DEVOPSdigest

SUSE announced updates to its application delivery solutions that help customers accelerate production of modern containerized and cloud native applications. Updated products include SUSE CaaS Platform 4 and SUSE Cloud Application Platform 1.5.

These updates advance SUSE's delivery and support of solutions to create, deploy and manage workloads anywhere – on premise, hybrid and multi-cloud – with exceptional service, value and flexibility.

The enhanced solutions advance the already exceptional experiences offered to application developers, DevOps teams and Kubernetes platform operators. SUSE is first to provide enterprises with advanced networking for Kubernetes based on the Cilium open source project. Leveraging Cilium, SUSE enables Kubernetes users to strengthen application security at scale with high performance packet filtering and network communication security policies that are easy to implement and control. SUSE also introduces new application discovery and deployment capabilities that allow users to quickly and easily deploy applications and services that have been published as Helm charts, including hundreds of popular open source DevOps tools and ISV solutions as well as internally developed applications and services.

"SUSE's modern application delivery solutions are easy for development and DevOps teams to use and for IT to operate," said Thomas Di Giacomo, SUSE President of Engineering, Product and Innovation. "Our support of Cilium-based networking puts our customers ahead of those using other commercially supported Kubernetes solutions and is an example of how we're powering digital transformation with agile open source solutions that enable enterprises to continually innovate, compete and grow."

SUSE application delivery solutions include SUSE CaaS Platform, an enterprise-ready container management solution based on Kubernetes, and SUSE Cloud Application Platform, which runs on top of Kubernetes and helps enterprises achieve their cloud native application delivery goals more quickly and cost effectively. DevOps teams can take advantage of the former to manage a wide range of workloads, including traditional, transitional and cloud native workloads. The latter solution adds ready-made workflow automation that enables DevOps teams to deliver cloud native applications rapidly, at scale and in multi-cloud environments. SUSE's solutions complement each other and can be used effectively together and separately.

The newest release of SUSE's Kubernetes-based container management platform, SUSE CaaS Platform 4 elevates Kubernetes platform operations with enhancements that strengthen application security, make it easier to keep pace with technology advancements and expand platform scalability options. The solution integrates the latest releases of Kubernetes and SUSE Linux Enterprise.

SUSE CaaS Platform 4 enables enterprises to:

- Strengthen application security at scale with Cilium-based high-performance packet filtering and network communication security policies that are easy to implement and control. Fast packet filtering protects their cluster more efficiently. Centralized management allows customers to secure communications at scale as they define and implement security policies in a consistent and efficient way.

- Keep pace with Kubernetes advancements with non-disruptive platform updates that facilitate easier and more frequent access to new features. They can leverage new features sooner with frequent platform updates that operate smoothly behind the scenes. In addition, SUSE CaaS Platform can now update itself, transitioning loads seamlessly to updated services, without expensive downtime.

- Expand platform scalability options, both up and down, to support a wider range of business use cases, workloads and environments. Customers can scale Kubernetes efficiently using a distributed installation framework that scales horizontally as the cluster grows. They can also reduce the cost of small-scale deployments with a new minimum cluster size of three nodes.

SUSE Cloud Application Platform 1.5, the latest version of SUSE's modern application delivery platform for Kubernetes, reduces management complexity with new user interface enhancements. It also increases IT efficiency by providing a faster time to value with a simple and more predictable installation experience on hosted Kubernetes services.

SUSE Cloud Application Platform 1.5 provides:

- Instant application discovery and deployment, introduced as a tech preview, that enables users to browse any Helm chart repository including embedded documentation, set required deployment values directly in the UI, and deploy applications to Kubernetes with a single click.

- Simplified application autoscaling and quota management directly from the Stratos UI. Developers and administrators can quickly verify and adjust autoscaling parameters to ensure consistent-application availability. Platform operators and end-users can also monitor and allocate resource usage more effectively directly in the UI.

- Increased IT efficiency and faster time to value with simple and more predictable installation on hosted Kubernetes services. IT operations staff can now deploy SUSE Cloud Application Platform to SUSE CaaS Platform, Amazon EKS, Microsoft AKS and Google GKE via Terraform scripts for a simple, predictable and repeatable experience.

SUSE CaaS Platform 4 and SUSE Cloud Application Platform 1.5 will be available in October 2019.