SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Reliability, availability and serviceability advances

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 now supports Swap over NFS. Data center managers can leverage remote storage for local server needs and denser “diskless” server systems to reduce their acquisition, implementation, administration, and management costs. By using Swap over NFS, data center managers can cost-effectively protect their systems against application restarts and expensive downtime. Also new in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 are control groups and CPUset for more fine-grained management of CPU, memory, storage and networking resources.

Green IT innovations

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 features innovative power saving capabilities that let you derive maximum performance per watt. “Tickless idle” is a new kernel feature that eliminates periodic timer ticks when system CPUs are idle, allowing the CPU to remain in power-saving states for longer periods of time, lowering power consumption and reducing cost. Also included in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 are more granular power profiles which are file-based and can be more easily used by IT managers for enterprise-wide power management.

Fastest update stack

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 includes a new software package management system that automates the process of installing, removing, upgrading, and configuring software packages. Over 100 times faster than its predecessor, it provides the fastest performance of any enterprise Linux distribution. Systems that might have taken hours to update now take just minutes.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono® Extension

.NET applications on Linux

Corporate and ISV developers can now run .NET applications on Linux servers and host ASP.NET 2.0 and ASP.NET AJAX enabled applications on Apache web server. This results in improved interoperability of .NET applications with Java and other Linux/UNIX applications by exposing .NET functionality to these applications, and by allowing developers to run both .NET and Java together on Linux.

Mainframe support for .NET applications

Corporate and ISV developers who run .NET applications on Linux now receive support for mainframe-based server consolidation. This results in increased flexibility for organizations that want to run their existing .NET software assets on a wide range of the most commonly used hardware platforms.

Increased performance and scalability for .NET applications

This offering boasts advanced 64-bit support, higher CPU limits than Windows (32 CPU versus 4 CPU limit for Windows Web and Standard Edition), higher memory limits than Windows (16GB on x86 versus 4 GB on x86 for Windows Web Server Edition) and faster networking and I/O stacks. These capabilities provide a compelling advantage over Windows and give you improved systems management, maintenance, scalability and performance for your .NET applications on Linux—all without restrictive and costly licensing policies.

Visual Studio targeting Linux

C# and Visual Basic developers can now run C# and Visual Basic programs (written and compiled in Visual Studio) on Linux. This enables them to leverage existing skills and the .NET toolchain to develop and maintain server and Web applications that run on Linux.

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension

Continuous data replication

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension includes DRBD, a leading open source networked disk management tool. Using DRBD, IT managers can build single partitions from multiple disks that mirror each other, and make data highly available. They can also quickly restore their clustered services by taking advantage of its fast data resynchronization capabilities.

Cluster-aware file system and volume management

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension includes the latest version of OCFS2, which is now a shared-disk POSIX-compliant generic cluster file system. Using OCFS2, customers can now cluster a much wider range of applications for higher availability using cluster-aware POSIX locking, as well as resize their clusters and add new nodes on the fly. Also included is cLVM2, a clustered logical volume manager, to provide IT managers with a single, cluster-wide view of storage.

Flexible, policy-driven clustering

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension uses OpenAIS for clustering messaging and membership. Also new is Pacemaker, a highly scalable cluster resource manager with a flexible policy engine that supports n-node clusters and virtual environments. In addition, the product includes a wide assortment of resource agents for numerous applications. In short, you get everything needed to continuously monitor the health of your physical and virtual resources, manage dependencies, and automatically stop and start services based on configurable rules and policies—and do so more affordably than ever.

User-centric management tools for clustering

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension includes a powerful new unified command line interface. It lets experienced IT managers quickly and easily install, configure and manage their clustered Linux servers. Also included is an improved graphical user interface that provides less experienced administrators with a simple, user-friendly tool for monitoring and managing their clustered environment.

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