At OPEN'15, Olaf Kirch (Director @ SUSE), gave a presentation on Alien Life Forms. About communities, enterprises..and all the rest.

1. Alien Life Forms
Communities, Enterprises and All the Rest
Olaf Kirch
Director SUSE Linux Enterprise, SUSE R&D
okir@suse.com

2. 2
Today, Linux is in many places
that we weren't dreaming of
20 years ago

5. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

7. 7
Data Centers
==
Enterprise Computing

8. Ready for a few Clichés?

9. 9 © Neil Carey
Enterprise IT

10. Open Source Communities

11. Somewhat More Seriously

12. 12
Open Source Communities
• Show me the Code!
‒ The only way to influence the outcome is by contributing
• Freedom!
‒ Trying to push anyone is guaranteed to backfire
• Do the Right Thing, and Do it Well!
‒ Why should your business problem matter to me?

13. 13
Enterprise IT
• Between a Rock and a Hard Place
‒ Most of the time, Enterprise IT is just an internal supplier with
contracts, SLAs etc
• Change is Cost
‒ Porting applications, testing, deployment, certifications,
training, support, ...
• Downtime is Expensive
‒ In terms of money... (Manufacturing, Finance)
‒ ... or even Human lives (e.g. Air Traffic Control)

14. Some Real Life Challenges

15. 15
Maintenance Window

16. 16
Perfect. Now hold it right there.

17. Nifty Bike! Can I have
one, too?

18. Compliance

19. It's About Adaptation and Innovation

20. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

21. Interstellar Travel, Anyone?

22. Interstellar Travel, Anyone?

23. 23
Dealing with Change: Backporting
• This used to be a one-off exercise
‒ Especially when you maintain your own fork
• Many projects are very helpful!
‒ Today, an increasing number of projects maintain stable
branches, or provide “stable” releases with longer term
maintenance
• There are very few really difficult ones out there
• Moving from one-off to shared effort

24. Interstellar Travel, Anyone?

25. 25
Dealing with Change: Up-revving
• This is something we only do as part of a service pack
‒ Obviously, new versions bring change
‒ And change inevitable brings regressions
‒ Functionality, ABI, config file format, ...
‒ Finding and fixing those requires significant QA
• But even in service packs, up-revving is risky

26. 26
What about the Kernel?
Traditional method: Back-porting upstream patches
‒ It works, it's great
‒ But as time goes by, you end up with Frankenstein Kernels

27. 27
Up-revving the Kernel!
Alternative method: Rebase with legacy support
‒ We did it in several Service Packs of SUSE Linux Enterprise
‒ It works, it's great
‒ Three cheers to the 2.6 kernel development model!
‒ Spend less time on backporting, more on hardening
‒ Only possible with sophisticated test automation
‒ Very positive experience, a new option going forward

28. Interstellar Travel, Anyone?

29. 29
Dealing with Change: Replacing
• You only ever do this in a major release
‒ Because really good change is often painful
• Can you make Enterprise customers embrace radical
change?
‒ Yes, if you provide backward compatibility
‒ And yes, if you help them with the transition

30. 30
init rides the rocket: systemd is here
• Introducing systemd in SUSE Linux Enterprise 12
‒ You can call this disruptive if you want :-)
• Our beta testers were fairly happy with the change
‒ After they got over the initial shock, that is
‒ Providing backward compatibility (as far as possible) is key

31. But it's also about Innovative Solutions

32. 32
Maintenance Window

33. 33
How do you help them?
• In a running system, you can update almost
everything without interrupting user processes
• Except for the kernel

34. 34
Kernel Live Patching
• Modify kernel code on a running machine
‒ Without reboot
‒ Like juggling chainsaws
• Several alternative approaches exist
• kGraft, developed by SUSE Labs developers
• Launched as new offering of SUSE Linux Enterprise 12

35. 35
kGraft Technology in 60 seconds
• Replaces entire kernel functions
• Code is loaded into kernel space as a loadable
module
• Kernel compiled with cc -pg
‒ places a few instructions into the preamble of every function
‒ same approach as ftrace
• Activating new code by modifying that preamble
‒ No need to stop the kernel

36. 36
Kernel Live Patching
• The technology all by itself is not so useful
‒ Unless you also provide customers with a stream of patches
• Launches as new service on top of
SUSE Linux Enterprise 12

37. And about Innovative Offerings

38. 38 © Neil Carey
They're more agile
than they look

39. It's about Dealing with Innovation...
Core Operating System

40. It's about Dealing with Innovation...
Core Operating System
• Supported for
10+3 years
• Great for your
Mission Critical
workloads

41. It's about Dealing with Innovation...
Core Operating System
• Supported for
10+3 years
• Great for your
Mission Critical
workloads
• But what about
Ruby, PHP, ...?

42. Innovation at Different Speeds
Core Operating System Add-Ons and Modules

43. 43
Innovation at Different Speeds
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12
‒ Supported for 10+3 years
• Plus Add-Ons
• Plus Modules with a shorter life cycle
‒ e.g. for Web and Scripting
• Plus alternative modes of deployment
‒ Appliances, docker, and all that

44. And it's about encouraging participation

45. 45
It's not a One-Way Street
• Enterprises are contributing to Linux already today
‒ Indirectly, through Linux vendors
‒ But also directly
• Encourage Enterprises to engage more
‒ The only way to influence is by contributing
• Foster understanding of Enterprise environments

46. Thank you.
46
For questions: okir@suse.com
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