SUSE® today announced partner program expansion to include support for 64-bit ARM server processors. This expansion makes available to partners a version of SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 that allows them to develop, test and deliver products to the market using 64-bit ARM chips from vendors including AMD, AppliedMicro and Cavium along with server manufacturers Dell, E4 Computer Engineering, HP and SoftIron to provide customers with more choice, flexibility and opportunities to save on their technology infrastructure.
"SUSE has always been a leader in porting Linux to other platforms, and this program brings the same benefits and interaction to the ARM AArch64 ecosystem that our partners providing x86-64, Power and System z solutions already experience," said Ralf Flaxa, SUSE vice president of engineering. "SUSE's ARM partner program will provide ARM ecosystem partners access to AArch64-supported SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 software and expertise, establishing relationships that will result in supported enterprise solutions on different hardware platforms to meet a variety of customer needs."
Matt Eastwood, IDC senior vice president, Enterprise Infrastructure and Datacenter, said, "Interest in ARM servers is growing, and the first ARM server units are already shipping into market. The technology is seeing early adoption today for specific use cases, and interest is expected to increase going forward. We expect that ARM will also have significant relevance to IoT solutions. The release of SUSE Linux Enterprise for AArch64 is an important step to helping to build a Linux software ecosystem around ARM server products."
ARM server processors provide a scalable technology platform that can be configured to meet diverse business and application needs in the data center, such as efficient web-scale workloads and rapid cloud build out. Partners can take advantage of SUSE Linux Enterprise support for ARM processors in various market areas, including purpose-built appliances, such as security, medical and network devices; hyperscale computing; distributed storage; and software-defined and classic networking.
To simplify partner access, SUSE has also implemented support for ARM and AArch64 into its openSUSE Build Service. This allows the community to build packages against real 64-bit ARM hardware and the SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 binaries, improving time to market and compatibility for AArch64 solutions. End users benefit as partners take less time to build, test and release to market products based on 64-bit ARM architectures.
Partners Comment on SUSE's ARM Program
Suresh Gopalakrishnan, general manager and corporate vice president, Server Business Unit, AMD, said, "AMD and SUSE have been long-time technology partners dedicated to driving innovative solutions into the server market. We are pleased to be working with SUSE to accelerate a robust ecosystem for AArch64 (ARMv8). The availability of SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 with AArch64-support for AMD Opteron™ A1100 Series processor (codenamed 'Seattle') will lead to timely and flexible data center solutions."
John Williams, vice president of marketing, AppliedMicro, said, "AppliedMicro's X-Gene© processor, the first and only 64-bit ARM server solution in production, has been the leading platform for software development with leading vendors such as SUSE within the ARM partner community. SUSE and AppliedMicro have worked closely to ensure rapid development of this important piece of the enterprise software ecosystem to facilitate broad availability of cost-effective, power-efficient, enterprise-class ARM-based server platforms."
Lakshmi Mandyam, director, server systems and ecosystems, ARM, said, "Greater choice of architectures and software platforms will open up the server market and make it far more competitive and innovative. We applaud the efforts of SUSE to deliver SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 and openSUSE Build Service which will enable the deployment of ARM servers to happen as quickly and efficiently as any other data center hardware today."
Larry Wikelius, director, Thunder Ecosystems and Partner Enablement, Cavium, said, "Combining SUSE's enterprise customer experience and innovative technology with Cavium's 48 core ARMv8 ThunderX™ Workload Optimized Processor is exactly what the volume server market is looking for. Cavium has worked closely with the SUSE team on ThunderX for core platform support and validation as well as key optimizations that fully utilize the workload specific accelerators, integrated I/O and dual socket features that ThunderX delivers. Our customers and our ecosystem partners are successfully running openSUSE today on ThunderX and this expanded commitment from SUSE will accelerate their overall development and production SUSE deployments at some lead ThunderX customers in 2016."
Larry Kelmar, senior director, HP/ARM Alliance, HP, said, "When it comes to addressing our customers' compute needs, one size does not fit all and ARM64 technology offers an efficiency advantage for certain workloads, such as web caching, requiring a balance of compute performance with more memory. HP's continued development of the ARM64 ecosystem with SUSE reflects our commitment to provide our customers with the right compute, for the right workloads, at the right economics."
Norman Fraser, CEO of SoftIron, said, "We are delighted to be working with SUSE and to be part of their OEM program. The 64-bit ARM ecosystem is growing rapidly and SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 is a major force driving that momentum. We're excited about the potential that SUSE can bring in complementing our hardware and software innovation platforms for enterprise 64-bit ARM."
For more information about SUSE's ARM partner program and support for 64-bit ARM server processors, visit suse.com/partners/arm.html.
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