Surrounded by SUSE

As I look around and observe everyday life, it is amazing just how prevalent SUSE Linux is in the background fabric of critical infrastructure.  Whether it is something as simple as going to the store, visiting your doctor, flying on a plane or making a transaction in your 401k, it is extremely likely that SUSE  was involved in the critical processes behind it all.

Let’s follow a family on a busy day and you can see what I mean.

“Susan walks out of her house and gets into her car (designed on systems running SUSE) and heads to the store.  On the way, she nearly has an accident, but is fine due to her car’s traction control and ABS system  (powered by silicon checked for defects by systems running SUSE).  At the store she selects a number of products and goes to the register.  SUSE powers the point of sale and inventory systems used by the store.  When swiping her credit card, the anti-fraud systems at the bank running SUSE verify that this is not outside her normal activity and allows the transaction to process successfully.

Upon leaving the store, Susan notices that she is low on fuel and stops by the gas station to fill up.  The fuel comes from crude that was identified by a super computer running SUSE.  Again, the bank card transaction is verified by a system powered by SUSE.

Upon leaving the gas station, she drops by the bank’s ATM machine powered by SUSE, to get some allowance money for the kids.

Next stop, the doctor’s office to check on the results of a CT scan for a troublesome illness.  Thankfully, the doctor reports all is well.  The CT system is powered by SUSE as is the medical imaging archive system (PACS) and EMR systems that store the data for future reference.

Susan now heads to her kids’ school for a quick visit with the teacher.  The teacher indicates they are doing well and that Susan can now see more about what her children are doing through the online portal that is powered by SUSE.  With the parent conference concluded, she takes her kids and heads to the airport to pick up her husband Steve, who is returning from a business trip.

Steve is happily greeted by his family and tells Susan all the flights were fine (thanks to SUSE for powering the ATC systems) and that he needs to mail a document from the post office on the way home.  Stopping by the post office, he hands the letter to the postal employee who puts it in a basket to be sorted by systems (you guessed it) powered by SUSE.

As the day winds down, Steve makes some changes to his 401k (transactions pass through systems at the stock exchange powered by SUSE). As they settle into bed for the night, they watch the news (where the cameras use video routers powered by SUSE) and wait for the 7-day weather forecast (modeled by HPC systems running SUSE) which shows beautiful weather predicted for their vacation.  Reassured, they call it a day and turn out the lights.”

As we can see, SUSE is everywhere.  Not always so obvious, its influence is yet all around us with the assurance that a powerful, multi-faceted technology has become part of many important aspects of  life’s daily activities.

Why is SUSE chosen so frequently for these important tasks?  Based on customer and partner feedback, I believe there are several reasons.

1. SUSE provides the best balance of leading edge technology balanced by enterprise stability.
2. Award-winning support is consistently noted by our partners and customers as a reason they select SUSE.
3. Flexibility to adapt to our partner’s business and technology needs drives many relationships.  There’s not just one way to do it right.
4. Interoperability is a key aspect.  This is not just between Windows and Linux environments, but even in Linux to Linux or hypervisor based environments this is important to our partners and customers.

While SUSE is not an in your face marketing company, we are the quiet company that creates the Linux that drives commerce, helps us to stay healthy and keeps us safe.  When it comes to selecting the underlying OS for your critical infrastructure and applications, do you want to use some free or me too product or would you rather go with the Linux that surrounds you every day and because of the quality, goes unnoticed in the fabric of our lives?