Will help customers accelerate innovation, improve system reliability, meet tough security requirements and adapt to new technologies
As enterprises worldwide seek greater competitive advantage and growth via open source technologies, SUSE® today unveiled SUSE 
Linux Enterprise 12 Service Pack 2 to power physical, virtual and cloud-based mission-critical workloads. The newest version of the world-class SUSE Linux Enterprise Server open source operating system, SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SP2 will help customers accelerate innovation, improve system reliability, meet tough security requirements and adapt to new technologies. More than two-thirds of the Fortune Global 100 use SUSE Linux Enterprise.
“SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SP2 has already earned rave reviews from partners and beta testers worldwide,” said Olaf Kirch, SUSE Vice President of SUSE Linux Enterprise Engineering. “SUSE is committed to enabling customers to bring their state-of-the-art solutions to market faster by leveraging the latest technologies. They also need to run mission-critical workloads with maximum uptime and proven security. This latest version of SUSE Linux Enterprise helps them do both using all the advantages of open source software.”
Enhancements to SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SP2 include:
Ten-fold increase in packet processing via software-defined networking that combines Open vSwitch with the Data Plane Development Kit. This is a key enabler for telecom providers to efficiently implement virtual network functions. Added to SUSE Linux Enterprise’s broad hypervisor support, the integration of DPDK gives customers a complete virtualization solution for cloud and on-premise deployments.
More agile support for SAP applications to ease migration to S/4HANA, accelerate deployment of SAP applications, tune SAP HANA for performance, and create a more resilient and secure SAP environment with enhanced support for SAP HANA clusters, even on geographical levels.
Reduced downtime and improved I/O performance through persistent system memory applications using integrated NVDIMMs that save data in seconds and make data immediately available on reboot.
Increased ability to implement cost-effective, high performance data analytics on IBM Power Systems LC and OpenPOWER servers, including bare metal support.
Time- and resource-saving “skip service packs” functionality, which lets customers skip upgrades of prior service packs and jump straight to SP2 from SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.
Ongoing FIPS 140-2 certification to meet strict security requirements of federal government, FISMA and financial industry customers.
Reduced downtime for large-memory IBM POWER-based systems via minimized memory initialization times for server restarts along with high availability and geo clustering support for IBM POWER.
Support for ARMv8-A, including enablement for the Raspberry Pi3, making SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2 one of the first commercially available enterprise Linux platforms for this architecture.
Support for Intel’s scalable Omni-Path Architecture to deploy high performance computing workloads.
Simplified access to the latest packages and technologies via SUSE Package Hub integration with SUSE Customer Center, helping customers seamlessly obtain modules and package updates.
Input from partners including HPE, Intel and others have enabled building NVDIMM capability as an integral component of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 platform, allowing customers to benefit from early adoption. Scott Farrand, Vice President of Platform Software, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, said, “Next-generation applications, especially database and analytics applications, require new levels of performance. Through close collaborative engineering, HPE and SUSE have enabled support for NVDIMM technology on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2, allowing customers to begin achieving and exceeding performance requirements for next-generation applications.”
Barbara Couturier, Lenovo Director of Strategic Alliances, said, “SUSE Linux Enterprise continues to be a powerful foundation for the deployment of mission-critical services, benefiting our joint customers with maximized uptime and security on value-added Lenovo hardware.”
Enhanced solutions based on SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SP2 include:
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for z Systems and LinuxONE SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for POWER
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for ARM
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for Raspberry Pi
- SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension and Geo
- Clustering for SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Workstation Extension
SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 SP2 images are also available for public cloud infrastructures, making it easier to offer public cloud services and migrate to public cloud from on-premise environments. For more information about the SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 Service Pack 2 family of solutions, visit www.suse.com/server.
