SUSE Virtualization 1.5 Prime offers improved release cadence, support for Arm

SUSE has announced the release of Virtualization 1.5 Prime, featuring new capabilities that will enable organizations to optimize virtualization strategies for cloud native. 

“With an improved release lifecycle, more flexible patching and upgrades, and an ecosystem that supports production-grade storage integration, SUSE Virtualization 1.5 Prime is designed to be the foundation of the modern enterprise virtualization strategy,” the company wrote in an announcement. 

It now supports 64-bit Arm architectures, allowing organizations to run both x86 and Arm workloads side-by-side.

“The growing shift toward cloud-native requires virtualization solutions that are as flexible and dynamic as the workloads they support,” said Andrew Wafaa, senior director of software communities at Arm. “SUSE Virtualization on Arm will deliver greater choice, efficiency, and scalability for enterprise customers while reducing complexity and cost.”

With this release, the release cadence is being updated to a 4 month schedule that corresponds to the upstream Kubernetes releases. This alignment will allow for more consistent planning for DevOps teams. It also allows users to leap from a patch version to the newest minor release, which also includes all available hotfixes, providing greater upgrade flexibility and minimizing downtime. 

The company is also launching the SUSE Data Protection for Virtualization Certification, which makes it easier for customers to understand which solutions work out-of-the-box with SUSE Virtualization. Specifically, it ensures that a solution is compatible with SUSE Virtualization APIs, supports snapshot orchestration, and has verified back and restore performance. 

Virtualization 1.5 Prime supports any CSI-compatible storage appliance, including Dell, NetApp, HPE, Oracle, and Portworx. 

And finally, SUSE Virtualization 1.5 Prime includes an open architecture to enable customers to avoid vendor lock-in. It features transparent licensing, full API access, and “no opaque software bundles.”

“Enterprises today want freedom of choice, predictability, and innovation—without being locked into restrictive platforms,” said Peter Smails, SVP and GM of cloud native at SUSE. “With SUSE Virtualization, we are delivering the trusted, open and futureproof virtualization solution customers are asking for.”