SUSE and Tigera: Empowering Secure, Scalable Kubernetes with Calico Enterprise

By Steve Hale, Sr. Director, Software & Services Ecosystem GTM — Co-written by Utpal Bhatt, Chief Marketing Officer, Tigera

Modern Workloads Demand Modern Kubernetes Infrastructure

As organizations expand Kubernetes adoption—modernizing legacy applications on VMs and bare metal, running next-generation AI workloads, and deploying intelligence at the edge—the demand for infrastructure that is scalable, flexible, resilient, secure, and performant has never been greater. At the same time, compliance, consistent visibility, and efficient management without overburdening teams remain critical.

The combination of Calico Enterprise from Tigera and SUSE Rancher Prime delivers a resilient and scalable platform that combines high-performance networking, robust network security, and operational simplicity in one stack.

Comprehensive Security Without Compromise

Calico Enterprise provides a unified platform for Kubernetes networking, security, and observability:

• eBPF-powered networking for high performance without sidecar overhead
• One platform for all Kubernetes traffic: ingress, egress, in-cluster, and multi-cluster
• Security for every workload type: containers, VMs, and bare metal
• Seamless scaling with built-in multi-cluster networking and security
• Zero-trust security with identity-aware policies and workload-based microsegmentation
• Integrated observability for policy enforcement and troubleshooting
• Compliance features that simplify audits (PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2, FedRAMP)

Deployed with Rancher Prime, these capabilities extend directly into every cluster, enabling security-conscious industries such as finance, healthcare, and government to confidently run Kubernetes for any use case—from application modernization to AI and edge computing.

Resilience and Visibility at Scale

Modern enterprises run Kubernetes across multiple clusters, regions, and clouds. Rancher Prime simplifies and unifies this landscape, while Calico Enterprise adds:

• Highly available and resilient networking designed for mission-critical applications
• Standardized networking and network security controls across multiple clusters, regions, and clouds 
• Centralized network policy and compliance enforcement across all clusters
• Dynamic service discovery and adaptive network controls
• Rich observability, including real-time flow logs and network performance metrics

This combination gives Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and DevSecOps teams the visibility they need to prevent outages, detect threats faster, and reduce downtime — even in complex multi-cloud topologies.

Operational Simplicity for Platform Teams

Rancher Prime acts as the single pane of glass for cluster lifecycle management, while Calico Enterprise integrates seamlessly to provide a single pane of glass for network security, observability and troubleshooting with minimal operational burden. 

Together, they deliver a frictionless experience for platform teams: unified deployment, automated policy propagation, and security guardrails baked into the platform — not bolted on after the fact.

Open Source Roots, Enterprise Strength

Both SUSE and Tigera are committed to open innovation and customer choice.

Calico, the open-source foundation of Calico Enterprise, is trusted by thousands of organizations and runs on more than 100,000 clusters worldwide. Rancher Prime is fully open source as well, backed by enterprise SLAs and global support from SUSE.

Enterprises can modernize their infrastructure without lock-in, accelerating time-to-value for developers while staying in control of security and compliance.

Choice Backed by Enterprise Support

SUSE Rancher Prime orchestrates these workloads across your infrastructure—whether you deploy them on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server or on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)-compatible platforms. Thanks to SUSE Multi-Linux Support (MLS), customers can run Calico Enterprise on either foundation with full confidence, knowing SUSE provides enterprise-grade patches, updates, and lifecycle support while maintaining binary compatibility. Tigera proudly acknowledges this commitment, assuring customers that their Calico Enterprise–secured workloads remain fully supported and secure — whichever enterprise Linux platform they choose.

The Path Forward

As enterprises continue their cloud-native journey, the combination of Tigera and SUSE offers exactly what’s needed: security, visibility, and operational simplicity — without compromise.

Together, we’re enabling organizations to confidently build, run, and secure the next generation of cloud-native applications.

About Tigera

Tigera is the creator and maintainer of Calico, the most widely adopted open-source container networking and security solution. With Calico Enterprise, Tigera provides comprehensive CNAPP capabilities for Kubernetes, securing production environments for some of the world’s most security-conscious organizations.

About SUSE

SUSE is a global leader in innovative, reliable open source solutions, helping enterprises accelerate digital transformation with SUSE Rancher Prime, SUSE Multi-Linux Support, and more.

👉 Learn more about SUSE Rancher Prime
👉 Explore how Tigera is helping organizations secure Kubernetes environments at scale