Efficient and Scalable Kubernetes Management with SUSE Rancher
What do you like best about the product?
I value the centralized management that Rancher offers for multiple Kubernetes clusters, along with its intuitive user interface and robust role-based access control (RBAC) features. Rancher simplifies the process of scaling applications, and its integration with CI/CD pipelines contributes to more efficient deployment workflows. We use Rancher daily to manage and monitor production Kubernetes clusters, which shows its reliability and stability. Integrates well with existing CI/CD pipelines, monitoring tools, and multi-cloud Kubernetes clusters, though some initial setup is required. SUSE provides responsive and knowledgeable support, which helps quickly resolve issues during cluster management. It is easy to implement, Rancher is straightforward in familiar environments, though initial cluster configuration can take some planning.
What do you dislike about the product?
The platform offers robust capabilities, but the initial setup and configuration process can be challenging for those who are new to Kubernetes. Certain advanced features also demand a solid understanding of Kubernetes concepts, which may present a steep learning curve for beginners.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
SUSE Rancher helps us manage multiple Kubernetes clusters from a single platform, reducing complexity and the risk of errors. It also simplifies deployment, scaling, and monitoring of containerized applications, which saves time and improves reliability. Overall, it increases operational efficiency, ensures high availability, and streamlines our application management.
SUSE Rancher is a mature, enterprise-grade solution that combines ease of use with powerful features
What do you like best about the product?
SUSE provides top-tier enterprise support, backed by a knowledgeable team and a strong open-source community. Whether you're troubleshooting an issue or planning a large-scale deployment, SUSE’s support channels are responsive and effective. The integration with SUSE’s broader enterprise offerings also ensures continuity and reliability for mission-critical workloads. One of Rancher's most appreciated features is its clear, well-structured documentation. From initial setup to advanced configurations, the guides are intuitive and beginner-friendly, yet detailed enough for seasoned DevOps professionals. The documentation includes practical examples, troubleshooting tips, and architectural insights that make onboarding and scaling straightforward.
What do you dislike about the product?
Although Rancher is user-friendly at the surface level, advanced configurations—such as setting up service meshes, customizing RBAC, or integrating external authentication providers—can require a deeper understanding of Kubernetes internals. This may pose a challenge for teams new to container orchestration. Rancher also requires a complex upgrade process requiring users to follow detailed, multi-step procedures. While the documentation is thorough, the upgrade process can be time-consuming and error-prone if not followed precisely.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
In today’s distributed enterprise environments, managing Kubernetes clusters across multiple regions, cloud providers, and data centers can be a logistical and operational nightmare. SUSE Rancher directly addresses this challenge by providing a centralized, scalable, and secure platform that enables a single team to manage Kubernetes infrastructure globally.
Has delivered expert training and enabled smooth migrations using automated deployment tools
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for
SUSE Linux Enterprise involves deploying
SUSE Linux Enterprise and using it with the YaST installer to guide, set up the system, partition, and select the packages.
I also use SUSE Linux Enterprise to deliver training on SUSE Linux administration and Linux administration in general, teaching how to create users, partition the system, browse the file system, create symbolic links or hard links, and create VMs on AWS with the SUSE flavor.
How has it helped my organization?
SUSE Linux Enterprise has positively impacted my organization by resulting in more contracts signed, including a recent customer from Austria working on
SUSE Rancher, which means having employees skilled in
SUSE Rancher gives us the opportunity to bring this workload to our company and grow our revenue.
For my team, there are more than 10 contracts signed for SUSE products; however, I don't have much insight about the global contracts signed or a summary since I do not occupy a management position.
What is most valuable?
The best features SUSE Linux Enterprise offers include a streamlined installation process with the YaST installer, thorough documentation, and tools such as AutoYaST that enable automated, repeatable deployment; however, a new user may face a learning curve, especially if unfamiliar with SUSE-specific tools.
The need to register a system for updates and support can complicate deployment in an isolated environment. SUSE Linux Enterprise is recognized for its stability and reliability in production environments, with YaST providing a centralized interface for managing system settings, updates, and services, making routine administration straightforward.
Performance is strong out of the box, and the system is optimized for enterprise workloads; nevertheless, the official repositories prioritize stability, so some newer or less common packages may not be immediately available. Advanced configuration may still require command line expertise, and while SUSE Linux Enterprise is designed for scalability with built-in support for high availability, clustering, and seamless integration with major cloud platforms, leveraging advanced features requires careful planning and expertise, and some management tools can introduce resource overhead, particularly on smaller systems.
What needs improvement?
SUSE Linux Enterprise is a mature and reliable platform, but there are areas where it can be improved. Modernizing the system management tools is important as many users appreciate YaST for its centralized management, but there is a growing demand for more modern, web-based, and modular tools. The introduction of tools such as Agama, a web-based installer, and Cockpit in newer releases is a step in the right direction.
SUSE has made progress with multi-Linux support, allowing organizations to manage and support not just SUSE systems but also other distributions such as Red Hat and CentOS; continuing to expand these capabilities, especially for hybrid and multi-cloud environments, will help organizations manage diverse infrastructure more effectively.
Security is a top concern, and further strengthening default security policies, simplifying compliance management, and integrating advanced vulnerability management tools would be a valuable improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using SUSE Linux Enterprise for more than six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
SUSE Linux Enterprise is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
SUSE Linux Enterprise is widely recognized for its strong scalability, making it suitable for organizations of all sizes, from small businesses to global enterprises. It can scale horizontally or vertically, horizontally by adding more servers and vertically by increasing resources on an existing instance.
How are customer service and support?
Vendor support is another strong point of SUSE Linux Enterprise, with the support team generally being responsive and knowledgeable, offering 24/7 assistance for critical issues. There is a wealth of resources available, including a comprehensive knowledge base and proactive support options.
Initial support interaction may follow a scripted process before more complex issues are escalated to specialized engineers. The quality of support can vary depending on the region.
SUSE Linux Enterprise provides a stable, secure, and well-supported platform for enterprise workloads, with powerful management tools and robust support for clustering, cloud, and containers. The main challenges include the initial learning curve for SUSE-specific tools, the need for system registration, and limited availability of the latest packages in the official repositories. Customer support is really super.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We are actually using both SUSE Linux Enterprise and
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, so we didn't switch; rather, we are using both, and it's ultimately the customer who decides to choose, although we try to provide them with ideas.
Before choosing SUSE Linux Enterprise, we evaluated other options; however, in our environment, particularly production and customer production environments, we prefer enterprise versions, and for Linux, it is either SUSE or Red Hat, leaving us with limited choices for deploying Linux in an enterprise setting.
What was our ROI?
We have seen a return on investment from using SUSE Linux Enterprise, with more people engaged on projects needing SUSE skills and more revenue for the company.
What other advice do I have?
I rate SUSE Linux Enterprise a 10 out of 10 because it keeps improving, with great products such as SUSE Rancher, and it stands out as the best product in the market.
I advise others looking into using SUSE Linux Enterprise to clearly define their requirements, such as workload types, scalability needs, compliance standards, and integration with existing infrastructure before committing, as SUSE Linux Enterprise excels in regulated, mission-critical, and hybrid environments. They should also invest in learning SUSE tools and take advantage of vendor support.
A robust Kubernetes management platform for enterprises.
What do you like best about the product?
Easy to use solution very complete and to integrate with providers. Is able to manage Suse Virtualization clusters.
What do you dislike about the product?
Rancher would be easier to deploy if pre-made virtual appliances or ISO were provided.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Suse Rancher allow us to have a unified management interface for all our Kubernetes clusters, Suse Virtualization clusters included.
Great product backed by a great team
What do you like best about the product?
One of the key reasons we chose SUSE Rancher is that it is not only backed by a strong open-source community, but it also offers enterprise-grade support. This was critical for us, as Rancher is a core platform technology underpinning our production business services.
Rancher provides excellent flexibility by being cloud- and infrastructure-agnostic. This future-proofs our deployments and gives us the ability to scale seamlessly into other cloud providers or our on-premises datacentres if required.
After iterating through a few design approaches, Rancher proved straightforward to set up, integrate, run and manage. Having the option of a paid, “production-ready” assessment carried out by a SUSE Rancher expert also gave us peace of mind that we were on the right track.
Although the SUSE Security (NeuVector ) solution has been somewhat fiddly at times and has produced a few false positives, it has nonetheless proven to be a valuable addition to Rancher. It provides us with enterprise-grade, zero-trust container security by continually scanning across the container lifecycle, providing runtime security, sophisticated threat detection, and compliance features.
Finally, I want to highlight the support we’ve received from the SUSE customer success and account management team. They have been fantastic—highly responsive, supportive, and committed to delivering an excellent customer experience.
What do you dislike about the product?
I wouldn’t say there is any specific that I dislike about SUSE Rancher, the only real thing I would highlight would be the issues we have had with SUSE security (NeuVector).
The support team have been pretty responsive though when we have highlighted issues or logged support tickets
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The main problems it is currently solving for us are centralising container platform management, reducing operational overhead through easier platform updates (a single-pane solution), improving scalability, and tightening security through SUSE NeuVector.
As we roll it out further across more business areas and refine our workflows, I expect we will also see significant improvements in the speed of deployments.
SUSE Rancher makes managing Kubernetes clusters easy and consistent.
What do you like best about the product?
The most helpful aspect of SUSE Rancher is its easy-to-learn, consistent interface, which simplifies multi-cluster management regardless of where the clusters are running. The documentation is thorough and support is responsive, making troubleshooting and on-boarding smooth. Rancher’s reliability and seamless migration capabilities have been invaluable, allowing our developers to move workloads between on-prem and cloud with minimal changes. Integration with common Kubernetes tools like Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk, and CI/CD platforms is straightforward, and the platform’s security features, especially admission control, add an extra layer of protection.
What do you dislike about the product?
The least helpful aspect of SUSE Rancher, at least with us, is that running Rancher you need to have a management cluster to manager your downstream clusters. So if you are in the cloud, that management cluster now cost you money. It does not need to be a large cluster, but it still uses resources. SUSE Rancher can also be pretty complex, with lost of parts and pieces troubleshooting can sometimes be a bear.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
The greatest problem that it is solving for us is seamless intergration for our developers no matter where the cluster sits. We are going from on-prim clusters to cloud clusters, so from a developer standpoint moving workloads is seemless and easier. The developer does not need to learn the cloud service providers portal to deploy their app. The interface for the developer is the same whether it is on-prim or in the cloud.
Has provided robust support for critical application workloads and ensured uninterrupted availability
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for SUSE Linux Enterprise is for installing SAP clusters, HANA, on HANA systems, and creating LVMs and daily system admin tasks.
A specific example of how I use SUSE Linux Enterprise for SAP clusters or HANA systems is that we have installed the cluster on newly built SAP HANA servers, tested those clusters by stopping one server, and checked if HANA is operational on the other system. After this successful testing, we handed over the system to the SAP team.
How has it helped my organization?
SUSE Linux Enterprise has positively impacted my organization because it is a very robust flavor of Linux we are currently using for SAP systems. Since I'm more into Azure cloud, SAP has collaborated with Azure to configure SAP systems mainly on SUSE Linux, resulting in better performance compared to other flavors.
What is most valuable?
In my experience, the best features SUSE Linux Enterprise offers are that while all Linux systems are similar, SUSE is more robust with a different kind of commands, and the LVM is very easy to configure, along with simple disk scanning compared to other systems.
The YaST facility on SUSE Linux, which is the GUI provided, helps in my daily work by allowing us to check logs whenever we face logging issues, and for LVM, it enables us to scan the disk and add data to the file systems easily.
What needs improvement?
SUSE Linux Enterprise can be improved by having more documentation or logging systems available on the internet, as we face difficulties troubleshooting issues without sufficient resources.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using SUSE Linux Enterprise for the last two and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
SUSE Linux Enterprise is stable. When HANA is utilized by many applications, I notice that while utilization does increase, we have never faced lagging or server unresponsiveness. The servers work properly, provide alerts for high CPU and memory usage, but do not encounter CPU or memory issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Its scalability is quite good since we are using Azure, which allows us to easily scale up or down our resources as needed.
How are customer service and support?
Support for SUSE Linux Enterprise is good; we have logged several cases, and they have provided troubleshooting steps through email and calls, but real-time support when opening a case could be better.
The customer support is good; whenever we have opened a case, they have provided detailed explanations of the issues and resolutions.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have started our SAP HANA systems on SUSE Linux only, and based on experiences from other organizations, we decided it works very effectively, so we haven't considered other flavors.
How was the initial setup?
We deploy SUSE Linux Enterprise using public cloud, Azure, primarily, and all our SAP HANA systems are installed on SUSE Linux running on the public cloud, utilizing images provided by the Azure Marketplace.
What about the implementation team?
For these deployments, we use Azure as our cloud provider.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment by switching our clusters from on-prem to Azure public cloud, using our same Bring Your Own Licenses, which saved costs on licensing.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for SUSE Linux Enterprise is that while the licensing cost is a bit high, I believe it is justified due to the quality of service provided for SAP and heavy systems.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing SUSE Linux Enterprise, we did not evaluate other options.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate SUSE Linux Enterprise an eight out of ten because SUSE works really effectively for SAP systems, and since I am mainly working on these SAP servers to provide continuous support and availability, our clients are satisfied, with no extra downtime or performance issues.
My advice for others looking into using SUSE Linux Enterprise is to not have any doubts and start working on it, as installing your applications on SUSE will stabilize them compared to other Linux flavors, where issues such as kernel, memory, or CPU hung problems can arise which you won't see on SUSE Linux servers.
I think there are too many questions; it would be helpful to receive information ahead of time about the number of questions expected, as I hadn't anticipated the interview would take 13-14 minutes during my working day.
Stable OS supports SAP landscape but licensing changes required
What is our primary use case?
I use it for the corporate SAP landscape.
How has it helped my organization?
It provides a stable and reliable OS. I recommended it based on its stability and functionality.
What is most valuable?
It has a stable and reliable OS. I recommended it based on its stability and functionality.
What needs improvement?
The functionality is good, but the licensing subscription model needs improvement. The license we subscribed to should carry over within the same instance family. Why are we required to re-subscribe when upgrading within the same family? Why are we effectively paying double fees during an upgrade?
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for three years.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We chose this solution because it was recommended by our managed service provider and it is known to be a good OS for SAP.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are facing an issue with licensing usage. The subscription does not carry over within the same instance family, so upgrading an instance results in overlapping or double subscription fees.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not consider alternate solutions because it was highly recommended by the managed service vendor.
What other advice do I have?
We are facing an issue with licensing usage. The subscription does not carry over within the same instance family, so upgrading an instance results in overlapping or double subscription fees.
Clean user interface and efficient personal use pave the way for running essential applications
What is our primary use case?
I used SUSE Linux personally, not on an admin level or for advanced purposes, but for regular use. I would play around and experiment with different Linux distros, including SUSE Linux, Debian, and Fedora. I also attempted to use it for work purposes in a hospital setting, primarily to see if it could support applications like Teams and Outlook.
What is most valuable?
SUSE Linux had a clean user interface, which was a valuable feature for me. It allowed me to use the software manager differently compared to Ubuntu. Eventually, I was able to get essential applications like Teams and Outlook running on it. I primarily used it for personal desktop use, and it was solid for that.
What needs improvement?
The software management side was a bit difficult, especially compared to Ubuntu. The software manager was different, making it challenging to install certain applications.
Additionally, I encountered issues when setting it up on newer model laptops, possibly due to hardware incompatibility, such as the solid-state drive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I used SUSE Linux over a number of years as part of my exploration of various Linux distributions.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
SUSE Linux was stable for me. I did not experience any problems with its stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
SUSE Linux was scalable to my needs. I did not encounter any issues with scalability.
How are customer service and support?
I did not reach out to customer service or tech support. I found the needed information easily on community forums and through online research.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used a variety of Linux distributions, including Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu, but I did not use them specifically as a replacement for SUSE Linux.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward. However, I encountered trouble when reclaiming space on the hard drive later on, which might have been an issue with the computer I used.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I used the open-source version, so there were no setup costs.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I evaluated other Linux distributions like Fedora and Ubuntu. Fedora's ISO is small, but I found the system itself to be annoying after a while.
What other advice do I have?
I would not recommend SUSE Linux in environments where users are not tech-savvy, yet it is solid for workstations. SUSE Linux worked well on older model computers but not as effectively on newer models.
Overall, I would rate SUSE Linux a solid nine out of ten for my purposes.
Efficient IT management with crucial automatic updates but needs developer-friendly configuration
What is our primary use case?
We are working with SUSE Enterprise Edition.
How has it helped my organization?
It is good for IT teams and business efficiency. For maintainability and all, it is good.
What is most valuable?
The most important feature is the automatic kernel lifecycle subscription, which is critical for us because the server cannot go down once we start offering any services on the cluster.
What needs improvement?
Sometimes it is a bit of work for developers to change the configurations. Some kernels will not fit with some packages, and this aspect could be improved. Furthermore, the system's rigidity when updating packages and services needs improvement. Additionally, there should be more loosely bound functionalities to improve developer experience.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using SUSE Linux Enterprise for more than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
SUSE Linux Enterprise is good for IT and maintainability. However, it can be rigid, especially with kernel and package compatibility.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Some kernel versions do not fit well with certain packages, creating compatibility issues that affect scalability.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support for IT and kernel-level OS issues is very good. However, it is less effective for development-level issues. The IT department handles technical support, and I cannot comment directly on its effectiveness.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We are considering alternatives for our new machine learning infrastructure and have worked with Ubuntu in the past.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is slightly higher than expected, but it is manageable for our current project. For the upcoming projects, we are looking for cost-effective solutions.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We are considering Linux instead of SUSE and want to check some cost-effective measures, like Rocky Linux.
What other advice do I have?
For developers, some flexibility and reducing dependency on specific kernel versions would be better.
I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.
