SUSE used its SUSECON 2025 event this week in Orlando, Florida to explain where its portfolio of enterprise software infrastructure tools and services has expanded and extended to evolve to the platform proposition that the company now offers.
Hosting the day two keynote wasThomas Di Giacomo,chief technology and product officer at SUSE.
Di Giacomo spoke at length about the “real and pressing need” that modern organisations have as they (typically) need to keep a certain level of legacy applications running while also moving towards modern vital applications. He suggests that all of this needs to be done through an end-to-end infrastructure layer that underpins security and compliance.
“Harnessing AI involves a certain amount of risk (on any company’s data), so AI requires security that spans across data layers as they are exposed to interconnected AI services now emerging,” said Di Giacomo. “Our products and solutions are both integrated and modular so organisations can build composable computing stacks that work for all environments.”
More open (source) than ever
Deliberately aligned towards cloud-native technologies, Di Giacomo says that in 2025 SUSE is “more open source than ever” from all aspects of code contribution to Linux (for 30 years now) and… the company is a leading contributor to the Linux kernel (third after Intel and Emerson).. Qualcomm, Linaro, Google, AMD, Red Hat and Oracle also follow in this list.
“SUSE wants to restore the balance of choice back into the hands of customers,” said Di Giacomo, who then handed the rest of the day two keynote over to Rick Spener, SUSE general manager for Linux.
Birth of enterprise Linux
Spencer told the story of why he thinks SUSE is the enterprise partner that firms should be working with… when the company (on October 31st, 2000) released the first version of enterprise Linux, it was initially for a mainframe deployment, but more accessible PC-format versions soon followed.
“We know that enterprises have enterprise requirements, which is why SUSE developed enterprise lifecyle tools so that firms could plan [roadmaps] more effectively,” said Spencer. “Over time we have added more layers of support, observability, security services (and, crucially, security certifications), all of which is why SUSE is an early adopter of (and contributor to) information streams on zero day exploits. The nature of open source is that innovation will happen in all directions, so SUSE Enterprise Linux has been developed in so many diverse ways across virtualisation practices and so much more in terms of workload diversification, scale etc. – the complexity and heterogeneity of enterprise software has massively increased in recent years, but SUSE has extensive experience across all spheres stretching back over 25 years now.”
Looking at the key product news brought forward from SUSE this week, the company announced work centred on Enterprise Container Management. Advancements here spanned virtualisation, observability, security, developer experience and SaaS offerings – and all are designed to solidify SUSE as an enterprise container management platform for cloud-native workloads everywhere.
“Today’s announcement reinforces our commitment to delivering scalable, secure and flexible solutions to address enterprises’ most demanding cloud native requirements,” said Peter Smails, SVP and GM of cloud-native at SUSE.
Smails says that SUSE Rancher Prime provides unified management for simple, scalable, secure and reliable self-service platforms across a distributed cloud-native environment.
The platform is certified to support a broad range of cloud native applications. New updates here also include SUSE Rancher for SAP applications, a platform facilitating SAP hybrid-cloud integration – based on the SAP-validated SUSE Rancher Prime. It caters to strict enterprise requirements and is purpose-built for containerised SAP workloads.
“SUSE Rancher for SAP applications is a fully integrated platform with Kubernetes, Linux, virtualisation, databases, best practices, security, observability and integrated support. The new offering helps organisations deploy SAP workloads faster and more reliably, reduce IT costs, and maintain regulatory requirements,” noted SUSE, in a press statement.
Banking on Temenos Core
SUSE Rancher Prime is now also certified with Temenos Core, a “core” banking platform. The integration with SUSE Rancher Prime enables financial institutions to modernise their core banking infrastructure while harnessing Kubernetes with enterprise-grade security, scalability and performance.
Temenos Core is a banking software platform used by banks worldwide to process core banking functions like transactions, accounts and lending, offering a solution for both retail and corporate banking.
According to Temenos, “On the Temenos Banking Platform, our clients have access to leading core banking capabilities. To create end-to-end banking services, they can also access Temenos Digital, Financial Crime Mitigation, Data and AI capabilities, as well as the Temenos Exchange with an ecosystem of 150+ pre-integrated fintech solutions.”
Microsoft SIEM
SUSE used SUSECON to announce an integration between SUSE Security and Microsoft Sentinel, a cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM) toolset. The integration (which, like so many technologies, is enhanced by the generative AI capabilities of Microsoft Security Copilot), empowers joint customers with a unified security approach across hybrid IT environments.
“This new integration is a robust security solution for any organization running cloud native workloads on Microsoft Azure and is a great example of how AI is being used to advance enterprise cybersecurity strategies,” said Laurent Mechain, global head of cloud at SUSE. “We’re excited to deepen our existing work with Microsoft and reinforce our commitment to powering open, secure innovation.”
Managing security posture across different platforms and environments, especially amid an increasing volume and sophistication of security threats, is a challenge for many enterprises today.
This new integration aims to help address that challenge with a centralised security dashboard, offering users visibility of security threats across environments and the ability to respond to them with automated actions. Microsoft Sentinel raises an alert based on the data and autonomously quarantines the node to prevent any spread while waiting for a human review, significantly accelerating the response time.
SUSE rounded out its key day two product updates with news of SUSE Rancher for SAP applications, a solution that enables businesses to bridge their systems and cloud solutions from SAP anywhere. The new offering, built entirely on open source technology, delivers flexibility, security, and operational continuity for enterprises relying on mission-critical operations from SAP in hybrid-cloud scenarios.
Validated infrastructure
SUSE has been a partner of SAP for over 25 years. The company says that its “deep alliance” reflects SUSE’s commitment to providing SAP customers with reliable, validated infrastructure that ensures business continuity and operational excellence. SUSE Rancher for SAP applications is the latest milestone in this enduring partnership, tailored to meet the evolving needs of enterprises running critical SAP workloads.
The key takeaways from SUSECON 2025 gravitate around this notion of“validated infrastructure” as the company now moves to provide a new cadre of its core services via cloud-driven Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) services. SUSE keynote speakers resonated messages designed to confirm the company’s ability to help organisations “modernise” at their own pace on the path to increasingly virtualised cloud-native deployments.
As a closing thought, SUSE has a strong and openly visible approach to diversity and inclusivity that also spans embracing the skills and talents of neurodiverse people – the company’s“people matters” web pages are a good place to start learning more in this regard.
SUSE embraces diversity across all spectrums, including neurodiverse individuals.