On a recent visit to London Jeff Reser, Global Product and Solutions Marketing Manager, SUSE sat down with Enterprise Times. We talked about SUSE’s relationship with IBM and how that will influence products in the future. Reser talked about the upcoming release of SUSE OpenStack for z Systems. With IBM Interconnect next week in Las Vegas, it is likely to be a subject that gets a lot of attention.
With SUSE delivering OpenStack on z Systems it is now able to address all IBM’s hardware platforms. This means that IBM customers are able to run their internal and hybrid clouds on OpenStack and manage them all from one place. Providing a single point of control is a big win for those customers.
This is more than just about the delivery of OpenStack. IBM has been talking about moving the app to the data and not the data to the app for two years now. By supporting open source software on z Systems it is closer to that goal than ever. SUSE delivering OpenStack for z/OS also bring Platform as a Service and Container as a Service technology.
All of this means nothing, however, without the applications. This is also where Reser says SUSE scores big. There are already 1,500 software packages available for IBM z Systems on SUSE Package Hub. There are even more in the pipeline as customers ask for new packages to be added.
Reser told us that the move to OpenStack and open source software will also help reduce the skills shortage IBM customers suffer from. He admits that this is nothing new and it has been a growing problem for decades. However, by widening the pool of software and bringing some of the most common packages on the market onto z Systems, that skill shortage lessens.
To hear more about what Reser told us, listen online or download the podcast.
