Suse Enterprise Linux 16 Is Here, And Its Killer Feature Is Digital Sovereignty

4 days ago

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

SLES 16 comes pinch exemplary discourse protocol built in.
The caller endeavor distro is integer sovereignty-ready.
This awesome upgrade introduces galore changes and caller features.

Lots of companies are announcing AI this and AI that, but fewer of them connection much than caller AI lipstick connected an aged pig erstwhile you look astatine them closely. Then, there's what SUSE is doing pinch its merchandise of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16 (SLES 16), disposable today. This caller type is positioned arsenic an AI-ready operating strategy tailored to nan demands of today's hybrid cloud, information center, and separator computing environments.

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SLES 16's astir important AI constituent is simply a exertion preview of a built-in model discourse protocol (MCP) host. MCP has go nan agentic procreation of AI-powered applications. Developed arsenic an unfastened modular by Anthropic successful precocious 2024, MCP is built to seamlessly and securely link ample connection models (LLMs) and AI agents to nan vast, ever-changing scenery of real-world data, tools, and services.

Additionally, nan merchandise features built-in support for GPU acceleration, nan latest Nvidia CUDA toolkit, and enhanced instrumentality and Kubernetes guidance for large-scale, compute-intensive deployments. In short, it's an AI-ready Linux distribution.

SUSE: The European Linux for integer sovereignty

In addition, SUSE is backing this caller merchandise up pinch its Sovereign Premium Support (SPS) package. This broad support work is designed to meet nan increasing request for integer sovereignty. Specifically, SPS is designed for enterprises and organizations that require strict information residency, privacy, and operational power wrong nan EU. The work ensures that:

All support unit and information are based successful nan EU, pinch named premium support engineers and work transportation managers assigned to each customer.
Customer support information is stored exclusively connected EU-located networks and servers, addressing some regulatory and geopolitical concerns.
Access to delicate information is strictly constricted to EU-based staff, pinch a committedness to encrypting each information required for troubleshooting.

To reenforce sovereignty, SUSE has collaborated pinch Exoscale, a starring European unreality provider, allowing businesses to deploy SLES connected Exoscale's secure, EU-compliant unreality environment. This effort will alteration organizations to support section information power while leveraging trusted, open-source solutions. As Exoscale CEO Mathias Nöbauer explained, "Digital sovereignty is nary longer a niche requirement; it's a fundamental business necessity for European companies."

SUSE has besides allied pinch AI & Partners to support compliance pinch nan EU AI Act, combining infrastructure and regulatory exertion for sectors specified arsenic finance and healthcare. "Beneath nan aboveground of immoderate AI level lies nan infrastructure of trust: unafraid infrastructure and auditable operations. That is what powers safe, unreality autochthonal AI," said Abhinav Puri, SUSE's VP and GM of Portfolio Solutions and Services.

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Finally, SUSE has joined nan EuroStack initiative. This is simply a argumentation and backing conjugation focused connected processing European integer infrastructure, encompassing cloud, AI, and connectivity platforms. This move aligns SUSE pinch nan broader EU strategy for open-source-based integer sovereignty.

What's nether nan SLES 16 hood?

While each this should drawback nan attraction of anyone who values integer sovereignty aliases wants to tally AI connected their ain hardware, SLES 16 whitethorn person nan astir melodramatic changes of immoderate SLES merchandise to date.

It starts pinch nan installation. SUSE has yet dropped its YaST installer for nan new Agama installer. Agama enables section and distant deployment via browser, is written successful Rust for enhanced representation safety, and maintains compatibility pinch AutoYaST profiles for seamless migration from existing AutoYaST profiles.

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SLES 16 besides debuts its caller Adaptable Linux Platform, which separates nan big Linux from nan exertion layer. This is being done to debar nan age-old Linux problem of dependency hell. Within its decoupling of applications and their limitations from nan operating system, you tin usage nan latest version, moreover nan beta, if you request it for development, while continuing to support aged versions of your exertion connected a much unchangeable type for production. This besides enables simplified updates and amended consistency successful deployment crossed divers environments.

The caller distro has besides adopted nan UsrEtc exemplary for configuration files. That intends supplier defaults now reside successful /usr, while section administrator customizations now unrecorded successful /etc/example.conf.d/*.conf. This separation makes updates cleaner and yet eliminates nan long-standing problem of managing .rpmsave and .rpmnew files.

There person besides been important changes to SLES's default programs:

Networking: NetworkManager is now nan sole networking stack, replacing wicked.
Firewall: NFTables is now nan default, replacing IPTables.
DHCP: KEA DHCP replaces nan older ISC DHCP server.
Virtualization: SLES 16 focuses exclusively connected KVM arsenic nan general-purpose hypervisor. The Xen hypervisor has been removed.
Key-value store: Valkey, nan community-driven fork, replaces Redis.
Display server: Wayland replaces nan X.org server arsenic nan default, though support for X11 applications remains.

The latest SLES besides boasts a caller information approach. SLES 16 has transitioned from AppArmor to SELinux arsenic nan default mandatory entree power (MAC) framework, pinch SELinux enabled successful enforcing mode by default. The caller SLES's SELinux comes pinch complete 440 argumentation modules, allowing you to get started pinch ready-to-run, robust sum for your endeavor information needs.

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SLES 16 besides features post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms. This proactively protects information against "Harvest now, decrypt later" attacks, wherever adversaries whitethorn shop encrypted information coming to decrypt it pinch quantum computers successful nan future. (If you don't deliberation you request to interest astir this, deliberation again. It will happen. And it whitethorn not return that long.)

Linux besides has caller guidance tools. For hands-on server management, SLES 16 has shifted from YaST2 to Cockpit. System administrators from nan Red Hat beingness will admit Cockpit astatine a glance, but caller users should cognize it's an easy-to-use, web-based, distant guidance console. To make it easier for longtime SUSE admins, Cockpit has been updated to seamlessly negociate SLES-specific functions specified arsenic package repositories, package installation, and SUSE subscriptions.

SUSE is besides extending automatic snapshot integration into Cockpit. With each update performed utilizing nan Zypper package head aliases Cockpit, a caller snapshot will beryllium created, and nan strategy will support them to guarantee that strategy changes tin ever beryllium rolled back.

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At nan DevOps level supra this, SLES 16 now includes Ansible. Yes, that's besides a Red Hat-based automation framework. SUSE is shipping it pinch standardized Ansible roles for accordant SLES configuration. This includes roles for firewalls, SELinux, the Podman container manager, and related services. Prefer Salt for your DecOps needs? Salt remains afloat supported via SUSE Multi-Linux Manager.

Extended support

If you activity astatine a institution that dislikes moving from 1 type of nan operating strategy to another, SLES 16 comes pinch a 16-year support promise. Each insignificant type now receives 5 years of support. Specifically, each will travel pinch 2 years of wide support, followed by 3 years of optional semipermanent support. The awesome type arsenic a full is backed by 10 years of mainstream support positive six years of extended service, allowing customers to align upgrade cycles pinch hardware refreshes and regulatory requirements.

Additionally, SUSE's vocabulary has evolved. Moving forward, Service Packs (SPs) are now Minor Releases and Long Term Service Pack Support (LTSS) is now Long Term Support (LTS). This aligns pinch really different Linux distributions picture nan improvement of their releases.

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Additionally, for semipermanent support, SLES 16 is afloat prepared to widen beyond 2038. The 32-bit time_t antagonistic overflow issue, known arsenic nan "Y2038 problem," has been addressed by updating cardinal components and interfaces, including lastlog, utmp, and systemd-logind.

When I see nan full package, I'm impressed. SUSE has gone retired of its measurement to create a caller opinionated endeavor Linux distribution that embraces modern software. If you haven't evaluated SLES precocious for your server, cloud, and separator needs, it's clip to return different look. I deliberation you'll beryllium impressed too.

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