SUSE Releases SLES 12 Open Source Linux Server OS

After years in the making, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 12, the latest version of the open source operating system, is out today, introducing enhancements for the cloud, virtualization, POWER8 compatibility and more.

SLES 12 is the first major update to the enterprise OS platform since SUSE released service pack 3 for SLES 11 in July 2013. SLES 11 itself, the last point release of the OS, debuted all the way back in 2009.

The most notable new features in SLES 12 include:

• Advanced maintenance features, including full system rollback, live kernel patching and software modules.
• Support for IBM‘s POWER8 hardware platform, as well as System z mainframes—and, of course, good, old-fashioned x86_64 chips. These updates make SLES 12 compatible with the latest hardware innovations for cloud and big data computing.
• A Virtual Machine Driver pack, which SUSE says boosts the performance of Microsoft Windows virtual machines, including Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1, running on SLES hosts.
• An updated customer portal, called SUSE Customer Center, for managing subscriptions, software updates and enterprise support requests.

More details on what’s new in SLES 12 are available from SUSE.

SLES 12 is sure to help SUSE remain competitive in the open source enterprise operating system world, where other major vendors have issued new platforms of their own in recent months. Red Hat (RHT) rolled out Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 in June, and Canonical‘s Ubuntu 14.10 appeared just last week.