SUSE CaaS Platform 2
Release Notes #
This document provides guidance and an overview of high-level general features and updates for SUSE CaaS Platform 2. It describes the capabilities and limitations of SUSE CaaS Platform 2.
General documentation can be found at: https://www.suse.com/documentation/suse-caasp/.
1 SUSE CaaS Platform 2 #
SUSE CaaS Platform (Container as a Service Platform) combines the benefits of an enterprise ready OS with the agility of an orchestration platform for container development.
The basis of SUSE CaaS Platform is SUSE MicroOS. SUSE MicroOS is a modern Linux operating system, designed for containers and optimized for large, clustered deployments. SUSE MicroOS inherits the benefits of SUSE Linux Enterprise while redefining the operating system into a small, efficient and reliable distribution:
Ready to run out of the box: You get more than just a Bash login prompt that requires lots of configuration work
Btrfs with snapshots and rollback for transactional updates
Read-only file system with OverlayFS for
/etc
cloud-init
for initial configuration (Network, Accounts, Salt)Salt for full system configuration
Administration node with dashboard to manage cluster
SUSE MicroOS comes with a novel file system configuration based on Btrfs and OverlayFS:
The base OS and snapshots are read-only
Subvolumes for data storage are read-write
OverlayFS is used for
/etc
(forcloud-init
and Salt)
To manage SUSE MicroOS deployments, cloud-init
is
used:
Very flexible and already well-known by administrators in cloud environments
cloud-init
has been enhanced, so it can configure Zypp repositories and read configuration from local directories
1.1 Advantages of SUSE CaaS Platform #
SUSE CaaS Platform allows you to provision, manage, and scale container-based applications. SUSE offers an application development and hosting platform for containers that automates the tedious management tasks. This allows you to focus on development and writing apps that meet business goals.
The main benefits of SUSE CaaS Platform are:
Enable DevOps and Microservices Applications: Develop, deploy, and automate modular, reliable, and serviceable applications across infrastructure, regardless of the application's architecture.
Enterprise-Grade Security and Scalability: The foundation of SUSE CaaS Platform is our SUSE Linux Enterprise platform which provides a stable and reliable environment for enterprise applications.
Run Everywhere: You can quickly and intelligently respond to demand across private and public clouds. SUSE CaaS Platform helps you manage peak demand without downtime or manual intervention.
Accelerate Business Innovation: Go faster from concept to production. Give developers and operations teams the tools they need to iterate faster and reduce time between application releases.
1.2 Support and Life Cycle #
SUSE CaaS Platform is backed by award-winning support from SUSE, an established technology leader with a proven history of delivering enterprise-quality support services.
The support for version SUSE CaaS Platform 2 ends with the release of version 3. We offer rolling updates allowing customers to upgrade the system via a maintenance update. When releasing version 3, SUSE will offer maintenance updates including packages enabling our customers to move to version 3 via a simple update.
For more information, check our Support Policy page https://www.suse.com/support/policy.html.
1.3 Requirements #
This section lists requirements that SUSE CaaS Platform has on its running environment and underlying hardware.
1.3.1 Supported Environments #
Nodes. SUSE CaaS Platform currently supports clusters of up to 50 nodes.
Storage. Storage can be provided in the following ways:
SUSE Enterprise Storage
NFS
HostPath
Dynamic provisioning using a Kubernetes StorageClass is only supported when using SUSE Enterprise Storage. When using a Kubernetes StorageClass for NFS or HostPath, it must use static provisioning.
Deployment. SUSE CaaS Platform supports the following deployment scenarios:
On physical machines: Running on any Intel 64/AMD64 (x86_64) hardware certified for SLES 12.
Virtualized: SUSE CaaS Platform runs under the KVM, Xen, Hyper-V, and VMware hypervisors listed as supported at https://www.suse.com/documentation/sles-12/book_virt/data/virt_support_hosts.html. However, the following notes and exceptions apply:
For new host machine deployments, SUSE strongly recommends using KVM on SLES 12 SP3.
Running SUSE CaaS Platform virtualized under KVM on Linux-based systems is only supported on SLES systems.
Running SUSE CaaS Platform virtualized on the IBM Z and IBM POWER architectures is unsupported.
On private and public clouds running SUSE OpenStack Cloud 7.
Be aware that presently, SUSE CaaS Platform does not support Kubernetes Cloud Provider integration with SUSE OpenStack Cloud. This means that certain features such as LBaaS, Cinder Storage are not supported in this release.
1.3.2 System Requirements #
SUSE CaaS Platform has the following system requirements:
Minimal amount of RAM: 8 GB
Minimal file system size for the root file system: 40 GB (as Btrfs with snapshots), additional disk space for containers and container images may be required
Minimal file system size for swap: 2 GB (exact size defined by AutoYaST at runtime)
Kernel limits are documented in Section 4.1, “Kernel Limits”
VNC installations are not supported
1.4 Documentation and Other Information #
1.4.1 Available on the Product Media #
Read the READMEs on the media.
Get the detailed change log information about a particular package from the RPM (where
<FILENAME>.rpm
is the name of the RPM):rpm --changelog -qp <FILENAME>.rpm
Check the
ChangeLog
file in the top level of the media for a chronological log of all changes made to the updated packages.Find more information in the
docu
directory of the media of SUSE CaaS Platform 2.The most recent version is always available online at http://www.suse.com/releasenotes/. Some entries may be listed twice, if they are important and belong to more than one section.
1.4.2 Externally Provided Documentation #
Documentation for SUSE CaaS Platform 2 is available at https://www.suse.com/documentation/suse-caasp/.
Find a collection of White Papers in the SUSE CaaS Platform Resource Library at https://www.suse.com/products/caas-platform/resource-library/.
1.5 How to Obtain Source Code #
This SUSE product includes materials licensed to SUSE under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL requires SUSE to provide the source code that corresponds to the GPL-licensed material. The source code is available for download at https://www.suse.com/download-linux/source-code.html.
Also, for up to three years after distribution of the SUSE product, upon request, SUSE will mail a copy of the source code. Requests should be sent by e-mail to mailto:sle_source_request@suse.com or as otherwise instructed at https://www.suse.com/download-linux/source-code.html. SUSE may charge a reasonable fee to recover distribution costs.
1.6 Support Statement for SUSE CaaS Platform #
To receive support, you need an appropriate subscription with SUSE. For more information, see https://www.suse.com/products/server/services-and-support/.
The following definitions apply:
- L1
Problem determination, which means technical support designed to provide compatibility information, usage support, ongoing maintenance, information gathering and basic troubleshooting using available documentation.
- L2
Problem isolation, which means technical support designed to analyze data, reproduce customer problems, isolate problem area and provide a resolution for problems not resolved by Level 1 or prepare for Level 3.
- L3
Problem resolution, which means technical support designed to resolve problems by engaging engineering to resolve product defects which have been identified by Level 2 Support.
For contracted customers and partners, SUSE CaaS Platform 2 is delivered with L3 support for all packages, except the following:
Technology Previews
sound, graphics, fonts and artwork
packages that require an additional customer contract
packages provided as part of the Software Development Kit (SDK)
SUSE will only support the usage of original (that is, unchanged and un-recompiled) packages.
2 Features #
2.1 Kubernetes #
Over the life cycle of a SUSE Container as a Service Platform version, there may be updates to major Kubernetes upstream releases (and some minor releases also). However, the version provided in SUSE Container as a Service Platform will trail the upstream version by up to 6 months, to be able to provide additional QA.
Such version updates will be released as updates within the life of the product. This means there is no concept of overlap support between two versions. Only the latest maintenance update is supported.
The initial version of Kubernetes will be version 1.7.
3 Installation and Upgrade #
For information about general preparations and supported installation methods and upgrade paths, see the documentation at https://www.suse.com/documentation/suse-caasp/.
4 Technical Information #
This section contains information about system limits, several technical changes and enhancements for the experienced user.
When talking about CPUs, we use the following terminology:
- CPU Socket
The visible physical entity, as it is typically mounted to a mainboard or an equivalent.
- CPU Core
The (usually not visible) physical entity as reported by the CPU vendor.
- Logical CPU
This is what the Linux Kernel recognizes as a “CPU”.
We avoid the word “thread” (which is sometimes used), as the word “thread” would also become ambiguous subsequently.
- Virtual CPU
A logical CPU as seen from within a Virtual Machine.
4.1 Kernel Limits #
This table summarizes the various limits which exist in our recent kernels and utilities (if related) for SUSE CaaS Platform 2.
SUSE CaaS Platform 2 (Linux 4.4) | Intel 64/AMD64 (x86-64) |
---|---|
CPU bits |
64 |
Maximum number of logical CPUs |
8192 |
Maximum amount of RAM (theoretical/certified) |
> 1 PiB/64 TiB |
Maximum amount of user space/kernel space |
128 TiB/128 TiB |
Maximum amount of swap space |
Up to 29 * 64 GB |
Maximum number of processes |
1048576 |
Maximum number of threads per process |
Upper limit depends on memory and other parameters (tested with more than 120,000). |
Maximum size per block device |
Up to 8 EiB |
FD_SETSIZE |
1024 |
4.2 File Systems #
SUSE CaaS Platform 2 exclusively supports the file system types Btrfs and OverlayFS. The root file system is a read-only Btrfs which enables transactional updates.
The following table lists supported and unsupported Btrfs features across multiple SUSE CaaS Platform versions.
+ supported |
– unsupported |
Feature | Btrfs on SUSE CaaS Platform 2 |
---|---|
Offline extend/shrink |
+ / + |
Online extend/shrink |
+ / + |
Inode allocation map |
B-tree |
Sparse files |
+ |
Tail packing |
+ |
ExtAttr/ACLs |
+ / + |
Quotas |
+ |
Dump/restore |
– |
Block size default |
4 KiB |
Maximum file system size |
16 EiB |
Maximum file size |
16 EiB |
Data/metadata journaling |
N/A * |
Copy on Write | + |
Snapshots/Subvolumes | + |
Metadata Integrity | + |
Data Integrity | + |
Online Metadata Scrubbing | + |
Automatic Defragmentation | – |
Manual Defragmentation | + |
In-band Deduplication | – |
Out-of-band Deduplication | + |
Quota Groups | + |
Metadata Duplication | + |
Multiple Devices | + |
RAID 0 | + |
RAID 1 | + |
RAID 10 | + |
RAID 5 | – |
RAID 6 | – |
Hot Add/Remove | + |
Device Replace | – |
Seeding Devices | – |
Compression | + |
Big Metadata Blocks | + |
Skinny Metadata | + |
Send Without File Data | + |
Send/Receive | + |
Inode Cache | – |
Fallocate with Hole Punch | + |
* Btrfs is a copy-on-write file system.
Instead of journaling changes before writing them in-place, it writes
them to a new location and then links the new location in. Until the
last write, the changes are not “committed”. Because of the
nature of the file system, quotas are implemented based on subvolumes
(qgroups
).
The maximum file size above can be larger than the file system's actual size because of usage of sparse blocks. The numbers in the above table assume that the file systems are using 4 KiB block size. When using different block sizes, the results are different, but 4 KiB reflects the most common standard.
In this document: 1024 Bytes = 1 KiB; 1024 KiB = 1 MiB; 1024 MiB = 1 GiB; 1024 GiB = 1 TiB; 1024 TiB = 1 PiB; 1024 PiB = 1 EiB. See also http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html.
For more information, also see: https://www.suse.com/products/caas-platform/technical-information/#FileSystem
5 Legal Notices #
SUSE makes no representations or warranties with respect to the contents or use of this documentation, and specifically disclaims any express or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. Further, SUSE reserves the right to revise this publication and to make changes to its content, at any time, without the obligation to notify any person or entity of such revisions or changes.
Further, SUSE makes no representations or warranties with respect to any software, and specifically disclaims any express or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. Further, SUSE reserves the right to make changes to any and all parts of SUSE software, at any time, without any obligation to notify any person or entity of such changes.
Any products or technical information provided under this Agreement may be subject to U.S. export controls and the trade laws of other countries. You agree to comply with all export control regulations and to obtain any required licenses or classifications to export, re-export, or import deliverables. You agree not to export or re-export to entities on the current U.S. export exclusion lists or to any embargoed or terrorist countries as specified in U.S. export laws. You agree to not use deliverables for prohibited nuclear, missile, or chemical/biological weaponry end uses. Refer to https://www.suse.com/company/legal/ for more information on exporting SUSE software. SUSE assumes no responsibility for your failure to obtain any necessary export approvals.
Copyright © 2010- 2018 SUSE LLC. This release notes document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License (CC-BY-ND-3.0 US, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/).
SUSE has intellectual property rights relating to technology embodied in the product that is described in this document. In particular, and without limitation, these intellectual property rights may include one or more of the U.S. patents listed at https://www.suse.com/company/legal/ and one or more additional patents or pending patent applications in the U.S. and other countries.
For SUSE trademarks, see SUSE Trademark and Service Mark list (https://www.suse.com/company/legal/). All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.