Lead Image © Mario_Paufler, 123RF.com

SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP3 tested

The Chameleon's New Clothes

Article from ADMIN 18/2013

By Thomas Drilling

SUSE has released the third update of its enterprise distribution. Along with updated software and bug fixes, Novell has added new drivers, storage and networking improvements, and support for UEFI secure boot to the current release.

Corporations need long-term stability from the software they use. When they purchase a subscription for an enterprise distribution, corporations are actually buying a promise that the provider will support, maintain, and carefully develop the distribution for as long as possible. Such stability saves the stressed admin from unpleasant tasks like replacing a kernel or some other essential system component.

An enterprise distribution implies that major renovations are needed as infrequently as possible, but without denying the distribution essential new technologies. These usually find their way into the distribution via patches and kernel backports. SUSE and Red Hat offer customers a seven-year and, optionally, a 10-year product life cycle. During this time, both companies keep essential system components such as the kernel, glibc, important system libraries, and development tools as constant as possible. Nevertheless, they regularly provide customers with the latest security patches. This approach also explains the Service Pack or Service Patch designation in the SUSE product name.

SUSE Manager

Companies that use a large number of enterprise distributions must distribute them to and maintain them on a large number of servers. This setup takes a powerful management tool. In contrast to Red Hat – with its Red Hat Customer Portal (RHCP) – SUSE does not offer a cross-site system management via a hosted service but instead offers a virtual appliance that needs to be installed locally: the SUSE Manager [1]. In terms of management, SUSE Manager delivers something similar to the Red Hat tool, but it costs extra. If you register a licensed SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) system with SUSE Manager, you have access to extensive management features, including monitoring and a scheduler for scheduling automatic

...

Use Express-Checkout link below to read the full article (PDF).