SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 2 Released

NUREMBERG, Germany, Feb. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- SUSE today announced the general availability of SUSE® Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 2 (SP2). This latest update to the industry's most interoperable platform for mission-critical computing offers improved performance, reliability and efficiency, while maintaining enterprise quality and application compatibility. Customers can use SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP2 to deliver their mission-critical IT services faster, more reliably, and more cost effectively, today and tomorrow.

"In order to stay ahead of our competitors, we need to exploit every possible advantage - including IT advantages," said Urs Frey from Services Informationstechnologie at Die Schweizerische Post. "During internal tests, we've been impressed with the overall performance, reliability and quality, and are looking forward to moving our production workloads onto SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 2."

Forward-Looking Development
SUSE has 20 years of experience supporting global enterprises with complex systems. More than 13,000 customers worldwide, representing every type of business, rely on SUSE to deliver IT services reliably, securely and cost effectively. This latest service pack is a result of a new forward-looking development approach that leverages mature community Linux kernel development processes. By combining modern Linux kernels, consistent libraries and interfaces with a unique, forward-porting approach, SUSE provides customers faster access to open source innovation, while maintaining enterprise quality and application compatibility.

"Historically, Linux vendors delivered enterprise quality and kernel stability by standardizing on a given kernel release, and back-porting upstream enhancements to that kernel over time. We are starting to see the industry move away from this approach," said Al Gillen, program vice president, System Software, at IDC. "SUSE's approach leverages the growing maturity of the upstream Linux kernel development processes and allows the company to apply its innovation where it makes the best business sense, while maintaining a product that offers the long term application environment stability that enterprise customers demand."

New Features Offer Improved Performance, Reliability and Efficiency
SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP2 is the first release built using SUSE's new, forward-looking development model. Notable features include an updated Linux kernel, enhanced filesystem support, and expanded virtualization capabilities:

• 3.0 Linux kernel: SP2 includes scheduler and memory management optimizations, support for transparent huge pages and per-CPU network load balancing. These features improve the performance of compute and I/O intensive workloads. SP2 supports the latest Intel* Xeon and AMD* Opteron processors, and exploits new hardware RAS features like CPU and memory offlining.
• Btrfs: SP2 is the first Linux platform to offer commercial btrfs filesystem support. Snapper, a unique tool that's integrated with YaST and Zypper, uses the copy-on-write and snapshot capabilities of btrfs to help administrators audit and roll-back system configuration changes, improving resiliency and services availability.
• Linux Containers: SP2 includes support for Linux Containers - highly efficient and low overhead OS virtualization. Also designed to work well with Xen*, KVM, ESX and Hyper-V*, SP2 offers the most extensive virtualization capabilities of any enterprise Linux distribution.

Global Partner Support
For two decades, SUSE has forged partnerships with the world's leading technology providers in order to deliver innovative, affordable, enterprise-quality infrastructure solutions to a generation of customers including the London Stock Exchange, Walgreens, SONY, Sesame Workshop and Office Depot. Many customers trust SUSE and its partners to deliver a diverse range of core, mission-critical IT services, from high-volume market data and trading, to manufacturing and production, to e-commerce and air traffic control, to name a few.

"Open standards-based platforms on x86 architectures deliver the systems management features our customers require to maximize performance while achieving greater efficiencies," said Sally Stevens, Dell vice president of server marketing. "By leveraging the Linux 3.0 kernel, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 is positioned to best exploit the latest features of Dell's PowerEdge servers, delivering the uncompromising performance and reliability customers expect." 

"When clients deploy business critical applications on Linux for its security benefits and cost savings, they often find the installation process complex and time consuming," said Scott Farrand, vice president of Industry Standard Servers and Software, HP. "Combining the advanced features of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 with the ProActive Insight Architecture of the HP ProLiant Gen8 server line, the installation process is streamlined, eliminating 60 percent of the manual steps involved and cutting installation time in half."

"IBM and SUSE have a long history of technical innovation and collaboration, helping our customers optimize their workload investments," said Jean Staten Healy, director, Linux, IBM. "With the Linux 3.0 kernel, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 highlights the latest performance-enhancing and power-saving capabilities of IBM Systems and can help customers optimize workloads to achieve maximum performance and value."

"For over 20 years, Intel and SUSE have collaborated to help deliver open-standards-based solutions offering increased performance, reliability, efficiency and security for virtualization, cloud and mission-critical applications powered by Intel Xeon Processors," said Doug Fisher, vice president, Intel Software and Services Group and general manager, System Software Division. "Intel's extensive open-source contributions help improve the performance, stability and efficiency of Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 2 takes advantage of those advancements. End-customers receive a rock-solid foundation to cost-effectively manage their most demanding data center requirements."

Today, SUSE is recognized by independent software vendors as an established platform for running mission-critical, enterprise-quality workloads. More than 8,500 applications are certified and supported on SUSE Linux Enterprise – more than any other enterprise Linux distribution.

"Customers today run a mix of Windows and open source software. Both SUSE and Microsoft are committed to meeting the interoperability needs of these customers in our cloud offerings," said Sandy Gupta, general manager of the Open Solutions Group at Microsoft. "Our technical collaboration to support cross-platform virtualization has resulted in features in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 that make it a first class guest in a Hyper-V environment and a critical building block as we strive to help our customers embrace the cloud."

“SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP2’s new Linux kernel version 3.0 offers many new features and enhancements that will help SAP customers utilize the newest technology improvements with their infrastructures running SAP® solutions,” said Helge Deller, head of SAP LinuxLab at SAP AG.  “In cooperation with SUSE, we’ve developed installation and migration paths for existing installations of SAP solutions to support Linux kernel 3.0. In fact, the SAP NetWeaver® technology platform is now available on SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP2.”

Comprehensive Product Portfolio
SUSE Linux Enterprise is a modular, versatile platform, designed with flexibility and scalability in mind. A comprehensive set of operating system products and extensions are available today for ordering and fulfillment:

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server: A reliable, scalable and secure server operating system, built to power physical, virtual and cloud-based production workloads. Supported on x86, x86_64, Itanium and IBM* Power processor architectures.
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z: A server operating system optimized for IBM System z mainframe hardware. Used by over 80% of the mainframe Linux market.
• SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension: An integrated suite of open source clustering technologies that helps customers ensure continuous access to systems and data, reducing unplanned downtime. Now with geo-site clustering capabilities for cost effective disaster recovery.
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop - A desktop operating system designed to coexist with Windows*, UNIX* and Mac*. Built from a common code base so customers can maximize their IT investments.
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Virtual Machine Driver Pack: Paravirtualized drivers for common Windows operating systems that improve communication between hypervisors and guest operating systems by accelerating network and storage I/O. Now with KVM support.

"Businesses today are increasingly relying on innovative, yet proven technologies to compete more effectively and maximize their revenue potential," said Michael Miller, vice president of Global Alliances and Marketing, SUSE. "We're proud to deliver customers enhanced performance, reliability and efficiency with SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 2. With our first platform developed through a forward-looking approach, we're delivering new features and enhancements, including support for the latest industry standard hardware, while maintaining enterprise quality and investment protection."

Learn More
More information about SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP2 can be found at www.suse.com/promo/sle11sp2.html.

Evaluation copies can be download from http://download.novell.com.

Annual subscriptions are offered in three levels - Basic, Standard and Priority. Support subscriptions offer major benefits, including immediate delivery of upgrades, patches and security fixes, access to award-winning SUSE technical support, and IP indemnification. Current pricing and more information is available at www.suse.com.

SUSE practitioners can learn about and experience the latest developments in SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP2 by attending a SUSE Road Tour event in a local city, or at SUSECon, SUSE's premier event for customers, partners and community enthusiasts.

About SUSE
SUSE is a leading provider of enterprise Linux solutions that help companies increase agility, reduce cost and manage complexity.  With a portfolio centered on SUSE Linux Enterprise, the most interoperable platform for mission-critical computing, SUSE enables organizations to confidently deliver computing services across physical, virtual and cloud environments.  With our award-winning products and ecosystem of partnerships, SUSE solutions empower thousands of organizations around the world. For more information, visit us at www.suse.com.

Copyright © 2012 Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.  SUSE and openSUSE are registered trademarks and SUSE Studio is a trademark of Novell Inc. in the United States and other countries.  *All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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