SUSE Cloud

2014: SUSE Cloud 4 with functionality of distributed system of storage of Ceph

SUSECloud 4 – the solution of SUSE company for creation of private clouds based on the newest release of OpenStack (Icehouse) – left in the summer of 2014 in sale. This version of SUSECloud provides a full support of a distributed file system of Ceph and the improved abilities to integrate with products of VMware and also implementation of OpenStack allows the enterprises to simplify the new automation equipment and as much as possible to use investments into IT.

"SUSE Cloud makes SUSE company the leader in deployment of the standardized OpenStack distribution kits in modern DPCs", - Mikael MichaelMiller, the vice president of SUSE company for global merges and marketing noted. "SUSE Cloud facilitates and does economic work in high-available private cloud infrastructure of the mixed hypervisors. Adding will add to SUSECloud of functionality of distributed system of storage Ceph to it flexibility, and will benefit from it practically any enterprise".

SUSE Cloud provides the enterprises with functionality and technical support for easy deployment of private clouds based on standards of the open source software. The SUSECloud installers allow to develop OpenStack clouds easily. Besides, SUSECloud is the first distribution kit of the enterprise level which allows to automate difficult implementations and to configure fault tolerance of level of management of cloud services of OpenStack that increases reliability of a system and allows to provide accomplishment of any necessary Agreement on ServiceLevelAgreement. SUSECloud supports a cloud environment on the basis of the mixed hypervisors that gives to the company big flexibility at deployment of the clouds. Are supported KVM Xen, Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere.

SUSE Cloud 4 offers the following advantages to the customers:

• Cost reduction by means of deployment of the virtualized data warehouse based on Ceph distributed file system. Installers and configuring of SUSECloud give the chance to automatically develop Ceph clusters. By means of single solution and based on the standard hardware equipment, Ceph implements as functionality of the high-performance and failsafe block device of data storage at the level of the separate virtual machine, and function of the storage of images of virtual machines scaled object-oriented.
• Increase investments into VMware at the expense of the improved integration between the existing environments of VMwarevSphere and OpenStack. In addition to earlier supported computer VMware vSphere nodes, network virtualization to VMware NSX and drivers of vSphere for object-oriented storage system, upgraded version of SUSECloud had more opportunities for management of images of virtual machines of VMware and an integration tool with VMwareVirtual SAN.
• The simplified deployment of workloads at rather high level of scalability and automation. SUSECloud provides the database, provides regulation of loading and also provides functions of the internetwork protective screen as service. Standardization of these services allows to develop quicker workloads, saving users from need to manage and configure these services independently. Besides, SUSE Cloud improves scalability of applications by means of closer integration between service of the orchestration which automate control and coordination of the numerous virtual machines which are based on a set of the preset templates and other cloud services.

SUSE Cloud 4 Icehouse

On August 13, 2014 the SUSE company announced an exit of a new solution of SUSE Cloud 4 Icehouse.

It supports deployment of the updatings of applications working in private "cloud" without interruption of their work, provides quality of provision of services (SLA) at the level of corporate requirements.

The undoubted advantage of SUSE Cloud 4 - support of work with a cloud environment for different hypervisors. The enterprises receive necessary flexibility when choosing suitable tools, it gives the chance of effective interaction with a cloud system during creation of required configurations. For August 15, 2014 SUSE Cloud supports hypervisors:

• KVM,
• Xen,
• Microsoft Hyper-V
• VMware vSphere.

In the new version of SUSE Cloud developers placed emphasis on integration with VMware: joint work of software environments of VMware vSphere and OpenStack is ensured. They supplement other opportunities of a cloud environment which were presented in last versions of SUSE Cloud. It is support of the computing VMware vSphere nodes, virtualization of VMware NSX networks, use of the vSphere mechanism for creation of block storages, providing different functions of automation and control of availability.

A set of ready tools is expected, first of all, making the new platform the worthy candidate for preparation of cloud corporate solutions on the OpenStack platform.

2014: SUSE Cloud 3

On February 20, 2014 the SUSE company announced an exit of SUSE Cloud 3 - a cloud platform on the basis of OpenStack with support of infrastructures of VMware vSphere.

SUSE Cloud 3 is intended for creation of IaaS-infrastructures, both service providers, and private "clouds" of the companies providing to the users resources of services of virtualization including on the basis of a hypervisor of VMware of ESXi. SUSE Cloud 3 is created on the basis of release of Havana of architecture OpenStack.

Among features of the new version:

• The improved management tools. The module of streamlining of execution of rules helps to automate transactions with virtual machines on the basis of previously configured set of templates of scenarios. Now it is possible to manage the sequence of actions for such objects as servers, the "floating" IP addresses, volumes and domains of security for certain applications, at the same time the interrelation between objects is defined.

• The module Telemetry provides monitors of use of the clouds resources infrastructure facilities and also users. Collected data can be given to billing systems. Besides, the module Telemetry is integrated with the module Orchestration that helps to unroll and write off, for example, resources (virtual machines) in process of increase and recession of loading, respectively.

• An opportunity to use installation as bekend-infrastructure VMware vSphere (communication happens via the vCenter server), at the same time is supported the solution for virtualization of networks VMware NSX. Krom ESXi also hypervisors are supported KVM, Xen and Microsoft Hyper-V.

• The simplified procedure of deployment of components of a cloud and their updating. The SUSE Cloud 3 installer is constructed based on the Crowbar project which allows to automate deployment transactions.

• As a part of SUSE Cloud 3 support of components of architecture of OpenStack Block Storage (Cinder) and OpenStack Networking (Neutron) and also supports all necessary OpenStack API that allows to use a set of solutions of partners of OpenStack.

• The platform included in the structure of Cloud Administration Server - the centralized management console cloud infrastructure, the Cloud Control Nodes nodes (management of users and the rights), Compute Nodes (computing resources - execution of VM) and Storage Nodes (data warehouse). The modules Nova (the controller of computing resources), Glance (library of images and deployment of VM), means of authentication of Keystone are used. The control interface is created on the basis of the Dashboard component.

• Also the distribution kit includes the EMC drivers that allows management of EMC VNX storages from a box.

Availability

The distribution kit of trial version of SUSE Cloud 3 is available to loading on a developer's site.

2013: SUSE Cloud 2.0

SUSE Cloud 2.0 is based on OpenStack and provides the advanced cloud technology at the most wide choice of solutions for frictionless deployment of a private cloud in corporate DPC.

SUSE submitted the beta of SUSE Cloud 2.0 which will allow users to get acquainted with this technology of creation of private clouds of a corporate class beforehand.

SUSE Cloud 2.0 is announced at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2013 (OSCON) conference in Portland (Oregon, the USA) on July 24, 2013. The product is created on the basis of the newest release of technology open source by OpenStack which is referred to as Grizzly.

SUSE Cloud 2.0 is the next version of SUSE Cloud, the original OpenStack distribution kit of the corporate class intended for creation of private clouds in a type "infrastructure as service" (IaaS).

Improvements of release

Scalability

For the purpose of increase in scalability of SUSE Cloud Administration Server it is integrated with the newest release of the open environment of deployment of Crowbar, its user interface is updated. That clients of SUSE received the maximum return from former investments in technology, in SUSE Cloud 2.0 support of different hypervisors is retained. Now Microsoft Hyper-V and the technical fact-finding version of VMware of ESXi are completely supported.

Installation

In SUSE Cloud 2.0 installation and management are improved, support of new hypervisors is added and technologies of the project OpenStack for ensuring network functions and storage are used, the company reported. Support of solutions is expanded Cisco and EMC, it will promote deployment at the enterprises of the private clouds fitting into the existing infrastructure, representatives of SUSE said.

Network and gateway

As a part of SUSE Cloud 2.0 the gateway Ceph Rados Gateway and API interfaces of block storage using Ceph, compatible to Swift and Amazon S3 (Simplified Storage Service). Support of Amazon EC2 and S3 API interfaces will allow the enterprises to get easily access to infrastructure of excess data storage of Ceph, to store in a cloud and to take from it any amount of data. It will promote the choice of hybrid clouds by the enterprises.

Network capabilities of SUSE Cloud 2.0 are expanded at the expense of a full support of a network component of the OpenStack Networking project under the name Neutron. SUSE Cloud provides service like "network as service" (NaaS), providing scalable network management, the API interface for formation of networks with saturated topology and a possibility of creation of difficult network services. The network SUSE Cloud 2.0 functions can be expanded due to connection of the products Cisco, Midokura, the Open vSwitch switch and bridges of VLAN.

Storage system

Support of Cinder, the storage system developed on the OpenStack Block Storage project, SUSE Cloud 2.0 expands possibilities of storage in a cloud. Cinder allows to use stable block storage at the virtual machine level. Using solutions of other Cinder companies it is possible to expand that will allow the enterprises to connect those storage devices to which they give preference. SUSE cooperates with such partners as Coraid, EMC, Inktank and NetApp to provide to users of SUSE Cloud a wide choice of the connected devices of block storage.

In this distribution kit the OpenStack Cinder drivers for ATA over Ethernet and Coraid EtherCloud — the product transferred by Coraid company for inclusion in release of Grizzly of the OpenStack project are for the first time integrated. These drivers will help clients of SUSE to create clouds of OpenStack which will freely use the Coraid platform for providing the scalable automated services of storage.

Readiness

The release of SUSE Cloud 2.0 is planned for fall of 2013, upon termination of beta testing.