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Suse Goes 64-bit ARM Servers
Suse wants to speed the development of server systems based on 64-bit ARM processors.
The outfit said that it is making available to its partners a version of Suse Linux Enterprise 12 ported to ARM’s 64-bit architecture (AArch64).
This will enable them to develop, test and deliver products to the market based on ARM chips.
Suse has also implemented support for AArch64 into its openSUSE Build Service. This allows the community to build packages against real 64-bit ARM hardware and the Suse Linux Enterprise 12 binaries.
Hopefully this will improve the time to market for ARM-based solutions, the firm said.
Suse partners include chip makers AMD AppliedMicro and Cavium, while Dell, HP and SoftIron. Suse wants ARM processors to be part of a scalable technology platform in the data centre.
Through participation in the programme, partners will be able to build solutions for various applications, from purpose-built appliances for security, medical and network functions, to hyperscale computing, distributed storage and software-defined networking.
There are multiple vendors using the same core technology licensed from ARM. This provides a common base for the OS vendors, like Suse, to build support in their kernel.
Suse has some competition for ARM-based systems. Last year, Red Hat started up its ARM Partner Early Access Programme (PEAP), while Canonical has offered ARM support in its Ubuntu platform for several years now, including a long-term support (LTS) release last year that included the OpenStack cloud computing framework.
SUSE Brings Hadoop To IBM z Mainframes
SUSE and Apache Hadoop vendor Veristorm are teaming up to bring Hadoop to IBM z and IBM Power systems.
The result will mean that regardless of system architecture, users will be able to run Apache Hadoop within a Linux container on their existing hardware, meaning that more users than ever will be able to process big data into meaningful information to inform their business decisions.
SUSE’s Veristorm Data Hub and vStorm Enterprise Hadoop will now be available as zDoop, the first mainframe-compatible Hadoop iteration, running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for System z, either on IBM Power12 or Power8 machines in little-endian mode, which makes it significantly easier for x86 based software to be ported to the IBM platform.
SUSE and Veristorm have also committed to work together on educating partners and channels on the benefits of the overall package.
Naji Almahmoud, head of global business development for SUSE, said: “The growing need for big data processing to make informed business decisions is becoming increasingly unavoidable.
“However, existing solutions often struggle to handle the processing load, which in turn leads to more servers and difficult-to-manage sprawl. This partnership with Veristorm allows enterprises to efficiently analyse their mainframe data using Hadoop.”
Veristorm launched Hadoop for Linux in April of last year, explaining that it “will help clients to avoid staging and offloading of mainframe data to maintain existing security and governance controls”.
Sanjay Mazumder, CEO of Veristorm, said that the partnership will help customers “maximize their processing ability and leverage their richest data sources” and deploy “successful, pragmatic projects”.
SUSE has been particularly active of late, announcing last month that its software-defined Enterprise Storage product, built around the open source Ceph framework, was to become available as a standalone product for the first time.