Item: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SLES is the most deployed Linux distribution in our company. It is very well supported by SAP and it is used with Oracle, DB2 and other database deployments. It is very consistent, upgrade-able, very well supported, and it runs well on both Power and x86 platforms. it provides a great platform in which to run SAP and other business applications.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Consistently performs well across various CPU architectures.
It's very well supported both by the parent company, as well as SAP and other third-party companies.
It is upgradeable across versions. We've performed upgrades from version 10 to 11 and from 11 to 12 without any major issues.

Cons

Support is very good for well-known issues, but anything esoteric issues might require constant escalation to arrive at a resolution.
Cost can an issue at higher levels of support.
Yast (the gui management tool) is great for some tasks, but very cumbersome for many others.

Return on Investment

It allows a very small team to manage a large number of servers, due to its automation and manageability.
SAP supports it very well, making it straightforward to manage. There are also "recipes" for Oracle which has all of the requisites to install an Oracle DB; which helps with deployment immensely.
It lets us run large SAP instances in SLES on Power, helping us with support, manageability, and performance.
Support costs are high, but required for SLES for SAP.

Alternatives Considered

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

It is very similar, but SLES wins on the manageability front, with good built-in tools, the ability to upgrade major versions, and the ability to run on the latest Power 9 systems. It is our platform of choice for SAP; there is great collaboration between SAP and SUSE, and it shows on both products and greatly benefits us in stability, security, performance, and manageability.

Support Rating

It's great for basic support issues. But it's less suited for anything that is either obscure or uncommon, and it is very hard to escalate, unless you've built a relationship with your vendor/salesperson.

Key Insights

Do you think SUSE Linux Enterprise Server delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server's feature set?

Yes

Did SUSE Linux Enterprise Server live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy SUSE Linux Enterprise Server again?

Yes

Other Software Used

SUSE Manager, IBM Spectrum Protect, Ansible

Likelihood to Recommend

Any type of SAP installation, especially in Power 9 scenarios. Even with the IBM acquisition, it is going to take some time for Redhat to catch up. It is currently the de-facto OS for SAP workloads on Power (we currently use it exclusively on this scenario).
It's suited any time where being able to upgrade the OS from one version to the next is critical. We've done upgrades without major issues from SLES 11 to SLES 12 in a very straightforward manner.
Most popular packages are present, and it has a consistent package base. The basic patch deployment tool is included as well. Cost can be an issue at higher levels of support, and you cannot mix support levels. SLES for SAP comes at a premium cost.

If the issue is an uncommon one, you will have a bit of a time trying to escalate to support.
Yast is cumbersome at times; great at some tasks, horrible for others.

Comments

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SUSE Linux Enteprise Server is our platform of choice for SAP application