Security, Sustainability and Speed: Introducing the IBM LinuxONE Emperor 4

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending SHARE 2022.  It was a great experience, not only because of the incredible content, but also because it was the first live event that we were able to attend since the pandemic.  Interacting with clients and partners was truly enlightening and we learned a lot about what was top of mind.

Not surprisingly, the topic of security came up in nearly every conversation.  And while many were enthralled by the new IBM z16 that we talked about in a prior blogpost, I am pleased that the SUSE enterprise open source solutions in conjunction with the new IBM LinuxONE Emperor 4 server address not only data security but also provide sustainability – coupled with high performance.

The new IBM LinuxONE Emperor 4 provides a sustainable, scalable, security-rich infrastructure to protect data at scale, lower energy usage, and prepare data centers for the future,” said Kara Todd, Director of IBM LinuxONE. “We appreciate SUSE’s continued support and exploitation of the strengths of the IBM LinuxONE platform.

Security is the backbone

Let’s talk about your data… and the future.  Sure, your security teams are on top of the security needed for today’s cyberattacks, but what about the attacks of the future? You might not be aware but the bad actors of today are actively collecting sensitive, long-lifetime data now for decryption later when quantum computers are powerful enough to decrypt that data.  And if you don’t protect your data today with quantum-safe techniques, it can all be exposed at a future date. Don’t take that risk.  IBM built the LinuxONE Emperor 4  to protect you not only today but also against the quantum computing based attacks that are coming.

Couple that with the most secure enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and your SecOps teams can rest easy at night.  Consider this:

• LinuxONE Emperor 4 provides the quantum-safe encryption and key encapsulation needed to integrate quantum-safe cryptography alongside existing cryptographic methods for a dual scheme approach as recommended by NIST.
• SUSE’s secure software supply chain can secure, document, and trace source code, the SUSE build environment, & update mechanisms of a specific workload using SUSE products over its full life cycle.
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server has achieved Common Criteria EAL4+ and FIPS 140-2/3 certifications that demonstrate our software supply chain security also recommended by NIST.

The combination of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and the new LinuxONE Emperor 4 provides the most secure platform today and for the future.  You can learn more about SUSE Security here.

Sustainability for our future

The other “S” word that is widely keeping CIOs up at night is sustainability.  There’s no doubt that climate change is real, and we all want to do the right thing for our planet.  And now you’re wondering:  How does a hardware platform save the planet?  Well, I’m not sure that any hardware or software platform will actually “save the planet” but it’s nice to think we are all doing our part.

By using the new IBM LinuxONE, you can replace hundreds of x86 servers with a single high-performance system and use up to 75% less energy.  That is pretty significant.  And that means that all workloads will benefit from the sustainability and compliance that the LinuxONE Emperor 4 Server provides, including the ones that SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is known consolidation of well-known workloads to the platform like Oracle Database, IBM MQ and now SUSE Rancher.

And SUSE, as a company, also is well known for our sustainability programs.  From our “Go-Green” employee network to our ESG mission which, in part, states:

At SUSE, we believe we all bear a responsibility to preserve our planet for generations to come. We want to be part of the solution to the challenges facing our world. We do this by enabling our customers to create innovative sustainable services and solutions and by adapting our own operations to minimize our impact on the environment.

And we work with customers, like furniture manufacturer Nowy Styl in Poland, who have consolidated database workloads onto SUSE Linux Enterprise and LinuxONE to increase performance, and found that a further benefit of the consolidation is that the physical footprint of Nowy Styl’s IT infrastructure is smaller than the previous system.

Speed for today… and tomorrow

 And the third “S” word that I heard frequently was Speed.

From credit card fraud detection to AI modeling, the IBM LinuxONE Emperor 4 can process up to 3.5 million inference requests per second with 1ms response time.  And with its low and consistent latency and scalable capacity, it’s perfect for any workload designed for sensitive real-world environments such as medical, military, and industrial systems.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server provides innovation without disruption.  SUSE built SLES to be adaptable to any environment, while being optimized for performance, security, reliability and resilience.

Coupling the two sets you up for today…. And tomorrow.

As the first Linux enterprise distribution for IBM zSystems and LinuxONE, SUSE is pleased to continue its strong partnership with IBM.  We look forward to continuing and growing our relationship.

Learn more about SUSE here and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for IBM zSystems and LinuxONE here.  Learn more about the IBM LinuxONE Emperor  here.