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By: Drew

February 15, 2018 5:46 pm

21,613 views

SR-IOV – The way to share real virtualized host devices with a virtual machine

Single Root I/O Virtualization or SR-IOV is a specification that allows the isolation of PCI Express (PCIe) resources. It allows a physical PCIe device or adapter to appear as one or more separate physical/virtual PCIe devices. These virtualized devices are also known as Virtual Function (VF) devices. Two main reasons or purposes for SR-IOV are: […]

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By: Drew

December 4, 2017 11:24 am

4,859 views

System YES Certification with a PTF or another maintenance update

During a typical YES Certification of a server or workstation, the Gold Master (GM) release of SUSE Linux Enterprise with the latest Service Pack (SP) is installed on the hardware during certification tests. Sometimes, the GM release needs specific fixes or updates in order to be compatible with a particular hardware platform. As hardware systems […]

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By: Drew

June 21, 2017 4:05 pm

6,165 views

Hardware YES Certification with an installation kit or driver kit (also known as kISO)

An installation or driver kit from SUSE is simply a method to deliver the latest SUSE Linux Enterprise related drivers or other software in a packaged and supported bootable image. Installation kits can be used for any of the following reasons: To update storage drivers, which require very early loading in the installation and boot […]

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By: Drew

February 13, 2017 2:30 pm

5,228 views

Are YES CERTIFICATION bulletin Config Notes from “the Dark Side” of hardware compatibility?

The easy answer is nope—no way! That comes from a person with years of YES Certification experience, not some Rogue person who suddenly has their Force Awaken one day! Please read on, because “Fear is the path to the dark side” and “Hard to see, the Dark Side is!” YES Certification […]

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By: Drew

April 25, 2016 9:17 am

15,670 views

Comparison of UEFI and BIOS – from an operating system perspective

In a recent blog (the one right below this one, on the previous .../communities/blog/ page) I discussed the transition from BIOS (Basic Input Output System) to UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) firmware from a hardware perspective. In this blog I’ll address the comparison from the operating system perspective. There is a definite overlap between […]

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By: Drew

April 25, 2016 8:58 am

14,693 views

Comparison of UEFI and BIOS – from a hardware perspective

For the past several years, x86 hardware systems (including desktops, laptops, workstations and servers) have been transitioning from BIOS-based (Basic Input Output System-based) to UEFI-based (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface-based) firmware interfaces. This firmware interface is usually just called “system firmware.” It is the initial code that recognizes the hardware components in the system […]

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By: Drew

February 25, 2016 2:15 pm

5,419 views

YES Search: The way to all information…well, about certified hardware anyway

Where can you find the certification bulletins for more than 47,200 servers, workstations and other hardware components? How can you determine whether your company’s specific hardware is YES Certified with the latest SUSE Linux Enterprise release? Where can you find the specific hardware configuration for the certified server you are planning to buy […]

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By: Drew

August 24, 2015 7:56 am

6,053 views

New processor(s) before the next SUSE Linux Enterprise Service Pack – YES to the rescue!

New x86 server processor technology is currently released on roughly a 12-to-15 month schedule. That means that approximately every 18 months there is a major x86-architecture update available from server vendors. Variants of these major processor updates, with different feature sets and/or speeds, are also released in-between the 12-to-15 month release cycle. Desktop and laptop […]

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By: Drew

February 12, 2015 11:23 am

5,578 views