SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

FAQ

What is SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1?

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1 is the latest enterprise Linux server operating system from SUSE. It is based on an updated SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1 platform. The update features both technical improvements and business enhancements that deliver the broadest virtualization support, the most robust open source high availability stack, and more flexible maintenance and support options. These enhancements make this release ideal for running your mission-critical IT services on both physical and virtual production servers. More information is available at www.suse.com/promo/sle11sp1.html.

What's new in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1?

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a highly reliable, scalable and secure server operating system, built to power both physical and virtual mission-critical workloads. With this affordable, interoperable and manageable open source foundation, enterprises can cost-effectively deliver core business services, enable secure networks and easily manage their heterogeneous IT resources, maximizing efficiency and value. Recommended by Microsoft, SAP and VMware, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is optimized to deliver high-performance, mission-critical services, as well as run edge of network and web infrastructure applications. This modular operating system runs on five processor architectures and is available with optional extensions for real-time computing, high availability clustering, and running .NET applications on Linux.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1 (SP1) includes all of the patches, fixes and maintenance updates released for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 since its general availability in 2009. It also includes technical improvements like enhanced virtualization capabilities, powerful advances in high availability clustering, and support for over 500 new CPUs, chipsets, storage and networking devices. Customers can optimize their IT infrastructure assets by taking advantage of these latest open source advancements and expanded hardware support to run their mission-critical services on the hardware platforms best suited for those workloads. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP 1 also delivers business enhancements like more flexible maintenance and support options that give customers greater flexibility and control over their SUSE Linux Enterprise environment. At the same time, additional partner program benefits and incentives help customers get faster, more timely access to third-party drivers and code, and greater application availability.

What are the specific technical enhancements in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1?

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1 delivers technical enhancements in three areas: mission critical computing, interoperability and ubiquity. For mission-critical computing, the service pack offers better performance, scalability, security and reliability through an improved scheduler, support for new CPU floating point and cryptographic features, improved processor, memory and storage scalability, and enhanced high availability clustering capabilities. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP 1 delivers improved interoperability with IPv6 support in NFS 4.1, and support for Samba 3.4 and Windows 7 domains. For ubiquity, SP 1 includes an updated Xen 4.0 hypervisor with better I/O performance, support for KVM—an emerging open source virtualization technology—and Linux Integration Components for Hyper-V. It also includes WebYaST, a new web-based tool for managing systems, including appliances.

What are the specific business enhancements delivered with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1?

With SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1, SUSE is introducing more flexible support options that will allow customers to remain on older package releases during the product's lifecycle. As a general rule, we recommend that customers upgrade to the most current service packs when they are released, because current releases are the most secure and deliver the most value with proactive maintenance updates, patches and fixes. That said, we also recognize that some customers place greater relative importance on using a stable, more persistent release. For this reason, an additional "general maintenance" repository has been created and will be supported for the entire lifecycle of a product, so that customers that only require updates from this channel will be able to stay on older package versions, and continue to receive technical support. For customers that place a premium on stability, this program delivers superior control and flexibility, allowing customers to decide when and how to upgrade. If a particular support issue requires a fix that is available through a future service pack, we will ask the customer to upgrade to that more recent service pack in order to resolve their issue. For those customers that cannot upgrade but still require backported patches, we continue to offer our Long Term Service Pack Support option.

With SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1, SUSE is delivering additional Partner Linux Driver Program benefits that allow SUSE Linux Enterprise customers to receive the latest supported hardware drivers and kernel modules from the SUSE partner ecosystem in a timely manner. New tools, processes, specifications, and partner developer support are being offered to help component, system and software vendors more easily and cost effectively bring to market and support their third-party technologies together with SUSE Linux Enterprise.

What are the enhanced virtualization capabilities offered with Service Pack 1?

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server includes Xen, a proven open source virtualization solution. Service Pack 1 includes the latest Xen 4.0 hypervisor, with support for single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) and single root address translation services (SR-ATS) for improved virtual I/O performance. The service pack also delivers full commercial support for KVM, an emerging open source virtualization hypervisor technology. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server ships with graphical and command line tools for the creation, configuration, deployment, migration and lifecycle management of Linux and Windows virtual machines. You can increase resource utilization, provision business services faster, and increase business continuity by using this capability integrated in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Both paravirtualization (with modified guest operating systems) as well as full virtualization (with unmodified guest operating systems) is supported, delivering maximum flexibility and performance.

SUSE also offers a complementary product that includes device drivers for virtualized Windows operating systems. SUSE Linux Enterprise Virtual Machine Driver Pack includes paravirtualized network, bus, and block device drivers that allow you to run fully virtualized Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Server 2008 and Windows 7 workloads on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with near-native performance.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is optimized to run as a guest operating system on popular third-party virtualization hypervisors, including VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer." Deep technical collaboration between SUSE and Microsoft has resulted in optimized cross-platform virtualization, including Linux Integration Components with Service Pack 1, ensuring you have maximum choice and achieve the best performance from your virtualized workloads—whether you are running Windows guests on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Xen, or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server guests on Windows Server with Hyper-V. And because you can run an unlimited number of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server guests per physical system for the price of a single subscription, we offer the lowest-cost operating system for virtual deployments.

What's new in SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension?

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension is an affordable, integrated suite of robust, open source clustering technologies that you can use to implement highly available physical and virtual Linux clusters, and eliminate single points of failure. Used with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, it helps you maintain business continuity, protect data integrity, and reduce unplanned downtime for your mission-critical Linux workloads. SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension provides all of the essential monitoring, messaging and cluster resource management functionality of proprietary third-party solutions, but at a more affordable price. Based on an innovative, highly flexible policy engine, it supports a wide range of physical and virtual clustering scenarios, and its adherence to open standards ensures interoperability.

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 11 Service Pack 1 includes new support for storage based quorum to prevent split brain scenarios, and metro area clusters for failover across data center locations. It also includes an updated version of DRBD with better performance through data compression and simultaneous three-node synchronous/asynchronous data replication, and support for Relax and Recover (ReaR)—an open source node recovery framework. A new cluster simulator, web-based GUI, and cluster-aware configuration synchronization capabilities that simplify cluster administration and reduce errors rounds out the new features in Service Pack 1. For more information, please go to www.suse.com/products/highavailability/.

What version of the Linux kernel is used in this release?

All products based on SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1, including SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1, use an updated 2.6.32 Linux kernel. This was done after carefully weighing both the benefits and risks. In addition, two other closely associated packages were also updated—glibc and X-Server. These updates were made in order to maximize hardware and software support, and ensure a continuous stream of innovation for both current and future customers. Specifically, these updates allow enterprises to take advantage of more efficient graphics data transfer through kernel mode setting, new cryptographic and floating point features in advanced processor architectures, and improved performance through scheduler optimizations. A number of other important packages have also been updated with SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1: Xen, Samba, Gnome, Qt and KDE. These updates improve the reliability, availability and serviceability of virtual machines, improve Windows 7 interoperability, add support for the latest Intel and AMD chipsets, and simplify the development and distribution of embedded and mobile applications. Kernel modules that have been built for SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 may have to be recompiled (by the respective vendors of those modules) before they can be used with the service pack. But since user space application compatibility is preserved from SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 to SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1, it will not be necessary to recertify existing application stacks when upgrading your operating system to the latest minor version.

On what architectures and hardware does SUSE Linux Enterprise Server run?

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is supported by all leading hardware vendors. You can run SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on the following architectures: x86 (32-bit), x86_64 (64-bit), Itanium Processor Family (Itanium II or newer), IBM POWER and IBM z/Architecture (64-bit).

SUSE works closely with chip manufacturers Intel and AMD, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server supports their latest 32-bit and 64-bit architectures as well as single, dual and multi-core processors. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1 leverages the newest RAS features in Intel Xeon processor 7500 and 5600 series, such as MCA recovery and improved MPIO hardware support. It also exploits new floating point and cryptographic features that deliver improved performance and security like AES-NI, as well as Intel Rapid Storage Technology enterprise, fully implemented for robust software RAID.

Can SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 be used for appliances?

Yes. SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 has been designed with appliances in mind and offers a minimal operating system configuration—called SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS (Just enough Operating System)—that is expressly built for appliances. In conjunction with SUSE Studio™, a graphical, web-based appliance building toolkit, other tools and a vibrant appliance partner ecosystem, SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS is a key part of the overall SUSE Appliance Program from SUSE. For more information please visit www.suse.com/partners/isv/appliance/.

Is SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 offered in cloud computing infrastructures?

Yes. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server can be used today through IBM's Smart Business Development and Test on the IBM Cloud platform. With the launch of the SUSE Cloud Program, customers will be able to run supported instances of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1 in additional cloud service providers' infrastructures, including Amazon EC2. One of the fastest and easiest ways to build and deploy custom OS images or complete workloads and appliances for cloud infrastructures is with SUSE Studio. More information about SUSE Studio is available at http://susestudio.com.

What target workloads and use cases are ideal for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server?

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is suitable for a wide range of workload types and sizes. It provides a robust development environment, as well as a cost-effective platform for reliable and secure infrastructure and edge computing services. The Internet boom of the late 1990s accelerated the deployment of Linux in the enterprise, as its low cost and scalability made it an attractive alternative for cost-conscious, Internet-based companies. Today, the majority of Linux server operating system deployments are on this middle tier of Internet services and web-based workloads. Not only is SUSE Linux Enterprise Server a reliable, scalable and secure platform for web servers and web application servers, it has also become recognized as an established platform for running mission-critical enterprise workloads. Increased ISV acceptance and endorsement has resulted in the growing availability, certification and support of many third-party enterprise applications on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

What software applications are available for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11?

Over 6,000 applications today are certified and supported on SUSE Linux Enterprise, more than double that of the next enterprise Linux distribution provider. For a complete list of certified software applications for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (all versions), please visit www.suse.com/partner/isv/isvcatalog.

How can my organization or company benefit from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server?

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server helps you to cost-effectively meet your internal and external service level agreements, and efficiently secure and manage your IT infrastructure. With SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, you will save money, save time, and lower risk.

Not only does using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server allow you to reduce the cost of your server infrastructure software, you save money on server hardware. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is offered with attractive support subscription pricing, and it allows you to leverage low-cost, industry-standard hardware. A modular, general purpose operating system, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is offered with optional extensions that provide advanced capabilities. Pay for just what you need and avoid unnecessary extras. And as your needs change, easily add the additional capabilities you require.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server ships with integrated tools to quickly and easily install, configure and manage your systems, helping you simplify the management of your IT environment and save time. It includes an industry-leading package management stack, which enables dramatically faster updates than competing solutions. With integrated installation tools and preconfigured profiles, you can rapidly set up popular services, both locally and remotely. Powerful subscription management tools help you easily track and manage your operating system software assets. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is CIM (common information model) instrumented, so you can manage it with your choice of CIM-enabled solutions. Finally, built-in support diagnostic tools accelerate support communications, resulting in faster issue resolution.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server helps you reliably deliver a wide variety of mission-critical services. Recommended by Microsoft, SAP and VMware, you can minimize risk and run your SAP applications or operate your mixed Linux and Windows environments with confidence. Unlike proprietary operating systems, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server ships with source code, as well as operating system binaries. Transparent licensing terms and conditions, together with readily available source code, encourage choice, competition in the marketplace and technical innovation, further reducing the risk of vendor lock-in and technology obsolescence.

What are the key innovations in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11?

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server ships with many innovative and essential capabilities, including a fast update stack, RAS advances, green IT innovations and modular extensions. These capabilities make it the preferred choice of customers seeking reliable and highly manageable server solutions.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 includes a set of technologies that enable IT managers to rapidly update systems and install new packages. ZYpp, the software package management subsystem in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, automates the process of installing, removing, upgrading and configuring software packages. ZYpp, together with the libzypp library and ZYpper, an easy-to-use command line tool, dramatically accelerates the resolution of dependencies, providing the fastest performance of any enterprise Linux distribution. Systems that might have taken hours to update now take minutes.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 supports swap over NFS, or support for using network file system (NFS) over Internet protocols (IP) to leverage remote storage for local server needs. No longer restricted to local storage for swap space, you can utilize less costly hardware and storage, use denser "diskless" server systems and simplify server administration. This reduces acquisition, implementation, administration and management costs. By using swap over NFS, you can cost-effectively protect your systems against application restarts and expensive downtime. Also supported are control groups for more fine-grained management of CPU, memory, storage and networking resources. Control groups allow IT managers to assign specific hardware resources to applications, processes and threads, providing more granular control of resources and prioritized processing. This enables you to ensure that your high-priority processes and threads do not experience resource starvation and continue to execute as required. Cpuset can be used to facilitate the creation of these control groups and enables the efficient coordination, matching and management of applications and resources.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server features innovative power saving capabilities that let you derive maximum performance per watt. For example, the Linux kernel uses periodic timer events called "ticks" that wake up the system and bring it out of its power saving "sleep" states, causing unnecessary power consumption. "Tickless idle," a new kernel feature, eliminates periodic timer ticks when system CPUs are idle. This allows the CPU to remain in power-saving states for longer periods of time, lowering system power consumption and reducing cost. Also included in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 are enhancements that eliminate unnecessary timer events, as well as more granular power profiles which are file-based and can be more easily used by IT managers for enterprise-wide power management.

SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 also offers advanced capabilities for high availability clustering and running .NET applications through optional, modular extensions. SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension is an integrated suite of open source clustering technologies that enables firms to implement enterprise-class clusters at the lowest cost, making high availability more affordable than ever. You can use this extension with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to create highly available services, ensure continuous access to your systems and data, and reduce unplanned downtime. SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension enables organizations to run Microsoft .NET-based server applications on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Customers can leverage existing .NET-based applications, build new ones and run them both on Linux, reducing cost, increasing performance and improving productivity. Finally, SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time Extension transforms SUSE Linux Enterprise Server into a fully supported, real-time operating system, specifically engineered to reduce latency, and increase the predictability and reliability of your time-sensitive, mission-critical applications.

What systems management solutions are available for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server?

No other Linux server is easier to deploy, configure or maintain. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server ships with a comprehensive set of installation, configuration, deployment and administration tools. YaST is a powerful, integrated Linux tool for installation, configuration and system administration. In addition to its command line tool options, it features an entirely graphical user interface and modular design. You can use YaST to simplify server installation and easily configure networks. Moreover, you can use it to efficiently implement robust open source services included with the operating system—such as file and print, DNS, DHCP and Apache web services—both physical and virtual. Finally, open APIs allow you to write YaST plug-ins for your own applications. AutoYaST, which uses control files, is an extension to YaST that automates installation for large numbers of machines. You can deploy groups or subsets of fully configured systems in parallel and without user intervention, saving time and money.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server can also be managed by other optional SUSE and third-party systems management tools. SUSE Manager delivers best-in-class Linux server management capabilities, like automated software management, system provisioning and monitoring. It enables customers to easily manage Linux server deployments across physical, virtual and cloud environments, decreasing total cost of ownership while improving compliance and service quality. You can even manage both SUSE Linux Enterprise and Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers from a single pane of glass. The adoption of open industry standards in SUSE Linux Enterprise, such as Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) and Common Information Model (CIM), is an important step toward true integrated systems management of distributed and heterogeneous computing environments. As a result, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server can be managed alongside Windows servers by Microsoft System Center or any solution using CIM.

I already run UNIX and Windows machines in my enterprise and would like to add Linux. Can I easily integrate SUSE Linux Enterprise Server in to this environment?

Every large enterprise has a mix of operating systems and hardware. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 has been designed with that heterogeneous environment in mind. Leveraging Samba technology, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server seamlessly integrates into and supports existing Windows file and print environments. In addition, it plugs into existing directory and domain infrastructures, including Microsoft Active Directory and Domains, Novell eDirectory™ and openLDAP.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server also interoperates well with traditional UNIX operating environments. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server adheres to the Portable Operating System Interface for UNIX (POSIX), a family of specifications and standards for user and software interfaces to an operating system. As a POSIX-compliant operating system, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is compatible with other POSIX-compliant UNIX variants, such as Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX.

With its broad use of open standards, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server enables you to share information across any IT system so that you can easily communicate between business divisions or business partners.

We do a fair amount of in-house application development. How can SUSE Linux Enterprise Server help me in this area?

SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1 is delivered with a complete software development kit (SDK) for both server and desktop environments to facilitate the customization and rapid development of a broad range of applications. This comprehensive development environment includes all of the major open source compilers, libraries, debuggers, simulation tools, and editors necessary for developers, IHVs and ISVs to create applications, or port them to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. The SDK contains several integrated development environments, as well as support for popular modern programming languages, such as C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, PHP and Ruby. Also included is Tomcat, a popular application for serving web applets.

SUSE Linux Enterprise is the only Linux distribution to include commercial support for Mono®, an open source implementation of the .NET framework. The open source Mono project, as well as the SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension, allow corporate IT and ISV developers to develop new applications for Linux or port existing .NET applications to Linux without the need to invest substantial resources in rewriting their code.

What does SUSE offer in the way of Linux systems support?

SUSE has over 25 years of experience supporting global enterprises with complex systems. More than 50,000 customers worldwide, representing every type of business, rely on SUSE. No matter what size your company or what business you are in, SUSE has the right level of support for you. You choose the resources you need to run your business efficiently and productively.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is backed by an award-winning SUSE technical support team. With eleven major global support centers and hundreds of Linux-trained engineers providing 24x7x365 availability, our support service has global around-the-clock reach, but you also can always talk to an engineer in your local language and time zone. SUSE has an expansive team of field engineers and service account managers who speak your language and can engage proactively with you on your site. The Help Desk Institute recently honored SUSE with its Team Excellence Award for External Support. The Novell and SUSE support organization has earned and maintains the following certifications: ISO 9000:2001, Service Center Practices (SCP) certification, Field Support Practices (FSP) certification and IQNet. And an independent study by Lighthouse Research confirms that SUSE leads the industry in overall quality of Linux-based technical support (see www.suse.com/support/survey.html).

SUSE is also committed to providing self-support resources that are powerful, yet easy to use. You can access the same knowledgebase our own support engineers use, post questions in our support forums, download patches and drivers and access a number of other tools. Our focus on quality self-support resources was recently recognized by the Association of Support Professionals, who again named Novell/SUSE as a "Best Support Web Site" winner for 2010. Moreover, SUSE has invested in state-of-the-art systems, infrastructure and processes to ensure you receive the same exceptional experience every time you contact support.

Finally, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server includes innovative diagnostic and reporting tools to accelerate problem determination and issue resolution. SUSE SupportLink is a YaST module and data collection technology that automatically captures support configuration information and sends it to SUSE via secure HTTP, if and when the user chooses. SUSE Support Link works with Customer Center and Novell/SUSE SupportAdvisor—a proactive support automation, diagnostic, and self-help tool—to help resolve issues faster and more accurately. SupportAdvisor reads log files and configuration settings, maps them to the latest known issues, analyzes the data, and generates results and recommendations for the user. You can diagnose problems more effectively, and resolve issues faster with more efficient, accurate, and holistic incident reporting.

What kind of support subscriptions does SUSE offer for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server?

SUSE offers three different support subscriptions: Basic, Standard and Priority. All subscriptions to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server entitle you to maintenance upgrades, patches and security fixes; access to technical support; IP indemnification, and much more. A Basic support subscription entitles you to 30 days of 12x5 e-mail and phone-based technical support (with four-hour response times). A Standard support subscription entitles you to 12x5 e-mail and phone-based technical support (with four-hour responses time) over the duration of the subscription (either one or three years). A Priority support subscription entitles you to 24x7 e-mail and phone based technical support (with one-hour response time) over the duration of the subscription (either one or three years). For more information about these subscriptions, please visit support.novell.com/linux/.

We'd like to deploy Linux, and could use some assistance. How can SUSE help us?

You can deploy and manage SUSE Linux Enterprise Server solutions with complete confidence, knowing you're backed by the world-class SUSE services organization. Whether you run a small business or a global enterprise, SUSE has the resources you need to build and manage your IT environment. Leverage our consulting experts, obtain industry-leading training, and access our award-winning support organization to ensure you get the most from your IT investment. You can count on SUSE to provide the services you need so you can focus on what matters most to you—your business.

However, the value that we deliver is not from our solutions alone. Interoperable solutions and mixed IT environments simply can't work without strong, productive partnerships. We share our product expertise, best practices and delivery methodologies with our qualified service partners so they can provide best-of-breed services for our solutions. We have nearly 5,100 partners, including some of the most respected names in the industry. These partners include 3,200 solution providers, value-added resellers (VARs) and value-added distributors (VADs), more than 500 training partners, and more than 1,300 technology partners, both independent software and hardware vendors.

SUSE and its partner organizations back SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with a comprehensive set of offerings for implementation and training, with specialized practices in enterprise platform services, data center technologies and open source development. We are ready to help you quickly deploy SUSE Linux Enterprise Server inside your organization.

Why should I choose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server instead of Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or Oracle Solaris?

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is differentiated from other server operating systems by its interoperability, affordability, and vendor recommendations.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is uniquely designed for maximum interoperability with Windows environments. Since 2006, Microsoft and SUSE have been working together, specifically in the areas of cross-platform virtualization, identity and directory federation, and cross-platform systems management. Our joint goal is to ensure that SUSE Linux Enterprise Server environments and Microsoft Windows Server environments share data, communicate more easily with each other, and can be managed with a common set of tools. Interoperability is part of a larger, more pragmatic, company-wide mission to give SUSE customers the ability to use the best technology in support of their business objectives. We recognize that heterogeneous data centers are today's reality, and we are committed to helping our customers maximize the utilization of their heterogeneous IT resources.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a low cost server operating system. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server environments typically cost less than traditional UNIX environments when you consider the cost of operating system licenses, support and maintenance, hardware, and systems management tools. Subscription pricing for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is lower than Solaris for x86 and x86_64 on systems with more than two CPUs. Oracle charges extra for server management tools that are included for free with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Furthermore, SPARC hardware is generally more expensive than hardware based on Intel and AMD processors. When all these facts are taken into consideration, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is more affordable than traditional UNIX.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server offers the strongest partner ecosystem of any enterprise Linux vendor. Over 6,000 applications are certified and supported on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, more than Red Hat. It is the only Linux server operating system recommended by Microsoft, SAP and VMware. Microsoft recommends SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to customers who run Windows and Linux in their data centers. This unique endorsement is made possible by the technical collaboration that exists between the two companies, together with the joint support programs that have been implemented to ensure customers have seamless, comprehensive one-stop support for their virtual Linux and Windows services. Similarly, SAP recommends SUSE Linux Enterprise as a preferred platform to customers that want to deploy SAP applications on Linux. Together, SAP and SUSE are reducing the complexity of application deployments, lowering costs and giving customers a single point of contact for acquiring and supporting a complete data center stack. VMware recommends SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for use in its virtual environments. VMware adopted SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as its internal standard in 2010, and all current orders for VMware vSphere ship free with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for VMware.

How much does SUSE Linux Enterprise Server cost?


There is no license cost for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and you can download the operating system for free from http://download.novell.com. SUSE charges a small fee, however, for support and maintenance. A paid subscription to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server comes with major benefits—immediate delivery of upgrades, patches and security fixes; access to award-winning SUSE technical support; IP indemnification; and much more. For our most current pricing, and more information about our Basic, Standard and Priority support subscriptions, please visit www.suse.com/products/server/how-to-buy/

What are the benefits of a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscription?

When you choose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, you're selecting the most interoperable Linux platform for mission-critical computing. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is backed by a seven-year lifecycle guarantee. During that time, you'll receive the latest software enhancements, bug fixes and security patches through regular updates. This ensures that you always have the newest functionality and the best hardware support. Over the term of your subscription, SUSE works with leading hardware and software vendors to ensure that their latest products and enhancements are fully supported. You also have access to numerous support services. Depending on the services you choose, your support can range from electronic assistance (via the web and e-mail), to three tiers of telephone support or even the daily expertise of an on-site dedicated support professional.

How can I effectively track and manage my SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscriptions and support entitlements?

Managing server subscriptions and support entitlements is easy with Customer Center and the Subscription Management Tool, included for free with each SUSE Linux Enterprise subscription.

Customer Center is a web-based portal that facilitates the registration, entitlement and tracking of SUSE Linux Enterprise subscriptions. SUSE understands that customers have many different kinds of employees who need access to customer support. Customer Center addresses those needs by providing all the information, tools and resources for the many customer contacts who have business and technical relationships with SUSE. This broad approach includes system administrators, IT managers, purchasers and others. System administrators easily get access to system information, subscription registration, and the patches and updates they need to address security and supportability concerns. IT managers are able to view the entire scope of their software contracts, including expiration dates, to effectively plan their spending. Purchasing agents can handle their part of the ordering process while leaving more technical tasks to their IT staff. By combining product, service and support options for customer contacts, Customer Center simplifies administration, making it faster, easier and more cost-effective for companies to do business with SUSE.

The Subscription Management Tool for SUSE Linux Enterprise goes one step further by establishing a proxy system with repository and registration targets. This helps customers centrally manage software updates within their firewall on a per-system basis, while maintaining corporate security policies and regulatory compliance.

Can I upgrade my existing systems from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9, 10 or 11 to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP 1?

Yes. You are fully entitled to upgrade any systems with an active SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscription to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1. However, a direct upgrade or migration via bootable media is supported only from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 3 or 4 or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1.

If you want to upgrade from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1, we recommend you use the tools and follow the steps outlined in the install media or release notes.

If you want to upgrade from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1, we recommend you first perform any necessary multi-step upgrades to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 3 or 4, before upgrading to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1 following the steps outlined in the install media or release notes.

If you plan to upgrade from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1, we strongly recommend that you back up your system configurations and data, and do a completely new installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1.


Where can I get more information about SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and related products, bundles and extensions?

For more information about SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, related products, bundles and extensions, please visit www.suse.com/products/server.

Can I use a single subscription of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for multiple VMs?

Yes; we sell subscriptions per physical seat. All SUSE Linux Enterprise Server VMs on a single host, regardless of what's doing the virtualization, can use the same activation code for x86-32/x86-64 architectures.

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