SUSE has announced significant enhancements to its container toolset, further embracing Docker as an integral component of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. SUSE now fully supports Docker in production environments and has added an option for customers to build a private on-premise registry to host container images in a controlled and secure environment. These enhancements further strengthen Docker as an application deployment tool, helping customers significantly improve operational efficiency.
“The advent of virtualization reduced the time needed to bring up a server from hours to minutes; containers and Docker have reduced that time to seconds,” said Ralf Flaxa, SUSE vice president of engineering. “SUSE has long participated in the evolution of lightweight and efficient container deployment technology, with the inclusion of Docker in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 last year and our support for Linux containers in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 for several years before that. This is another example of SUSE’s commitment to providing innovative technologies for enterprise customers.”
Fully supported as part of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12, enterprise-ready Docker from SUSE improves operational efficiency and is accompanied by easy-to-use tools to build, deploy and manage containers.
SUSE provides pre-built images from a verified and trusted source. In addition, customers can create an on-premise registry behind the enterprise firewall, minimising exposure to malicious attacks and providing better control of intellectual property. Portus, an open source front-end and authorisation tool for an on-premise Docker registry, enhances security and user productivity.
As integral parts of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Docker and containers provide additional virtualisation options to improve operational efficiency. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server includes the Xen and KVM hypervisors and is a perfect guest in virtual and cloud environments. With the addition of Docker, customers can build, ship and run containerised applications on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server in physical, virtual or cloud environments.
The efficient YaST management framework provides a simple overview of the available Docker images and allows customers to run and easily control Docker containers. In addition, the KIWI image-building tool has been extended to support the Docker build format.
Thomas Brottrager, head of IT at manufacturing company STIA Holzindustrie GmbH, said, “Using the Docker tool included in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server has enabled us to reduce the number of virtual machines we need to manage in our development environment. As a result, we have seen significant savings in system administration.”
