Enterprise-grade container management ready to make DevOps fly, with SUSE

It only seems like a few years ago that virtual servers changed the face of application deployment models, and powered what we now refer to as, broadly, the cloud.

Virtual machines have the power to provide massive bang-for-buck returns, with more efficient utilization of finite hardware resources, scalability, rapid imaging, backups, deployments & snapshot restores of entire environments.

Containers are the next logical virtualization step, with more power eked out of each bare metal server, due at least in part to the minimal OS overhead borne by each container.

However, over and above the return on investment in terms of resource utilization that containers offer, why are containers proving so popular in business contexts?

As every IT professional knows, containers allow the creation of microservice-based applications, which enable a modular application build model that’s neatly aligned with agile development methods. In addition, containers are very portable, ensuring that containerized applications and services operate consistently in any environment.

Thanks to today’s container management frameworks (such as Kubernetes) the rapid releases of new application code can reflect swift, business-driven changes that aren’t held back by purely technical or developmental obstacles on a practical basis.

Collectively, these technologies and processes — container portability across dev/test/production environments, reduced cycle times enabled by agile DevOps processes, and efficient lifecycle automation provided by container management systems — enable enterprises to deliver new capabilities faster. This flow sits neatly into business processes: it’s responsive, scalable, fast and capable of supporting demand for greater business agility.

Container management platforms such as Kubernetes support the easy introduction of new application code, and an iterative, improvement-based development mindset, plus there’s an effectively seamless portability of containerized code from development to production environments.

As organizations’ needs change, deployments can be on-premises, in the cloud (public or private), and back, or can be spread in multi-cloud models.

There are significant management challenges to an organization growing its own container management framework. Environments based on Kubernetes (itself an involved and evolving platform) require significant investment in testing and maintaining the ensuing complexity. The solution is

SUSE CaaS platform runs on bare-metal in-house (on compatible hardware), or in public or private clouds, or indeed, any combination thereof. The easy deployment of SUSE CaaS Platform means your Kubernetes environment will be up and running quickly, enabling you to rapidly deploy modern applications on a highly resilient platform, using the very latest in DevOps practice.

SUSE CaaS platform provides a very scalable and capable platform that is secure and built on industry-standard technology. At its core is Micro OS, a version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server especially developed for containerized environments that uses the same kernel as its elder sibling, so there’s no overhead in terms of another operating system to support.

Production-ready Kubernetes provides the open-source standard for container deployment and management, and SUSE CaaS Platform is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) certified Kubernetes distribution. The certification means that you can switch at will from one (certified) distro to another, and cloud and/or on-premise Kubernetes instances integrate seamlessly.

Containers’ ability to empower organizations with rapid delivery of applications means that businesses can react much more quickly to changes in commercial landscapes and utilize resources much more efficiently.

SUSE is currently offering a free 60-day trial to SUSE CaaS Platform, its cutting-edge, Kubernetes-based container management solution, so why not discover for yourself the power of Kubernetes? Alternatively, to learn more or speak to a representative about SUSE, SUSE CaaS Platform, and its other integrated offerings, click here.