SUSE Linux Enterprise Long Term Service Pack Support
Long Term Service Pack Support (LTSS) and Long Term Service Pack Support Core (LTSS Core) support your long-term workloads by extending SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) products service packs and versions lifecycle even after the end of the general support phase. Take advantage of up to an additional 6 years of support after the general support ends during the Extended and Extended Core lifecycle phases to help with proactive planning maintaining reliability and support for your legacy and infrastructure-dependent enterprise workloads.
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More time for your long-term workload
Run it longer with up to 6 years of support after general support applicable to either SLES or SLES for SAP 11, 12 and 15. Long Term Service Pack Support (LTSS) offers support, patches, and maintenance for the Extended lifecycle phase, which covers 3 extra years after the general support of each Service Pack and Version.
Sometimes upgrade is not possible as applications or infrastructure are not certified in newer OS or hardware. SUSE helps you to support those cases allowing you to expand the lifecycle of your operating system to the longest lifecycle in the enterprise Linux market.
SUSE knows that some things in life are not always aligned with your plans but being forced to upgrade your Linux when you aren’t ready shouldn’t be one of that. Reduce operations costs and risks obtaining more time to align the OS upgrade with the rest of your IT.
Obtain another 3 years extra time after LTSS for a total of 6 years after the end of general support. The Long Term Service Pack Support Core (LTSS Core) subscription offers support, patches, and maintenance for a core set of components of the product over the Extended Core lifecycle phase, which covers another 3 extra years after the Extended Lifecycle phase covered by the Long Term Service Pack Support (LTSS).
Top 4 Features
3 additional years to upgrade Service packs
SUSE generally releases service packs every 12 months and supports previous service packs for 6 months after the release of the new service pack.
You can extend your existing Standard or Priority support an additional 12-36 months in 12-month increments to align with your infrastructure upgrade plan.
Up to 6 years after the end of general support.
Extend your support to cover the Extended and the Extended Core support phases that follow the end of general support with 3 years of Long Term Service Pack Support and an additional 3 years of Long Term Service Pack Support Core subscriptions respectively for the longest term support.
Maintain system consistency with up to 19 years of support.
SUSE server products have a long lifecycle. If you need more than that, Long Term Service Pack Support & Long Term Service Pack Support Core provides up to 6 years of extended support, during which time you'll continue receiving security and maintenance patches as well as technical support.
Extend time for security patches and maintenance.
You should only update your infrastructure when necessary, and on a schedule that works for your data center. During the extended support period, SUSE will deliver security patches for critical vulnerabilities, and maintenance patches for critical non-security issues. Software enhancement requests and new hardware enablement are only available for products under General Support. During the 3 years of the Extended Core Lifecycle phase, SUSE will provide support only for a set of core packages, and libraries are maintained and supported.
- Long Term Service Pack Support for the Extended lifecycle phase
- Long Term Service Pack Support Core for the additional Extended Core lifecycle phase
Frequently Asked Questions
01What is LTSS?
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.
02What does it include and what does it not?
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.
03What is LTSS Core?
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.
04What does LTSS Core include and what does it not?
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.
05Why should I consider LTSS and LTSS Core?
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.
06What is General 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.
07What is Extended Support?
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.
08What is Extended Support Core?
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.
09How long is the lifecycle for SUSE Linux Enterprise?
SUSE Linux Enterprise products are supported for up to 19 years. For specific product-lifecycle dates, please refer to Product Support Lifecycle.
10What are the architectures for which LTSS is offered?
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
11What are the architectures for which LTSS Core is offered?
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
12How can I buy LTSS and LTSS Core?
Please contact a SUSE representative or visit the How to Buy page.
13How can I access LTSS and LTSS Core patches?
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)