SUSE has taken the latest release of its combined platform for virtual machines (VMs) and container management to general availability – and it’s now supporting Arm-based workloads and more external storage.
The release means SUSE support for managing VMs on Arm64-based Kubernetes clusters has graduated from its technical preview – and is arguably a positive showcase also for Arm's SystemReady initiative, launched in 2021, which defines standards for hardware and firmware
SUSE Virtualization 1.5 Prime, which further builds on the European Linux and Kubernetes specialist’s 2020 acquisition of Rancher, lets VM workloads run directly on Kubernetes-native infrastructure, with centralised orchestration, automation, and observability baked in.
With new production-ready support for 64-bit Arm architecture the privately held European firm boasted that “enterprises can run x86 and Arm workloads side-by-side, unlocking multi-architecture flexibility.”
It also promised a four-month release cycle aligned with Kubernetes upstream and improved third-party disaster recovery capabilities.
There’s an increasingly competitive and contested space here for that great cliche, the “single pane of glass” to manage VMs, containers and more (call it the control plane for the modern “hybrid cloud” if you will), with Nutanix pushing from its traditional focus on hypervisors and HCI into a more fluid and containers-friendly integrated platform, for example.
