SUSE Linux Enterprise Long Term Service Pack Support

Long Term Service Pack Support (LTSS) is an extended support program that offers support and service on the Extended lifecycle phase that happens beyond the general support period. It allows you to maintain your current operating-system version longer, preserving both the stability and security of your data center, as you transition from one service pack version to the next. With Long Term Service Pack Support you can receive three years of extended support, in addition to the standard support for each major version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

Long Term Service Pack Support includes:

• Access to SUSE's award-winning support organization for unlimited service requests
• Hours and response times are determined by your subscription level
• Priority subscriptions provide 24x7 coverage with 1-hour response for critical issues
• Standard subscriptions offer 12x5 coverage with 2-hour response time for critical issues
• Fixes for severity-level 1 (Critical) and 2 (High) defects ¹
• Critical and Important security patches²

Long Term Service Pack Support does not include any software enhancement requests or hardware enablement. It is available as an extension to an existing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscription and is not available for new deployments that are past the end date of general support.

¹ SeeSUSE Technical Support Handbook for Severity Level Descriptions.

² See https://www.suse.com/support/security/rating/ for the security rating.

Long Term Service Pack Support Core (LTSS Core) is an extended support program that offers support and service on the Extended Core lifecycle phase that happens beyond the general support period and after the Extended support phase. It allows you to maintain your current operating-system version longer, preserving your data center, as you transition from one version to the next. With Long Term Service Pack Core Support you can receive three years of extended core support, which covers a selected set of core packages and libraries, in addition to the Extended lifecycle phase supported by the Long Term Service Pack Support subscription for each major version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, for a total of up to 19 years.

Long Term Service Pack Support Core includes:

• Access to SUSE's award-winning support organization for unlimited service requests
• Hours and response times are determined by your subscription level
• Priority subscriptions provide 24x7 coverage with 1-hour response for critical issues
• Standard subscriptions offer 12x5 coverage with 2-hour response time for critical issues
• Proactive Security CVSS-7+ maintenance and fixes for the core set of kernel, packages, and libraries
• Reactive severity-level ¹ (Critical) defect resolution for all SLES packages (exceptions appliance)

Long Term Service Pack Support Core does not include any software enhancement requests or hardware enablement. It is available as an extension to an existing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscription, and is not available for new deployments that are past the end date of general support.

¹ See SUSE Technical Support Handbook for Severity Level Descriptions.

Managers of large data centers must balance the benefits of the latest software updates against the risk and expense of changing elements of critical systems. In addition, not every business wishes to incorporate all the latest technological advances and hardware-enabled features. Enterprises with large, complex environments need flexibility to determine when or if they will move to a newer service pack while maintaining the benefits of SUSE product support.

SUSE provides more than ten years of general support for its core server platform products, starting the day they first become generally available. During this time period, SUSE provides patches for improving stability, enhancing performance, and addressing security vulnerabilities, and service packs that enable new hardware and software features, through standard and priority subscriptions.

In addition, SUSE offers installation, configuration, migration and break-fix technical support through standard and priority subscriptions during the first ten years of the product's life. SUSE generally delivers patches through software repositories, and are provided for currently available product releases.

See the details at SUSE Technical Support Policy.

SUSE provides an additional three years of extended support, after general support for its platform products ends. During this period, customers with standard and priority subscriptions are granted access to previously released maintenance patches. Customers with standard and priority subscriptions also receive limited migration and configuration assistance during this extended support period.

See the details at SUSE Technical Support Policy.

SUSE provides an additional three years of Extended Core support after the Extended support for its platform products ends. During this period, customers with standard and priority subscriptions are granted access to previously released maintenance patches for the kernel, and selected core packages and libraries. Customers with standard and priority subscriptions also receive limited migration and configuration assistance during this extended support period.

See the details at SUSE Technical Support Policy.

SUSE Linux Enterprise products are supported for up to 19 years. For specific product-lifecycle dates, please refer to Product Support Lifecycle.

Depending on the underlying SUSE Linux Enterprise release, LTSS is available for the following architectures:

• ARM
• x86 (x86_32 and x86_64)
• IBM Power, IBM Z and LinuxONE

Depending on the underlying SUSE Linux Enterprise release, LTSS Core is available for the following architectures:

• ARM
• x86 (x86_32 and x86_64)
• IBM Power, IBM Z and LinuxONE

Please contact a SUSE representative or visit the How to Buy page.

Information about configuring LTSS repositories to get updates is available in two places:

• How to assign Long Term Service Pack Support repositories to installed systems (Support TID)