SUSE OpenStack Cloud 6? It´s a Breeze With Our Documentation!

Last week on Thursday SUSE announced the general availability of SUSE OpenStack Cloud 6. This version is based on the OpenStack release Liberty. It provides the latest enterprise-ready technology for building Infrastructure-as-a-Service private clouds with less stress on your IT staff and resources. SUSE OpenStack Cloud 6 not only delivers high availability enhancements and non-disruptive upgrades for future releases, but also provides now Docker and IBM z Systems mainframe support to make it easier to move business-critical applications and data to the cloud.

In addition, new OpenStack training and certification from SUSE will help grow the OpenStack skills base and support the growth of OpenStack solutions in the market. SUSE is introducing the SUSE Certified Administrator-OpenStack (SCA-OpenStack) certification along with a new training course on deploying and administering SUSE OpenStack Cloud to complement SUSE’s existing SUSE OpenStack Cloud training. First sessions of the new course will be held at the upcoming OpenStack Summit in Austin, Texas.

At least just as important, my colleagues Frank Sundermeyer and Tanja Roth did a phenomenal job providing, in time for the launch, all fundamental documentation – and even more than that – to make sure you can start right away with your own implementation of SUSE OpenStack Cloud 6.

Documentation is an essential part of any product, and this especially holds true for software. Of course, if you are a hardcore techie, if you have enough time, if your boss is not breathing down your neck, you could just sit down and check out everything yourself. However, in business in general,  you don’t have time because time is money. And you want to do – no, you must do – the right thing. But do you always know what the right thing is?

The SUSE OpenStack Cloud Documentation helps you to perform the right tasks at the right time. No matter if you are the cloud operator, the administrator, or the actual user of the SUSE OpenStack Cloud environment in your organization, for every task you’ll find the right guide:

• The Deployment Guide addresses the operator. It helps you with the installation and deployment of SUSE OpenStack Cloud. It gives an introduction to the SUSE OpenStack Cloud architecture, lists the requirements and describes how to set up, deploy, and maintain the individual components from bare-metal, to the operating system, to the OpenStack components. What’s more, it also contains information about troubleshooting, support and a glossary listing the most important terms and concepts for SUSE OpenStack Cloud.

• The Admin User Guide, as the name indicates, targets the system administrator, who maintains and secures an OpenStack cloud installation to serve end users’ needs. It guides you through the management of projects and users, images, flavors, quotas and networks. You also learn how to migrate instances. To complete your admin tasks, you can either use the graphical web interface (based on OpenStack Dashboard, code name Horizon) or the OpenStack command line clients.

• The End User Guide describes how to manage images, instances, networks and volumes, and track usage. As an OpenStack cloud end user, you can provision your own resources within the limits set by cloud administrator. Again, you can use either the graphical web interface or the OpenStack command line clients.

Besides the three main guides, the documentation team also provides the “Supplement to Admin User Guide and End User Guide“. This contains additional information for admin users and end users that is specific to SUSE OpenStack Cloud. And if you want to quickly find more detailed information about new features, package versions or changes from SUSE OpenStack Cloud 5 to SUSE OpenStack Cloud 6, just have a look at the Release Notes.

Best of all, you get the SUSE documentation in many different formats. You can choose between HTML, single page HTML, PDF or even ePub: kudos to all workaholics who opt for a vespertine reading at your couches! Now enjoy YOUR reading, no matter where you are and which format you prefer. And if you have any feedback or comment, don’t hesitate to send it directly to doc-team@suse.com.