SUSE unveils major rebranding, and a new AI platform that protects your data

Salt Lake City: In the States, SUSE, the Linux and open-source software company, isn’t that well known. Some of that was self-inflicted as the company underwent several ownership changes. Now, with SUSE charting its own course and CEO Dirk Peter van Leeuwen at its helm, the company is sailing forward on an even keel.

At KubeCon North America, SUSE announced a significant rebranding effort, several new product offerings, and the launch of SUSE AI, a secure platform for deploying and running generative AI (gen AI) applications. 

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SUSE has renamed its entire portfolio to make product names more descriptive and customer-friendly. Notable changes include:

• Liberty Linux, the company’s Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)/CentOS clone and support offering, becomes SUSE Multi Linux Support.

• Harvester is rebranded as SUSE Virtualization

Why? Well, just look at the names. While Rancher is a well-known Kubernetes management service and program, nothing about the name that said “SUSE.” The others had even less of a connection with the parent company. Besides, when I say Harvester or Longhorn, do you think virtualization and storage? I don’t think so!

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Or, take Liberty. Besides a Linux distro in its own right based on OpenELA Linux, would you know it’s a leading RHEL clone? Would you even guess that it is also a support offering that tempted Deutsche Bank, Germany’s leading bank, from Red Hat to SUSE for Linux support? In the European Union, yes. In the States? I didn’t know and I make my living from covering Linux. 

SUSE has also launched several new programs. First, SUSE Observability is a full-stack observability solution available as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering. This marks SUSE’s first entry into the SaaS market. The new product integrates with SUSE Rancher Prime, enhancing the company’s container management offerings.

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The company has introduced SUSE Rancher Prime, an enhanced commercial version of its container management platform. This offering incorporates security features from the New Vector (now called SUSE Security) and its newly acquired full-stack observability capabilities.

Also, like everyone else, SUSE now has an AI offering: SUSE AI. This isn’t an AI chatbot, like Red Hat’s Lightspeed AI tool. No, it’s a secure platform for deploying and running gen AI applications. This new offering addresses key challenges faced by enterprises as they move from AI experimentation to deployment, particularly in areas of security and compliance.

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In an interview, van Leeuwen explained, “It’s important for our customers to have a platform on which they can safely and securely run AI. The biggest challenge that customers are having is protecting their data. You can’t just put your company data anywhere, right? And the AI models aren’t guaranteeing that your data will be protected. So, what we’ve done is focus on something like an operating system for AI, just like Kubernetes is an operating system for the cloud where security is the number one priority. It allows you to do this if you take your Large Language Model (LLM) and all your AI tools in this platform, and it will make sure that your data is protected.”

SUSE AI’s top features are:

1. Security by Design: SUSE AI provides security and certifications at the software infrastructure level, along with zero-trust security tools, templates, and compliance playbooks.

2. Multifaceted Trust: The platform ensures that generated data is correct and private customer and IP data remain secure. It supports deployment across various environments, including on-premise, hybrid, cloud, and air-gapped setups.

3. Choice and Flexibility: SUSE AI allows customers to select and deploy their preferred AI components and LLMs.

4. Simplified Operations: The platform provides simplified cluster operations, persistent storage, and easy access to pre-configured shared tools and services.

Put it all together, and SUSE AI enables you to build your AI systems how you want while keeping your data safe. That strikes me as an offering many companies will want to check out.

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As SUSE continues to evolve its product lineup and branding, it’s reinforcing its identity not only as an important enterprise Linux contender but also as a top, cloud-native, and secure AI vendor. Keep an eye on Geeko, the SUSE chameleon. It’s going places.