SUSE Launches the SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 2

SUSE recently announced the launch of SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 2 (SP2). This new version will now provide users with higher performance while continuing to provide enterprise quality and application compatibility, according to the company.

Customers will now be able to use this new SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP2 solution to provide their mission-critical IT services to customers at lower rates, faster speeds and give them more assurance about the scalability and reliability factors. In a release, Urs Frey from Services Informationstechnologie at Die Schweizerische Post said, "In order to stay ahead of our competitors, we need to exploit every possible advantage - including IT advantages. During internal tests, we've been impressed with the overall performance, reliability and quality, and are looking forward to moving our production workloads onto SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 2."

Some of the latest features include advanced performance, an updated Linux kernel, enhanced filesystem support and improved virtualization capabilities. The SP2 is the first Linux platform to offer commercial btrfs filesystem support and includes scheduler and memory management optimizations, along with support for transparent huge pages and per-CPU network load balancing. 

Al Gillen, program vice president, System Software, at IDC (News - Alert), said, "Historically, Linux vendors delivered enterprise quality and kernel stability by standardizing on a given kernel release, and back-porting upstream enhancements to that kernel over time. We are starting to see the industry move away from this approach. SUSE's approach leverages the growing maturity of the upstream Linux kernel development processes and allows the company to apply its innovation where it makes the best business sense, while maintaining a product that offers the long term application environment stability that enterprise customers demand."

Independent software vendors across the world acknowledge SUSE as an established and reliable platform for running mission-critical, enterprise-quality workloads. Over 8,500 applications are certified and supported on SUSE Linux Enterprise, which is more than any other enterprise Linux distribution.

Doug Fisher, vice president, Intel (News - Alert) Software and Services Group and general manager, System Software Division, said, "For over 20 years, Intel and SUSE have collaborated to help deliver open-standards-based solutions offering increased performance, reliability, efficiency and security for virtualization, cloud and mission-critical applications powered by Intel Xeon Processors. Intel's extensive open-source contributions help improve the performance, stability and efficiency of Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 2 takes advantage of those advancements. End-customers receive a rock-solid foundation to cost-effectively manage their most demanding data center requirements."