SUSE has launched beta testing of SUSE OpenStack Cloud 6, giving customers an early look at the latest enterprise-ready technology for building Infrastructure-as-a-Service private clouds. Based on the OpenStack release Liberty, SUSE OpenStack Cloud 6 delivers high availability enhancements and non-disruptive upgrades along with Docker and IBM z Systems mainframe support to ease the transition of business-critical applications and data to the cloud. The Liberty-based beta will be demonstrated during this week's OpenStack Summit in Tokyo and at SUSECon in Amsterdam Nov. 2-6.

"The key enhancements in SUSE OpenStack Cloud 6 are a result of SUSE listening closely to our customers and focusing on delivering the functionality they need to help their businesses thrive," said Michael Miller, SUSE vice president of global alliances and marketing. "They need a robust and stress-free cloud that drives innovation. Improved high availability, non-disruptive upgrades and the inclusion of Docker support directly address these concerns. As the OpenStack market continues its rapid growth, we're staying focused on enterprise customers and meeting their business-critical requirements."

Kohei Sudo, CEO and president of S2 Inc. Ltd., said, "The ability of SUSE OpenStack Cloud to support the integration of plug-in components such as MidoNet and Wipro Cloud Service Gateway into an enterprise-class OpenStack distribution gives us a comprehensive solution that satisfies both our technical and business needs. SUSE OpenStack Cloud allows us to quickly build custom private, public and hybrid cloud environments, providing tailored service to our customers that other cloud providers cannot match."

SUSE OpenStack Cloud 6 enhancements include:

• Non-disruptive upgrade capabilities to ease migration to future OpenStack releases.
• Enhanced high availability features to enable customers to run legacy or business-critical applications in the cloud with the same level of availability of more traditional infrastructures.
• Support for IBM z/VM alongside existing support for Xen, KVM, Hyper-V and VMware, making SUSE first to include these hypervisor options. This gives SUSE OpenStack Cloud the widest range of hypervisor support available and allows customers to incorporate their mainframe platforms into their OpenStack private cloud.
• Docker support to let customers build and run new and innovative containerized applications.
• Full support for OpenStack Manila to provide direct access to the performance, scalability and management of the open source Manila shared file system service.
• Support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 Support Pack 1 to allow customers to build their OpenStack clouds on the latest version of the top platform for enterprise workloads.

Jeff Frey, chief technology officer for IBM z Systems, said, "IBM and SUSE have been working together for more than 15 years, providing enterprise-grade IT service with Linux on the mainframe. Including support for z/VM in a SUSE OpenStack managed cloud allows organizations to take full advantage of the performance, scale, security and high availability of the z Systems mainframe, and at the same time, realize the improved access, flexibility, agility and operational efficiency provided by the cloud."

SUSE OpenStack Cloud 6 is scheduled for release early next year following beta testing. Organizations interested in joining the beta program should contact SUSE at cloud@suse.com. For additional information on SUSE OpenStack Cloud, see www.suse.com/cloud or visit SUSE in booth S15 during OpenStack Summit Tokyo Oct. 27-30 or at SUSECon in Amsterdam Nov. 2-6.