SUSE Software Solution Product Guide

SUSE and Lenovo work together to ensure that the latest SUSE technologies work perfectly with Lenovo ThinkSystem infrastructure and ThinkAgile solutions to provide the most reliable, secure and high-performing datacenters for our customers. Built with proven Lenovo innovation, Lenovo ThinkSystem servers and ThinkAgile solutions extend SUSE's operating systems, cloud solutions, virtualization technologies, edge, and infrastructure platforms so you can build a highly productive IT environment that can help your business achieve true innovation.

Lenovo has proven experience in developing and delivering SUSE-based solutions that help customers modernize and simplify their IT infrastructure to dramatically drive down operating costs and open the door to cutting-edge innovations. Built around the latest Lenovo ThinkSystem servers, the Lenovo solution with SUSE provides businesses with an affordable, interoperable, and reliable industry-leading solution to innovate everywhere, from the data center, to the cloud, to the edge and beyond.

Figure 1. Lenovo and SUSE lead in SAP solutions

Lenovo’s largest supercomputer installations use SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating systems optimized for High-Performance Computing. This includes LRZ in Germany and the Barcelona Super Computer. Also, SUSE is the initial default operating system for SAP HANA solutions.

Lenovo offers various types and forms of SUSE subscriptions so organizations and partners can leverage best in class Lenovo servers to build agile IT infrastructure that is reliable, secure, and high performing. Choosing a SUSE OEM subscription from Lenovo for most customers is the simplest and most cost-effective approach. SUSE subscriptions from Lenovo are specifically pre-tested and optimized to install on Lenovo servers. Lenovo offers support for several SUSE offerings including SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and SUSE High-Performance Computing, giving customers a single point of support for their datacenter with better pricing than they can get from normal SUSE distributors.

With a history of technical collaboration, SUSE and Lenovo consistently deliver innovative joint solutions for the data center. Lenovo's leadership in reliability, customer satisfaction, and performance, combined with SUSE’s reputation in software, continues to deliver innovative data-center solutions and lower total cost of ownership for our joint customers.

With Lenovo, customers have access to decades of datacenter expertise, industry leading support services and the option to leverage Lenovo consultative, professional, and managed service offerings. Lenovo provides customers with the best solution to generate the business results they are looking to achieve, while leveraging a single partner for all aspects of support and services.

Support levels

Lenovo sells SUSE subscriptions that offer either Lenovo support or SUSE direct support. The advantage of the Lenovo support options is that they all offer 7x24 support at significantly lower cost than vendor-provided support options.  Support from SUSE comes in two options: Priority subscriptions or Standard subscriptions.

• Priority subscriptions have support offered 7x24 - seven days a week, 24 hours per day
• Standard subscriptions have support offered 5x12 - Monday to Friday, local business days, typically offered from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM local hours

This section describes the subscriptions available for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) supported by world-class Lenovo Services.

SLES is available in the following deployment scenarios:

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) Physical or Virtual Node: This is the basic SLES x86 Linux Operating System (OS) is sold in a single 2-socket subscription. This subscription supports either two physical sockets of SLES or two virtual machines using SLES.
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) Virtualization Unlimited: This subscription offers unlimited “bare metal” SLES OS instances for virtual machines. This version includes Live Patching, which allows you to update security patches without rebooting machines and without waiting for your next service window. Note: This subscription does include the 1-2 socket physical server OS and unlimited SLES VMs.
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching: This offering allows for kernel updates in real time, and almost eliminates the need for down time during maintenance upgrades. SUSE Linux Enterprise Live Patching is a simple open-source solution that delivers live kernel patching without the need to reboot. With this subscription offering based on the kGraft project, you can perform patching without interrupting your mission-critical workloads and in-memory databases, saving the cost of downtime and increasing service availability. Because it builds on to the existing SUSE Linux Enterprise kernel infrastructure It inherits the support that is currently running on the existing infrastructure. If the server holds SUSE support, Live Patching PN requires SUSE support. If the server holds Lenovo Support, Live Patching part number requires Lenovo Support.

Customers can purchase SLES subscriptions from Lenovo through the following ways:

• CTO (Configure to Order) – this is the OEM subscription that is added to the Lenovo server quotes.
  • Socket-based per Server
• BTO (Build to Order) – this is the OEM subscription that can be added to any customer quotes.
  • Socket-based per Server

Each SLES OS subscription can provide an OS instance for up to two sockets or two virtual machines. Other options include unlimited SLES virtual machines. A “virtualization unlimited” subscription provides both the 2-socket OS and unlimited bare metal SLES virtual machines.

The following table lists the available SLES subscriptions.

The following tables lists the ordering information for SLES offerings. The three tables are as follows:

• SLES offerings with support from SUSE - available worldwide
• SLES offerings with support from Lenovo - available worldwide except PRC
• SLES offerings with support from Lenovo - available in PRC

This section provides information on SUSE Linux Enterprise for High Performance Computing (HPC) from Lenovo. Lenovo is an industry leader in the HPC space with hundreds of HPC wins using SUSE Linux Enterprise for HPC in the deployments. Many of the largest supercomputers are deployed with Lenovo servers and SUSE HPC software.

For IT professionals with performance is a primary concern, SUSE Linux Enterprise for HPC provides capabilities to build high performance datacenter environments. These subscriptions are sold by two physical sockets or two virtual machine instances.

• SUSE Linux Enterprise for HPC. Lenovo resells SUSE Linux Enterprise for HPC subscriptions that cover both Compute and Head Nodes.Lenovo provides Standard and Priority support for these option, recommended due to the lower costs and extensive HPC experience within Lenovo support groups.

Because of the complexity of HPC environments, SUSE recommends that you consider purchasing your subscription with either Long Term Service Pack Support (LTSS), which provides up to 3 years continued general support, or Enhance Service Pack Overlap Support (ESPOS), which provides an additional year of support (a total of 18 months). These options give you significantly more time to upgrade and/or skip a service pack completely. For more information, see https://www.suse.com/support/policy-products/.

The following tables list the ordering information for SUSE Linux Enterprise for HPC offerings. The three tables are as follows:

• HPC offerings with support from SUSE - available worldwide
• HPC offerings with support from Lenovo - available worldwide except PRC
• HPC offerings with support from Lenovo - available in PRC

This section provides information on add-on packages that can be sold with the SLES Operating System from Lenovo. Any “Add-On” package will inherit or adopt the support levels of the underlying server OS (i.e. Standard or Priority support, Lenovo Support or SUSE Support).

• SLES High Availability Extension. SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability (HA) Extension provides mature, industry-leading open source high availability clustering technologies that are easy to set up and use. It can be deployed in both physical and virtual environments. Together with Geo Clustering, the SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension helps maintain business continuity, protect data integrity and maximize service uptime for mission-critical Linux workloads across local to unlimited geographic distances.
• Load Balancing. SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension includes IPv4 and IPv6 load balancing, allowing you to handle node and service failures and redirect requests to other nodes to maintain the availability and performance of the service.
• Clustering. SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension supports the Corosync cluster engine and OpenAIS—the leading standards-based communication protocol for server and storage clustering. Also included is Pacemaker, a highly scalable cluster resource manager with a flexible policy engine that supports n-node clusters. Using Corosync, OpenAIS and Pacemaker, you can continuously monitor the health of your resources, manage dependencies and automatically stop and start services based on configurable rules and policies.
• SUSE Geo Clustering. Geo clustering provides rules-based failover for automatic and manual transfer of a workload to another cluster outside of the affected area. Your mission-critical workloads are transferred away from the affected region to continue to run. Geo Clustering is included with the High Availability Extension subscription for SLES Release 15 and later.
• SLES Long Term Service Pack Support (LTSS). SLES LTSS extends the support period of a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server update for up to three (3) years beyond the standard Service Pack end-of-life. Long Term Service Pack Support significantly lengthens the supported transition period for service pack migrations and extends the life of your SUSE Linux Enterprise Server deployment. You can reduce upgrade risks and costs while ensuring the stability and predictability of your deployment. SUSE typically releases a Service Pack every 12 to 18 months.

The following table lists the ordering information for SUSE Linux Enterprise Add-Ons offerings.

This section provides information on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications sold from Lenovo. SUSE offers a subscription called SLES for SAP Applications that is used for SAP HANA installations and non-HANA applications such as SAP Business Warehouse. One of the largest resellers of SAP HANA servers with over 16,000 systems implemented, Lenovo is well-versed in the planning, installation and management of SUSE-based SAP HANA deployments. Lenovo also offers Lenovo Support options for SLES for SAP Applications.

• SLES for SAP Applications. SLES for SAP Applications is an attractive, bundled subscription with several SUSE technologies. This is the subscription required for SAP HANA use cases. This subscription includes SUSE Linux Enterprises Server with 1-2 sockets or 1-2 Virtual Machines, SUSE High Availability Extension Add-On and integration into the optional SUSE Manager. It also has support of three years included. Like other SLES subscriptions, this one offers the two socket, or two virtual machine option and the unlimited bare metal virtual machine option noted by a “Virtualization Unlimited” description.

The following tables list the ordering information for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP offerings. The three tables are as follows:

• SLES for SAP offerings with support from SUSE - available worldwide
• SLES for SAP offerings with support from Lenovo - available worldwide except PRC
• SLES for SAP offerings with support from Lenovo - available in PRC

This section provides information on SUSE management products.

• SUSE Manager Server. SUSE Manager is software that can automate all aspects of IT environments and processes. The SUSE Manager subscriptions sold by Lenovo are sold by number of nodes vs per socket.

  SUSE Manager was designed to help your enterprise DevOps and IT Operations teams reduce complexity and regain control of their IT assets with a single tool to manage Linux systems across a variety of hardware architectures, hypervisors as well as containers, IoT and cloud platforms. It automates Linux server and IoT device provisioning, patching and configuration for faster, consistent and repeatable server deployments helping to optimize operations and reduce costs. And with automated monitoring, tracking, auditing and reporting of your systems, VMs, and containers across your development, test and production environments, you can ensure compliance with internal security policies and external regulations.

• SUSE Manager for Retail Branch Servers. An infrastructure management software optimized and tailored specifically for the retail industry. From Mainframe and HPC Clusters, bare metal servers and VMs down to point of service terminals, kiosks, self-service, and reverse-vending systems Linux deployments, helps reduce costs, optimize operations, and ensure compliance across your IT infrastructure while reducing complexity and regaining control.
• SUSE Manager Virtualization Management. Automating Linux server management with SUSE Manager reduces administrator effort even as the size and complexity of your Linux deployments grow, and helps you improve IT service quality by maximizing system uptime. You can perform Linux server management and provisioning tasks faster and with fewer errors, for non-stop service delivery.
• SUSE Manager Lifecycle Management. This subscription delivers functionality for updating servers. It also includes advanced server management capabilities that increase your Linux environment’s scalability and enhance your IT staff productivity. It enables you to deploy, configure and redeploy Linux systems from a single, centralized console. Simplify management and reduce operational expenditure with enhanced package staging and improved APIs for managing packages, patches and configurations. Moving packages across multiple stages, such as development, QA and production, is now a simple UI-based task.
• SUSE Manager Monitoring. A so-called monitoring scout will execute commands via ssh on the client and gather data from the output. So, the configuration of monitoring mainly consists in allowing the server to remotely execute commands on the clients.

The following tables list the ordering information for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP offerings. The three tables are as follows:

• SUSE Manager offerings with support from SUSE - available worldwide
• SUSE Manager offerings with support from Lenovo - available worldwide except PRC
• SUSE Manager offerings with support from Lenovo - available in PRC

This section provides information on SUSE Rancher products.

If your organization is deploying Kubernetes clusters to accelerate digital transformation, SUSE Rancher unifies these clusters to ensure consistent operations, workload management, and enterprise-grade security – from core to cloud to edge, and from any provider. Rancher adds significant value on top of Kubernetes, first by centralizing authentication and role-based access control (RBAC) for all of the clusters, giving global admins the ability to control cluster access from one location.

SUSE Rancher addresses the needs of DevOps teams deploying applications with Kubernetes and IT operations delivering enterprise-critical services.

• SUSE Rancher Management Server Subscription Offering: SUSE Rancher provides simple, consistent cluster operations including provisioning and templates, configuration, and lifecycle version management, along with visibility and diagnostics. SUSE Rancher supports management of any CNCF certified Kubernetes distribution, that includes for development (Edge, Branch workloads, etc.) for on-premises workloads, for public Cloud and hosted Kubernetes services (like Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Services, Azure Kubernetes Services and Google Kubernetes engine)

  SUSE Rancher includes audit and security guideline enforcement, monitoring, and logging functions, along with user, network and workload policies distributed across all managed clusters. SUSE Rancher also provides a rich catalog of services for building, deploying, and scaling containerized applications, including app packaging, logging, monitoring, and service mesh.

• SUSE Rancher Additional Management Server: If You require more than one Instance of SUSE Rancher Management Server, you may purchase one or more SUSE Rancher Additional Management Server Subscription Offerings. Each SUSE Rancher Additional Management Server Subscription Offering requires you to first purchase at least one "SUSE Rancher Management Server" Subscription Offering.
• Longhorn Subscription Offering: The Longhorn Subscription Offering is an addon which requires a Current SUSE Rancher Node or Cloud Kubernetes Node Subscription Offering.
• SUSE Rancher Node Subscription Offering: SUSE Rancher Node Subscription Offerings first require a SUSE Rancher Management Server Subscription Offering. For installations running on a Physical Server or as a Virtual Instance, SUSE Rancher Node Subscription Offerings can be used with an unlimited number of Sockets per Physical Server or vCPUs per Virtual Machine.

The following table lists the ordering information for SUSE Rancher offerings.

SUSE licenses are subscription-based, which means that the client has the right to use the software only as long as they have an active subscription. Subscription licenses include updates and support.

Lenovo can renew SUSE part numbers with additional 1, 3 or 5 years of usage. A Subscription and Support (S&S) renewal extends the subscription for a year or more. The customer does not have to purchase a new software license.

The benefit of renewing subscriptions with Lenovo means that you save time and money. Lenovo offers a single point of contact for hardware and software support, so you don’t have to lose time maintaining vendor contact lists and can instead focus on things that matter to your business. Allow us to protect your business agility and product capabilities with your current technology and maintain 24x7 access to service and support (depending on the support contract the company holds). In addition, timely renewals avoid services lapse, non-compliance, and costly reinstatement fees.

Additional information about subscriptions.

1. Q: What types of SUSE subscriptions does Lenovo offer?

   A: Lenovo offers OEM subscriptions and Resell subscriptions for SUSE Linux, HPC, SAP, Manager, and Rancher. “OEM” subscriptions come with industry leading 24x7 support from Lenovo offering a single point to call for any hardware or software issues. Please refer to the product list found in this document.

2. Q: How is SUSE Linux Enterprise Server sold?

   A: SUSE subscriptions are sold in 1, 3 and 5-year options. These are not “licenses” but are subscriptions that provide access to all software downloads, patches, upgrades, etc. and the ability to contact Lenovo or SUSE for support. Support will be either 12x5 or 24x7 terms. Subscriptions are delivered from Lenovo to the customer.

3. Q: How are the SUSE subscriptions delivered?

   A: SUSE subscription keys are inventoried by Lenovo and delivered via the Lenovo Key Management System (LKMS). Customers are sent an Authorization Code used to register the purchase on the LKMS. The actual subscription keys are then emailed to the customer to register at the customer’s SUSE user account.

4. Q: Can I reassign a SUSE subscription in the case of new hardware or a disaster recovery scenario?

   A: Yes, SUSE subscriptions can be reassigned to a new server by changing the server on the customer’s SUSE account.

The Lenovo Server Operating System Interoperability Guide (OSIG) is a comprehensive source of information about operating system compatibility with Lenovo servers. It includes servers in the ThinkSystem, ThinkAgile, System x, ThinkServer, NeXtScale, Flex System and BladeCenter product families and covers servers that are currently supported by Lenovo under warranty.

For more information, please visit the OSIG page at http://lenovopress.com/osig. Use the dropdown menus to filter and fine tune your search. In each of the search results, the support statement column contains clickable links that opens a popup window with details about the support.

For Lenovo option compatibility, the Lenovo ServerProven® program validates selected products for compatibility with all Lenovo ThinkSystem servers. Through the ServerProven Program, Lenovo works with industry leaders to test their equipment with Lenovo products.

For compatibility information, please visit the ServerProven site at http://www.lenovo.com/us/en/serverproven/. For more details, please click on the Lenovo product. For compatibility with OS, please click on the green + button to expand the section.

Lenovo Support provides comprehensive, single-source support for a wide range of server operating systems including SUSE Linux. Lenovo provides 24x7x365 service for critical problems, and support during business hours for noncritical problems. If live phone help is unavailable during those service windows, responses are provided within 2 hours.

For more information on SUSE Linux support, see the following web page:
https://datacentersupport.lenovo.com/solutions/HT507837

For more information about these SUSE offerings from Lenovo, see the following links:

• SUSE for HPC Solutions
• Flyer: Grow Your SAP Applications with Lenovo and SUSE