FreeBSD vs. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

FreeBSD is the closest to a UNIX style operating system. This has been extensively used by vendors in the field of routing, switch and security as their base operating system. This speaks for itself being a reliable, scalable and secure operating system.

Incentivized

SLES is a good fit for running supported enterprise applications like SAP, HANA, oracle,.. We use it to run all our SAP workloads, and so far everything has worked great. All libraries are right in the repository, all documentation is correct and the support answers really fast in case you have problems.

Incentivized

• stability
• security
• scalability

Incentivized

• Seems Custom made for SAP workloads
• Longest standing collaboration between platform and apps
• SuSE for SAP works seamless on-prem, on SAP Cloud, Azure, AWS & GCP
• Support for oldest SP of SuSE so our customers can run their business without fear

• Installation can be tricky for first timers
• You need to be comfortable using a command line terminal most of the time

Incentivized

• The support window for service packs after a new SP is released is too short.
• Community engagement is low.
• There are times when supported packages fall too far behind and create compatibility issues with applications. The Open Build Service usually provides a way around this, though.

Incentivized

For the breadth of services, features and overall performance, I believe Suse Linux is a great choice for any enterprise. It still has to grow a bit in areas like online help forums and documents, but we are pretty much satisfied with our choice.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Third party training was fast but mostly unnecessary as we were already Unix trained and Linux familiar

FreeBSD was the only operating system out of many I tried to install easily on older hardware and to run in a very performant way. For example, I had a lot of trouble trying to get Ubuntu to install on older hardware and when it did, it was too slow to use. FreeBSD installed quite easily and even after installing a desktop such as XFCE - it still run surprisingly fast. I was very impressed with it's performance, which it seems is a goal of the FreeBSD project.

Incentivized

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server works well with the SUSE Manager, it really simplifies everything. We also do have SUSE 4 SAP, and the SUSE Manager is able to manage them all, even other (up to date) Linux distributions. Patching has never been that easy and the SALT integration is also working without any problems.

We have successfully deployed on physical servers, VMs and in cloud all over the globe from templates of our own design

• As FreeBSD is free - the ROI is at least the cost of some commercial Linux or Windows based OS (which can be very expensive)
• Allowed the re-use of older hardware that would have otherwise been disposed
• No cost development environment
• Opportunity for a no cost server setup also

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized