SUSE Virtualization Arm64 Support goes GA: Simple VM Management on Ampere-Based Infrastructure

Guest Written by Dave Neary from Ampere

Dave Neary is the Director of Developer Relations for Ampere Computing, helping promote

the benefits of Ampere CPUs and the Arm64 instruction set for cloud application developers

and operations teams. He has been active in free and open source communities for more than 20 years.

At Ampere, we’ve long believed that the future of computing is efficient, scalable, and built on open standards. That vision is shared by many of our ecosystem partners including SUSE, who continue to deliver strong Arm64 support across their product portfolio. The latest example is  SUSE® Virtualization. With the release of SUSE Virtualization 1.5, support for managing virtual machines on Arm64-based Kubernetes clusters has graduated from Technical Preview  to General Availability for SUSE customers. 

This is more than a feature release. It’s a strong signal that Arm64 isn’t just technically enabled but also that it is becoming a first-class architecture across the enterprise stack. 

Momentum for Arm64 Across the SUSE Portfolio 

 SUSE Virtualization joins a growing list of SUSE technologies that now support Arm64: 

• SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) has offered production-grade support for Arm64 for years, supports Arm64 virtual machines, and in SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP5 added support for 64K kernel page sizes. 

• RKE 2 brings Kubernetes management and GitOps workflows to Arm64 clusters. RKE2 has enabled Arm64 clusters since the 1.27 release, with full support for the architecture since the 1.28 release in 2023. 

• SUSE Application Collection delivers curated, enterprise-ready containers that all come with multi-architecture support—including Arm64—ensuring consistent app deployment across x86 and Arm environments. 

• SUSE® Security , SUSE’s end-to-end container security platform, added support for Arm64 in early 2024 as part of the SUSE Security 5.3 release. 

• Now, with SUSE Virtualization, SUSE adds VM orchestration to the mix. 

This kind of consistent support gives users and developers confidence that their workloads can run reliably and efficiently on Arm-based infrastructure no matter what form they take. 

Arm64 for All Your Workloads 

At Ampere, we designed our processors from the ground up for cloud native workloads. But we also know that not every workload is containerized, and many applications still require virtual machines, especially in regulated environments, legacy migrations, or where workload isolation is important. 

Now you don’t have to choose between performance, efficiency, and operational simplicity. With SUSE Virtualization running on Ampere-based Arm64 servers, you get: 

• High-density, single-threaded performance with predictable latency 

• Energy efficiency that reduces power consumption and TCO 

• A Kubernetes-native VM management experience with no separate hypervisor layer needed 

• Industry-leading price-performance, helping SUSE customers in the most important place: their pockets. 

This means you can run containers and VMs side-by-side, on the same cluster, using the same familiar tooling. 

Benefits for the Ecosystem 

Arm64  servers are making massive inroads into datacenters and cloud service providers, as customers realize that they can save money without impacting the performance of their applications. With Ampere powered servers providing options both in public clouds and on-premises, and SUSE expanding the support they offer for this architecture throughout their product portfolio, customers now have an expanding list of options for their enterprise computing needs on Arm64.  This is exactly the kind of innovation that benefits the ecosystem: open source, architecture-agnostic tooling that helps developers and operators get the most out of modern hardware. 

We’re proud to see Ampere-based platforms powering Kubernetes clusters that now support both containerized and virtualized workloads with the same level of performance, efficiency, and simplicity. And we’re equally proud to be part of a thriving software ecosystem, where partners like SUSE are helping to push the entire industry forward. 

If you’re already running SUSE Rancher Prime, adding VM support on Arm64 is a natural next step. And if you’re new to Ampere? This is a great opportunity to explore what efficient, modern infrastructure really feels like in practice. 

Try It Out 

The Arm64 support in SUSE Virtualization is available today—no emulation, no workarounds, no special configurations. Just straightforward virtualization on Arm64, as it should be. Try it out for yourself with this tutorial. 

You can learn more about Ampere at the Ampere Developer Center, and we invite you to join the Ampere Developer Community if you have questions or feedback, or to share your experiences using Ampere platforms to simplify infrastructure, reduce power consumption, and deliver better performance at scale.