SUSE, an enterprise Linux operating system provider and division of The Attachmate Group, says it is shipping the latest update to its development platform for building, updating and managing application images across x86, public cloud and IBM System z deployments.
SUSE Studio Version 1.2 is designed to provide the ability to assemble, build and maintain complete portable application stacks quickly across a range of platforms. SUSE Studio also is intended to bridge x86 microprocessor architectures and mainframes by simplifying the creation, testing, maintenance and deployment of software applications on the mainframe. The toolset supports hundreds of mission-critical Linux images on mainframes, accessible by an interface for building mainframe workloads.
SUSE Studio Version 1.2 is available as SUSE Studio Standard Edition for ISV customers and SUSE Studio Advanced Edition for enterprise customers. These latest versions replace the SUSE Appliance Toolkit.
According to the vendor, Studio Standard Edition enables ISVs to transform applications into a "service" and compete against alternative SaaS offerings, providing the agility needed to accelerate time-to-market.
SUSE Studio Advanced Edition is designed to help enterprise organizations build, configure and maintain cloud-enabled application images, reducing the complexity, maintenance and support costs of software deployments. In addition, SUSE Studio Advanced Edition provides a new and simple way to create, maintain and deploy IBM System z workloads by automating routine, labor-intensive tasks.
"The ability to build images for System z is very unique," Sabine Soellheim, solution marketing manager for SUSE, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "We don't know of any competitor who is currently doing that. Currently, if you build images, or workloads in the IBM language, for the mainframe, you have to be an experienced person, probably working with scripts to build your workload to deploy on a System z mainframe. You can now use the same tool you have just used for the x86 infrastructure area and by choosing a System z form factor, build the image for the mainframe so that you can deploy the image also to the mainframe environment."
According to Soellheim, the benefit for organizations that have the mainframe in the data center is that since it is the same tool and the same interface, even someone who is not an experienced mainframe person can build an application for System z or vice versa -- a mainframe administrator or operator can put the mainframe workload back into SUSE Studio, as long as the workload allows that, and build it for x86 and it can be quickly deployed into the x86 environment. "It doesn't require the expertise for a certain infrastructure environment."
For complete details, go to www.suse.com/products/susestudio.