small Business Container Management category.

Tacking on to the latest badges that SLES received in October, SLES received Momentum Leader and Leader in the Server Virtualization category once again; Momentum Leader and High Performer in the Infrastructure as a Service category; and two badges in the Mid-Market Server Virtualization category for Best Support and High Performer.

In addition, SLE Desktop was again awarded two High Performer badges in the Mid-Market Operating System and Operating System categories. SLE Real Time also received a High Performer badge in the Operating System category. The openSUSE community distribution Leap was recognized as the Fastest Implementation in the Operating System category. It’s clear that our Business Critical Linux solutions continue to be the cornerstone of success for many of our customers and that we continue to provide excellent service for the open source community.

Here’s what some of our customers said in their reviews on G2:

“[Rancher is a] complete package for Kubernetes.”

“RBAC simple management is one of the best upsides in Rancher, attaching Rancher post creation process to manage RBAC, ingress and [getting] a simple UI overview of what is going on.”

“ [Rancher is the] best tool for managing multiple production clusters of Kubernetes orchestration. Easy to deploy services, scale and monitor services on multiple clusters.”

“SLES the best [for] SAP environments. The support is fast and terrific.”

Providing our customers with solutions that they know they can rely on and trust is critical to the work we do every day. These badges are a direct response to customer feedback and product reviews and underscore our ability to serve the needs of our customers for all of our solutions. I’m looking forward to seeing what new badges our team will be rewarded in the future as a result of their excellent work.

Your SAP infrastructure hosts applications and processes that are critically important to your business operations. If it goes down, or your data is compromised in a cyberattack, you’ll experience unexpected costs and real operational risks.

Cybercriminals know SAP is business-critical, which makes it a prime target for cyberthreats of all kinds. Zero-day attacks that exploit undiscovered vulnerabilities are growing. At the same time, organizations are deploying increasingly distributed IT networks incorporating a mix of traditional data centers, public cloud, edge computing, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. This all significantly increases the potential cyberattack landscape.

SAPinsider recently released a Cybersecurity Report providing insight into how SAP community members rank the top potential cybersecurity threats to their systems. Ransomware was number one, followed by compromised credentials and unpatched systems. The only way to protect yourself against these and other cyberthreats is to ensure your entire SAP platform is truly secure.

Here are 5 critical considerations for assessing your security needs.

1. Secure, Reliable SAP Operating System

It goes without saying that the OS underpinning your SAP infrastructure must be reliable, with built-in features that enable you to achieve high availability in both virtual and physical environments. But it is also important to seek features that contribute to operational excellence, such as best practices built into the code to automate error-prone manual tasks. This makes it easier to monitor and maintain your SAP platform and significantly reduces operational risk. Easy-to-use automation tools and wizards, complemented by system management and monitoring tools, also contribute to ensuring operational excellence while using an OS endorsed by SAP with premium certification ensures the reliability of the platform.

2. Key Security Certifications

The OS supporting your SAP infrastructure should have the highest levels of security and cryptographic certification. Some of the key certifications to look for are the FIPS 140-2 U.S. government security standard for validating cryptographic modules; the Common Criteria EAL4+ software supply chain certification; and the U.S. government’s Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) certification. A Linux OS with these certifications provides the best possible defense against cyber attackers and helps minimize risks to your business operations.

3. Integration with SAP Platform Security Features

It is important that your OS integrates closely with SAP-specific security solutions such as the SAP HANA firewall, SAP Antivirus, and SUSE Trento, an open-source, cloud-native web console that monitors your entire SAP stack and helps enforce best practices. Your OS vendor should also have hardening guides available for SAP HANA, which help ensure you are following security best practices.

4. Vulnerability and Patch Management Tools

Management tools that give you a centralized view of vulnerabilities and threats are key to improving the security of your entire mixed Linux environment. They ensure you can address potential security issues before they become a problem.

Support for live patching is another important tool, enabling you to immediately apply patches for zero-day vulnerabilities without rebooting your servers. This avoids service downtime and keeps your customers happy.

Patch staging, which allows you to reliably test patches before running them in your production environment, is another valuable feature that helps ensure your IT environment remains secure and your systems stay online.

5. Security Across the Entire SAP Landscape

No security implementation can protect your SAP landscape if it doesn’t cover the entire IT infrastructure, including containerized and edge environments. Tools that help your DevOps team develop secure containers are a necessity, as are solutions designed to manage edge devices and integrate security across the entire technology stack, including your OS, applications, and Kubernetes layers. Finally, a Zero Trust Container Security Platform and a Kubernetes manager unify security, policy, and user management across your environment, while simplifying multi-cluster operations.

Secure SAP with SUSE

SUSE covers all the bases for securing your SAP landscape, proven by over 20 years of experience in the SAP ecosystem, and 85% market share in HANA implementations. SUSE is trusted by organizations around the world to secure their high-availability infrastructure. Throughout the years we have built close relationships with the entire SAP ecosystem.

SUSE secures your SAP platform from the core with SAP-specific features and industry-recognized certifications. SUSE automation tools and Best Practices as Code help eliminate error-prone manual tasks, minimizing the risk of misconfigurations. Live patching, comprehensive management tools, and monitoring ensure your systems will always be available.

Choosing SUSE gives you the ability to secure your entire SAP infrastructure, minimize operational risks, and contribute to the success of your organization.

Secure your SAP platform

To access the full IDC InfoBrief: The Significance of Open Source Software in the Digital-First Future Enterprise, please click here.

As companies shift their focus from the digital transformation of individual processes to the business outcomes enabled by a digitally transformed organization, software engineering will become a core enterprise capability. To become a software-powered organization, companies must first identify and address the concerns of its developers in areas such as developer experience, developer velocity and software security.

As per the recent IDC InfoBrief “The Significance of Open Source Software in the Digital-First Future Enterprise,” open source software (OSS) is an important driver of enterprise digital innovation and provides greater agility, performance and security compared to proprietary software. The research, conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC) and commissioned by SUSE surveyed 838 respondents in 11 Asia/Pacific countries across a range of industries such as financial services and insurance, telecommunications, and government. It examines key trends, challenges, and priorities in DevOps and security solutions and the impact of open-source software (OSS) on developer productivity.

According to Linus Lai, Research Vice President, IDC, “In a digital-first world where every organization is a software-driven business, our research shows that open source software plays a very significant role across the enterprise technology stack, driving innovation, improved customer experiences, and overall digital transformation.”

Key Research Findings

• OSS accounts for almost 70% of all software used in a typical Asia/Pacific enterprise to drive digital innovation.
• OSS improves developer satisfaction by addressing concerns specific to the business and technology environments developers operate in.
• The ability of OSS to address enterprise cybersecurity issues is unmatched due to robust vendor and community testing and expert software support from principal enterprise-grade OSS vendors.
• 61% of respondents rated the performance of OSS as being superior compared to proprietary software.

The research shows that although OSS is relevant across the breadth of the enterprise technology stack, its usage varies. For example, close to 60% of respondents are using OSS for Database and 53% for Operating Systems. When it comes to container-related technologies, only 30% are using OSS. This is primarily because enterprises in the Asia/Pacific region are, on average, earlier in their container adoption journey than in mature markets.

With the rise of microservices and cloud-native applications, new security challenges are arising for enterprise IT departments. This is forcing enterprises to consider innovative new ways to manage security at the container level and pay due consideration to these challenges when choosing a container security solution. Development teams are also under pressure to stay current with newer cloud-native technologies and deliver applications faster.

In today’s highly competitive IT environment, skilled developers are not a cheap resource and top talent is not readily available. Therefore, maximizing the developer’s value to the organization should be high on the agenda for the business to operate at peak efficiency. The research findings show that the use of OSS not only improves developer productivity but also increases developers’ access to emerging technologies and open source innovations. OSS is also more robust and secure than proprietary software due to rigorous community reviews and shorter development cycles. This enables enterprise development teams to innovate quickly.

As enterprises progress along their digital journey, they will expand the use of OSS in new domains that are crucial to their success. 60% of respondents identified security as the top technology domain for the use of OSS in the future. The list also includes newer and emerging technology domains such as AI/big data analytics, Container Management and Metaverse. In addition, the use of containers will be essential as hybrid cloud computing becomes the default enterprise operating model and enterprises look to expand into new areas such as “the edge”.

To access the full IDC InfoBrief: The Significance of Open Source Software in the Digital-First Future Enterprise, please click here.

About the Author

Vishal Ghariwala is the Senior Director and Chief Technology Officer for SUSE for the APJ and Greater China regions for SUSE, a global leader in true open source solutions. In this capacity, he engages with customer and partner executives across the region and is responsible for growing SUSE’s mindshare by being the executive technical voice to the market, press, and analysts. He also has a global charter with the SUSE Office of the CTO to assess relevant industry, market and technology trends and identify opportunities aligned with the company’s strategy.

Prior to joining SUSE, Vishal was the Director for Cloud Native Applications at Red Hat where he led a team of senior technologists responsible for driving the growth and adoption of the Red Hat OpenShift, API Management, Integration and Business Automation portfolios across the Asia Pacific region.

Vishal has over 20 years of experience in the Software industry and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Vishal is here on LinkedIn.

2022 was another year of innovation and growth for SUSE’s Enterprise Container Management business. We introduced significant upgrades to our Rancher and NeuVector products, launched new open source projects and matured others. Exiting 2022, Rancher remains the industry’s most widely adopted container management platform and SUSE remains the preferred vendor for enabling enterprise cloud native transformation. Here’s a quick look at a few key themes from 2022.  

Security Takes Center Stage 

As the container management market matured in 2022, container security took center stage.  Customers and the open source community alike voiced concerns around the risks posed by their increasing reliance on hybrid-cloud, multi-cloud, and edge infrastructure. Beginning with the open sourcing of NeuVector, which we acquired in Q4 2021, in 2022 we continued to meet our customers’ most stringent security and assurance requirements, making strategic investments across our portfolio, including:  

• Kubewarden – In June, we donated Kubewarden to the CNCF. Now a CNCF sandbox project, Kubewarden is an open source policy engine for Kubernetes that automates the management and governance of policies across Kubernetes clusters thereby reducing risk.  It also simplifies the management of policies by enabling users to integrate policy management into their CI/CD engines and existing infrastructure.  
• SUSE NeuVector 5.1 – In November, we released SUSE Neuvector 5.1, further strengthening our already industry leading container security platform. 
• Rancher Prime– Most recently, we introduced Rancher Prime, our new commercial offering, replacing SUSE Rancher.  Supporting our focus on security assurances, Rancher Prime offers customers the option of accessing their Rancher Prime software directly from a trusted private registry. Additionally, Rancher Prime FIPS-140-3 and SLSA Level 2 and 3 certifications will be finalized in 2023.

Open Source Continues to Fuel Innovation 

 Our innovation did not stop at security. In 2022, we also introduced new projects and matured others, including:  

• Elemental – Fit for Edge deployments, Elemental is an open source project, that enables centralized management and operations of RKE2 and K3s clusters when deployed with Rancher. 
• Harvester – SUSE’s open-source cloud-native hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) alternative to proprietary HCI is now utilized across more than 710+ active clusters. 
• Longhorn – now a CNCF incubator project, Longhorn is deployed across more than 72,000 nodes. 
• K3s – SUSE’s lightweight Kubernetes distribution designed for the edge which we donated to the CNCF, has surpassed 4 million downloads. 
• Rancher Desktop – SUSE’s desktop-based container development environment for Windows, macOS, and Linux environments has surpassed 520,000 downloads and 4,000 GitHub stars since its January release. 
• Epinio – SUSE’s Kubernetes-powered application development platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solution in which users you can deploy apps without setting up infrastructure yourself has surpassed 4,000 downloads and 300 stars on GitHub since its introduction in September. 
• Opni – SUSE’s multi-cluster observability tool (including logging, monitoring and alerting) with AIOps has seen steady growth with over 75+ active deployments this year.  

 As we head into 2023, Gartner research indicates the container management market will grow ~25% CAGR to $1.4B in 2025. In that same time-period, 85% of large enterprises will have adopted container management solutions, up from 30% in 2022.  SUSE’s 30-year heritage in delivering enterprise infrastructure solutions combined with our market leading container management solutions uniquely position SUSE as the vendor of choice for helping organizations on their cloud native transformation journeys.  I can’t wait to see what 2023 holds in store! 

Today’s security landscape is ripe with new threats, breaches and attacks making it critically important for businesses to meet the highest industry standards. At SUSE, we are committed to providing a secure framework that our customers, partners and the community know they can rely on and trust.

I’m pleased to share that we obtained two certifications from NQA, the leading independent provider of environmental simulation testing, inspection and certification services, certifying our compliance with the ISO standards, including ISO27701 and ISO27001. SUSE has implemented and achieved certification of its Information Security Management System (ISMS) and the Privacy Information Management System (PIMS) to the respective standards, attesting to our commitment of secure innovation, with a focus on privacy, rights and freedoms of individuals.

Not only are we meeting the best practice industry standards with reliability and repeatability for our data and privacy but we have implemented new processes around IT assets that our IT team has worked hard to integrate, which starts with privacy by design. Design with operating and privacy in mind. Privacy and data protection are core components when developing software and should be a primary focus in any planning stage. By leading with a privacy by design strategy, you ensure that you are protecting your customers and future-proofing your business.

The way you run your technical processes and business supports a quality standard and while other companies have only been partially certified, the ISO27001 and ISO27701 certifications SUSE received span across everything within SUSE and our entities, including all countries we operate in, subsidiaries and all processes.

Certifications and security standards are important as they provide a framework for your business along with the organizational rigor that is needed to responsibly manage customer data. Given the heightened state in the security landscape, as a business, it is our responsibility to ensure that our customers know how seriously we take security.

I’m incredibly proud of our team and the contributions that everyone made to make this possible. Obtaining these certifications is not a point-in-time certification but a testimony to our commitment to the continuous improvement, as security is not a state, but a never-ending process. Furthermore, the fact that we can proudly say these certifications span our entire business is incredibly invaluable for our business and demonstrates to our customers just how committed we are to ensuring robust and resilient practices.

We recently held a webinar, “Find Value at the Edge: Innovation Opportunities and Use Cases,” where Forrester Principal Analyst Michele Pelino was our guest speaker. After the event, we held a Q&A with Pelino highlighting edge infrastructure solutions and benefits. Here’s a look into the interview: 

SUSE: What technologies (containers, Kubernetes, cloud native, etc.) enable workload affinity in the context of edge? 

Michele: The concept of workload affinity enables firms to deploy software where it runs best. Workload affinity is increasingly important as firms deploy AI code across a variety of specialized chips and networks. As firms explore these new possibilities, running the right workloads in the right locations — cloud, data center, and edge — is critical. Increasingly, firms are embracing cloud native technologies to achieve these deployment synergies. 

Many technologies enable workload affinity for firms — for example, cloud native integration tools and container platforms’ application architecture solutions that enable the benefits of cloud everywhere. Kubernetes, a key open source system, enables enterprises to automate deployment, as well as to scale and manage containerized applications in a cloud native environment. Kubernetes solutions also provide developers with software design, deployment, and portability strategies to extend applications in a seamless, scalable manner. 

SUSE: What are the benefits of using cloud native technology in implementing edge computing solutions? 

Michele: Proactive enterprises are extending applications to the edge by deploying compute, connectivity, storage, and intelligence close to where it’s needed. Cloud native technologies deliver massive scalability, as well as enable performance, resilience, and ease of management for critical applications and business scenarios. In addition, cloud functions can analyze large data sets, identify trends, generate predictive analytics models, and remotely manage data and applications globally. 

Cloud native apps can leverage development principles such as containers and microservices to make edge solutions more dynamic. Applications running at the edge can be developed, iterated, and deployed at an accelerated rate, which reduces the time it takes to launch new features and services. This approach improves end user experience because updates can be made swiftly. In addition, when connections are lost between the edge and the cloud, those applications at the edge remain up to date and functional. 

SUSE: How do you mitigate/address some of the operational challenges in implementing edge computing at scale? 

Michele: Edge solutions make real-time decisions across key operational processes in distributed sites and local geographies. Firms must address key impacts on network operations and infrastructure. It is essential to ensure interoperability of edge computing deployments, which often have different device, infrastructure, and connectivity requirements. Third-party partners can help stakeholders deploy seamless solutions across edge environments, as well as connect to the cloud when appropriate. Data centers in geographically diverse locations make maintenance more difficult and highlight the need for automated and orchestrated management systems spanning various edge environments. 

Other operational issues include assessing data response requirements for edge use cases and the distance between edge environments and computing resources, which impacts response times. Network connectivity issues include evaluating bandwidth limitations and determining processing characteristics at the edge. It is also important to ensure that deployment initiatives enable seamless orchestration and maintenance of edge solutions. Finally, it is important to identify employee expertise to determine skill-set gaps in areas such as mesh networking, software-defined networking (SDN), analytics, and development expertise. 

SUSE: What are some of the must-haves for securing the edge? 

Michele: Thousands of connected edge devices across multiple locations create a fragmented attack surface for hackers, as well as business-wide networking fabrics that interweave business assets, customers, partners, and digital assets connecting the business ecosystem. This complex environment elevates the importance of addressing edge security and implementing strong end-to-end security from sensors to data centers in order to mitigate security threats. 

Implementing a Zero Trust edge (ZTE) policy for networks and devices powering edge solutions using a least-privileged approach to access control addresses these security issues.[i] ZTE solutions securely connect and transport traffic using Zero Trust access principles in and out of remote sites, leveraging mostly cloud-based security and networking services. These ZTE solutions protect businesses from customers, employees, contractors, and devices at remote sites connecting through WAN fabrics to more open, dangerous, and turbulent environments. When designing a system architecture that incorporates edge computing resources, technology stakeholders need to ensure that the architecture adheres to cybersecurity best practices and regulations that govern data wherever it is located. 

SUSE: Once cloud radio access network (RAN) becomes a reality, will operators be able to monetize the underlying edge infrastructure to run customer applications side by side? 

Michele: Cloud RAN can enhance network versatility and agility, accelerate introduction of new radio features, and enable shared infrastructure with other edge services, such as multiaccess edge computing or fixed-wireless access. In the future, new opportunities will extend use cases to transform business operations and industry-focused applications. Infrastructure sharing will help firms reduce costs, enhance service scalability, and facilitate portable applications. RAN and cloud native application development will extend private 5G in enterprise and industrial environments by reducing latency from the telco edge to the device edge. Enabling compute functions closer to the data will power AI and machine-learning insights to build smarter infrastructure, smarter industry, and smarter city environments. Sharing insights and innovations through open source communities will facilitate evolving innovation in cloud RAN deployments and emerging applications that leverage new hardware features and cloud native design principles.
 

What’s next? 

Register and watch the “Find Value at the Edge: Innovation Opportunities and Use Cases” Webinar today! Also, get a complimentary copy of the Forrester report: The Future of Edge Computing.  

Axiz and Linux Warehouse host MSP Partner day events in South Africa

South African Managed Service Provider (MSP) resellers (distribution partners), Axiz and Linux Warehouse, hosted two very successful Partner day events on October 18th and 19th. The days focused on the growing market for SUSE solutions as a service, being delivered via MSPs to meet evolving customer requirements.  Bring together over 45 C-Level MSP delegates, the days provided very informative discussion around building managed services with SUSE technologies, and how this has accelerated business growth. With representatives from both newly on-boarded and established MSPs, there was some great interaction and sharing of how to leverage the SUSE One Partner Program to unlock new opportunities.

The events were able to demonstrate how MSPs can monetize the SUSE Solution Stack and the benefits of partnering with SUSE. The event concluded with new opportunities for pipeline building and identifying joint customers as a focus for FY23.

Pictured above, Andy King of SUSE talking through the use cases and opportunities for MSPs

Why are so many organizations looking to adopt cloud and managed services?

With the challenges of the past three years, we have seen the speed of new technology adoption grow faster than ever. Many organizations are now looking to consume these new technologies as managed services, supporting digital transformation ambitions, hybrid & cloud native environments, and adoption of containerization using Kubernetes.

What’s the advantage?

• Faster time to market
• Bridge the technology skills gap.
• Auto-scaling
• Increased up-time
• Cost (or Capex vs Opex)

Why SUSE?

• The SUSE One Partner Program contains a specialization specifically for those partners that deliver, build, deploy or provide services using SUSE technology in the cloud
• Free to join, Free training  and a partner portal full of knowledge and co-brandable material
• Flexible subscriptions options, or as-a-service
• Enterprise Grade Open Source solutions

First Choice for SAP hosting

As the number one platform for SAP S/4HANA. SAP hosting companies are using SUSE Linux for SAP to improve their customers time-to-market requirements with automated deployment, to deliver new services faster and reducing configuration errors. Deploy the full SAP software stack in the cloud or datacentre in hours not days. Provide competitive SLA’s with Live Patching and high availability and security options all built in.

Do you use mixed Linux environments?

Then why not use a single management platform for your entire mixed Linux environments?  SUSE Manager provides automated patch management to centralized monitoring and management for your multi-vendor Linux estate.

Kubernetes as a service?

For Service Providers offing IaaS with a managed container services, SUSE Rancher addresses the operational and security challenges of managing any CNCF complaint Kubernetes clusters across any infrastructure.

Providing DevOps teams with integrated tools for running containerized workloads. Deliver end-to-end vulnerability management, automated CI/CD pipeline security, and complete run-time security including the industry’s only container firewall to protect the cloud-native infrastructure from day zero threats.

Why not differentiate your services with SUSE? For questions about any of the information in this blog, please get in touch with your SUSE Partner Executive or send an email directly to our team at: msp@suse.com

UberCloud delivers a cloud-native approach to high-performance computing (HPC) with SUSE Linux Enterprise and SUSE Rancher. With UberCloud and SUSE, enterprises can empower their engineers and scientists to accelerate innovation, enable IT with streamlined tooling and enhanced service delivery, and provide leadership with unprecedented visibility to create efficiencies through a unified IT strategy.  ~ Terry

SUSE BLOG ARTICLE GUEST AUTHORS:

• Wolfgang Gentzsch, president and co-founder, UberCloud
• Daniel Gruber, director of architecture, UberCloud

HPC is an essential capability to enterprises across a broad spectrum of industries, including manufacturing, automotive, aerospace, energy, life sciences, finance, and more.  HPC gives enterprises the ability to discover scientific and business insights, develop new products, and open new avenues for progress by enabling multi-physics simulations, digital twin models, big data analytics, machine learning, and other complex engineering and scientific workloads.  But even the largest enterprises can struggle to deploy, manage, and scale the robust HPC resources they need for success in the modern world.

UberCloud and SUSE deliver the next generation of enterprise HPC.

UberCloud’s next generation HPC engineering platform

UberCloud delivers an integrated solution of cloud-native software and services that help enterprises:

Remove resource limitations

Traditional HPC is difficult and costly to scale, manage, and keep up-to-date. This forces engineers and scientists to limit simulation models to fit within available resources, reducing the accuracy of results and lowering the quality of insights for next-generation products.

UberCloud and SUSE make it easy and safe to take advantage of the scale and power available in any public cloud to enable their engineers with the HPC compute and storage resources they need. And, enterprises run the UberCloud Engineering Simulation Platform within their own cloud platform accounts, so they remain fully and exclusively in control while also maintaining infrastructure freedom.

Streamline management and administration

HPC environments are notoriously complex, requiring specialized skills to support HPC hardware, software, and workflows. Introducing the cloud to address HPC resource limitations only exacerbates these challenges, especially as IT must deal with structures and controls that are often unique to each cloud platform.

The UberCloud Engineering Simulation Platform streamlines administration, regardless of the underlying public or private cloud, simplifying IT operations and even providing self-service capabilities that can empower engineers and scientists to quickly and easily leverage HPC resources within governed limits.

Unify IT strategies

HPC hardware, software, and operations can be quite outside the traditional enterprise IT experience, often resulting in the formation of IT silos and making it difficult to integrate HPC into an overall IT strategy that can address inefficiencies and make effective use of the cloud.

The UberCloud Engineering Simulation Platform streamlines IT operations and also natively integrates with SUSE Rancher to provide unprecedented, multi-cloud observability and management. Enterprises can gain holistic governance of their IT landscapes, enabling them to quickly adapt to changing conditions and driving efficiencies for lower total cost of ownership.

Accelerate adoption

New technologies can take time to learn, slowing adoption and limiting the benefits that can come through modernization.

The UberCloud Engineering Simulation Platform easily integrates HPC cloud into existing IT operations and workflows – including the use of SUSE Rancher for multi-cloud governance. A self-service portal further reduces the burden on IT while empowering users to easily access company cloud resources.

Unique UberCloud HPC application containers give scientists and engineers familiar HPC cluster environments, applications, and workflows, enabling them to continue their work with little or no additional training. UberCloud HPC containers are built on SUSE Linux Enterprise to deliver optimum performance, compatibility, and security.

UberCloud’s HPC engagement model

UberCloud leverages a proven on-boarding process with services delivered by HPC, cloud, and container experts focused on empowering enterprise customers to accelerate innovation.

UberCloud engagements feature:

• Joint discovery workshop
  In an initial meeting, UberCloud explores with enterprise stakeholders their challenges, needs, applications, and goals.
• Proof of concept
  Through a service engagement, UberCloud deploys a test environment, providing enterprise stakeholders an opportunity to try the solution.
• Production engineering
  After a successful proof of concept, UberCloud implements a customized, production environment within the customer’s own cloud accounts.
• Software and support
  UberCloud software and support subscriptions provide cost-efficient access to the UberCloud Engineering Simulation Platform, UberCloud HPC application containers, and support services.

Reimagine HPC with UberCloud and SUSE

UberCloud and SUSE recognize the importance of HPC to accelerate innovation across a broad spectrum of industries and endeavors – from manufacturing to energy production to life sciences to finance and beyond. With the UberCloud Engineering Simulation Platform, featuring SUSE Linux Enterprise and SUSE Rancher, enterprises can accelerate innovation with improved access to HPC resources, streamlined operations, and realized efficiencies lowering total cost of ownership.

• Learn how UberCloud and SUSE help 3DT Holdings revolutionize heart-valve surgery for better patient outcomes.
• Read how UberCloud enables Rimac Technology to optimize HPC in the cloud.
• Connect with UberCloud.

Accelerate with us at SC22

Are you going to SC22, the international conference for high performance computing, networking, storage, and analysis?

The theme this year is, “hpc accelerates.”

Join us at the SUSE booth (#2222) to feed your need for speed on the SUSE Performance Slot Car Racetrack.  It’s full trigger, old school cool, and a lot of fun!

UberCloud is sponsoring the races on Tuesday, November 15.  Compete for prizes throughout the day, turn in the fastest race time on Tuesday and you’ll win, courtesy of UberCloud, a remote control ARRMA Granite 4X4 monster truck – which is new school cool!

Also on Tuesday, at 2:15 p.m. CST, catch the UberCloud session featured in the Microsoft Azure booth (#2433): A toolbox for moving engineering simulation workloads to the Azure cloud.

Wolfgang Gentzsch is President and Co-Founder of UberCloud. Before, he was the Chairman of the International ISC Cloud Conference series. Previously, he was an Advisor to EU projects, Director of the German D-Grid Initiative and the North Carolina Statewide Grid, Member of the Board of Directors of the Open Grid Forum, Member of the US President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology, and a professor of computer science and math at several universities in North Carolina and in Regensburg, Germany. Wolfgang started his career as a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Plasmaphysics, and as Head of the Computational Fluid Dynamics at DLR in Göttingen.

Daniel is Director of Architecture at UberCloud. He holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Information Engineering. Daniel is co-founding member of the initial version of Univa Grid Engine at Univa with a long history in developing core components of Grid Engine at Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and Univa. Daniel is a strong supporter of open standards. At UberCloud he is committed to “Pave the way to HPC as a Service.”

SUSE One Partner Solution Stacks are featured co-innovations that help our customers address a broad spectrum of challenges. Solution Stacks can be leveraged by SUSE One Partners of all specializations and tiers to deliver unique value to our customers. Log into the SUSE One Partner Portal to learn more.

Minimizing downtime and designing to withstand failure are among the top considerations when setting up mission critical SAP systems on AWS. An AWS Well-Architected design principle includes Reliability, that is used to discuss the availability of your solution. There are several design patterns that lower the chance of unplanned downtime thus limit the negative business consequences such as delayed production, loss of productivity, loss of revenue, or even loss of business reputation.

SUSE and AWS collaborate to provide AWS Well-Architected high availability solutions for SAP landscapes that follow Architecture guidance for availability and reliability of SAP on AWS:

• Increase the availability and reliability of the infrastructure

Tremendous efforts have been made by AWS to eliminate single points of failure and increase the resilience of the cloud infrastructure. For example, EC2 Instance Recovery for protection against hardware failure within availability zone and designing for multi-AZs for protection against availability zone failure. However, the AWS reliability and availability features don’t guarantee application-level availability, thus 3^rd party high availability solutions are needed to address the application and infrastructure layers.

• Extensive monitoring

In many cases, a major outage is the result of cumulative minor issues. That’s why increasing insights into the SAP landscape, discovering minor issues, and remediating in a timely manner is critical for preventing a major outage.

AWS provides CloudWatch Application Insights to enable monitoring for your SAP HANA databases. It identifies and sets up key metrics, logs, and alarms across your application resources. It continuously monitors metrics and logs to detect and correlate anomalies and errors. When errors and anomalies are detected, Application Insights generates CloudWatch Events that you can use to set up notifications or take actions.

SUSE Project Trento, part of SLES for SAP Applications, discovers, monitors, and proactively fixes SAP system problems, especially in High Availability clusters, in AWS infrastructure. It provides powerful pre-go-live validation to avoid last minute surprise or even outage before putting the system into production. In day 2 operations it continuously monitors the production system and detects drifts that could lead to outage. Details can be found on Project Trento landing page.

• • Reliable automated failover

SUSE is the leader in high availability solutions for SAP, supporting automated failover of SAP HANA, S/4HANA and NetWeaver applications. In this blog we will discuss the HA scenarios in detail.

HA Solutions for SAP HANA on AWS

HANA System Replication (HSR) is a native HANA HA feature; however, its failover is not automated without the help of a 3^rd party solution. SUSE has developed solutions to reliably identify the issue and start the failover in a timely manner.

HA Solutions for S/4HANA and NetWeaver on AWS

For SAP S/4HANA and NetWeaver, the HA solutions are based on ASCS/ERS enqueue replication.

SAP HA-Interface Certification

SUSE’s HA solutions for ENSA1 and ENSA2 are both certified by SAP HA-Interface certification, that’s critical to prevent split-brain situation when performing maintenance to the SAP applications running in the cluster. The details and an example can be found in this blog. The certification tests of NW-HA-CLU_750 are conducted on Amazon EC2 instances, and special thanks to AWS for providing the infrastructure.

Enforce Security Compliance by Using Live Patching

Having no impact during patching is another critical high availability principal. SUSE provides Live Patching to both Linux Kernel and User Space. In User Space, upgrade key libraries such as glibc and OpenSSL requires reboot and these two are dependencies of SAP HANA. With Linux Kernel and User Space Live Patching, customers can avoid expensive reboot (for up to 1 year) to mission critical in-memory HANA databases.

SLES for SAP Applications

SLES for SAP Applications is the leading Linux platform for SAP HANA, SAP NetWeaver and SAP S/4HANA solutions and is endorsed by SAP. Two of the key components of SLES for SAP Applications are the High Availability Extension and resource agents. The High Availability Extension provides Pacemaker, an open-source cluster framework. The resource agents manage automated failover of SAP HANA System Replication, S/4HANA ASCS/ERS ENSA2, and NetWeaver ASCS/ERS ENSA1. On AWS marketplace, the PAYG image of SLES for SAP Applications includes Live Patching.

SUSE Premium Support Services

Premium Support Services is an optimization offering for those enterprises that want a direct relationship with named technical professionals, who provide in-depth and custom support services for business-critical production environments. The premium services team is backed by SUSE technical support, product management, and engineering. Since SUSE Premium Support engineers are also experts in HA solutions, the service is highly recommended to any SAP customers running HA solutions. The SUSE Premium Support Services is listed in the AWS Marketplace.

Conclusion

SUSE collaborates with AWS to support mission critical SAP customers, who can confidently realize the benefit of running mission-critical SAP workloads by building reliable and highly available systems in the AWS Cloud and safeguarding SAP landscape using SUSE’s Open-Source High Availability solutions.

To Learn More

SUSECon Session: Deploy a SUSE HANA Scale-up Cluster using AWS Launch Wizard for SAP [DEMO-1374]

SUSECon Session: Protecting workloads on AWS with SLE HA – A Deep dive