SUSE News at SUSECON 2021: Linux and Kubernetes Leadership, Openness and Interoperability, Customer/Community-led Innovation

- Major updates to SUSE Linux Enterprise and SUSE Rancher technologies

- New cloud-ready and cloud-native solutions for Edge and Hybrid IT environments

-Numerous cutting-edge open source projects including Harvester,open source hyper-converged infrastructure solution

NUREMBERG,Germany,May 19,2021 --SUSE®,a global leader in innovative,reliable and enterprise-grade open source solutions,today kicked off SUSECON Digital 2021,an out-of-this-world experience highlighting the latest in enterprise Linux,Kubernetes,Cloud,Edge,and Hybrid IT solutions,and the first SUSECON to feature Rancher technical content and expertise. Today also marks the first major technology announcement from SUSE since its acquisition of Rancher Labs.

Open and Interoperable: A Radically Refreshing Approach to Open Source

At the heart of SUSE's strategy and today's news is the company's commitment to delivering open,interoperable products and solutions. SUSE products are not only open source,they are also truly open. This means SUSE software will always interoperate with leading products in the industry,even products from competitors. This approach is rooted in the company's belief that customers innovate best when they have the freedom to choose the products they believe best fit their needs. SUSE also recognizes that many organizations operate in a heterogeneous environment with multiple clouds,multiple Linux distributions,and multiple Kubernetes distributions and,as a result,does not offer an all-or-nothing value proposition. Instead,customers have complete freedom,choice,and flexibility to define and easily adapt the IT strategy that best fits their needs.

"Our commitment to open interoperability is based on our confidence that we can offer unique value in each of our products,and that we will continue to innovate more rapidly than our competitors in order to sustain our market leadership," said Melissa Di Donato,SUSE CEO. "Today's announcements demonstrate our commitment to innovation with game-changing enhancements to our SUSE Linux Enterprise and SUSE Rancher Kubernetes management technologies,new cloud-ready and cloud-native solutions for Edge and Hybrid IT environments,and a host of cutting-edge open source projects."

Technology Leadership in Enterprise Linux and Kubernetes Management

Enterprise Linux and Kubernetes management form the foundation of the modern IT stack and,as such,are the basis for SUSE's two product families,SUSE Linux Enterprise and SUSE Rancher. Both product families exemplify SUSE's open,interoperable approach with significant enhancements,including:

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 Service Pack 3 (SLES 15 SP3) – SLES 15 SP3 will deliver full binary compatibility between openSUSE Leap and SUSE Linux Enterprise. For example,users will be able to seamlessly move workloads from development and UAT environments running Leap to production environments running SLES 15 SP3 and back again with assured application compatibility. As part of the announcement,SUSE plans to introduce programs and services to help users of CentOS,which no longer has binary compatibility with any commercial Linux distribution,migrate to Leap. SLES 15 SP3 introduces SUSE Linux Enterprise Base Container Images (SLE BCI),which provide truly open,flexible and secure container images and application development tools for immediate use by developers and integrators without the lock-in imposed by alternative offerings. To match the needs of regulated markets,SUSE plans to provide specifically hardened and certified SLE BCI. SLES 15 SP3 includes updated support for the latest Intel,AMD,and IBM Z and POWER hardware platforms,ARM chipsets,enhanced database support and performance,and strengthened security and data protection with STIG compliance and crypto support.

SUSE Rancher 2.6 – Already renowned for its ease of use,SUSE Rancher 2.6 will feature a new,clean,crisp user interface design that enhances the overall cluster management experience,whether managing one or one million clusters. Enhancing support for public cloud Kubernetes services,SUSE Rancher 2.6 will deliver full lifecycle management of Microsoft AKS and Google GKE,adding to existing support for Amazon EKS. Full lifecycle management enables customers to take advantage of the unique benefits of each public cloud's Kubernetes service while leveraging the consistent management,advanced features,and automation provided by SUSE Rancher. SUSE Rancher 2.6 also will introduce support for SLE BCI.

Cloud-Ready and Cloud Native Solutions for Edge and Hybrid IT

For organizations that want to leverage SUSE's entire portfolio,SUSE is introducing a family of open,interoperable solutions,specifically:

SUSE Edge- An open,lightweight,software infrastructure for building,deploying and managing cloud-ready and cloud-native applications across all edges,SUSE Edge connects those edges to public and private clouds and data centers with automation,security and a common management framework. It features an ultra-reliable,lightweight Linux operating system,SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro,and industry defining lightweight Kubernetes distribution,K3s,both purpose-built for edge operating environments. It also includes SUSE Rancher for managing cloud-native containerized workloads and SUSE Manager for managing non-containerized cloud-ready application workloads. To learn more,check out the SUSE Edge solution blog here.

SUSE Hybrid IT - An open,interoperable solution consisting of SUSE Rancher,RKE,Longhorn,SUSE Manager,and SLES,SUSE Hybrid IT offers the complete software stack needed to run both traditional applications and cloud native applications in datacenter and cloud environments. To learn more,check out the SUSE Hybrid IT solution blog here.

SUSE's open,interoperable solutions offer many advantages over deploying standalone Linux and Kubernetes while still allowing customers to connect products from other vendors and create a multi-vendor technology stack,with no fear of any artificial barriers of lock-in to SUSE.

Accelerating Open Source Innovation and Helping Enterprises Innovate Everywhere

Innovation is at the heart of everything SUSE does,and the combined resources of SUSE and Rancher have greatly accelerated the company's speed of innovation. SUSE is pleased to announce the beta release of Harvester,open source HCI software built on Kubernetes. Harvester delivers a new generation of HCI by managing both VMs and containers and by enabling cloud workload migration and hybrid cloud management for Amazon,Azure,and Google Cloud. Today,traditional HCI is the de-facto standard for private cloud because it delivers virtualization,storage,and networking in one easy to consume package,and SUSE believes HCI is ripe for disruption by open source. You can learn more about this project here.

SUSECON Digital begins today. During this year's event,hear from customers including Absa,Hypergiant and ZAMG about how SUSE is helping them achieve their business goals and innovate everywhere.

"We have designed a resilient platform,with SUSE Rancher and Kubernetes at its base. This has definitely shown its worth; the work we've done with SUSE has translated into major savings," said Zak Anderson,CTO,Bison Kubernetes Service,Absa.

"We are in a new industrial age – when we look back in 20 years,we'll see this moment as monumental," said Bren Briggs,Director,DevOps and Cybersecurity,Hypergiant. "Hypergiant is pioneering new ways to put low-power compute capabilities in space,and we're working with K3s and SUSE RGS to do it."

"SUSE Linux plays a highly strategic role at the center of the IT stack – helping to fulfill the constant demand from the business to the CIO,in terms of having to deliver on new applications and new experiences for the benefit the organization. All of which requires the manipulation of huge data sets to create powerful intelligence,relating to nature,climate and ecosystem," said Günther Tschabuschnig,CIO,ZAMG.

About SUSE

SUSE is a global leader in innovative,reliable and enterprise-grade open source solutions. We specialize in Enterprise Linux,Kubernetes Management,and Edge solutions,and collaborate with partners and communities to empower our customers to innovate everywhere – from the data center,to the cloud,to the edge and beyond. SUSE puts the "open" back in open source,giving customers the agility to tackle innovation challenges today and the freedom to evolve their strategy and solutions tomorrow.For more information,visit www.suse.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

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