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SUSE Manager

Score10 out of 10

20 Reviews and Ratings

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What is SUSE Manager?

German company SUSE offers SUSE Manager, a software defined infrastructure Linux server configuration management tool supporting patching, provisioning of Linux servers, and related actions.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features SUSE Manager has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 20 ratings of SUSE Manager's features
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Top Performing Features

  • Infrastructure Automation

    Automate the setup of systems to achieve their desired state using configuration files.

    Category average: 9

  • Automated Provisioning

    Automatically and systematically deploy, configure, and manage IT infrastructure and resources.

    Category average: 8.8

  • Parallel Execution

    Allows for the simultaneous execution of configuration changes across multiple nodes or components.

    Category average: 8.5

Areas for Improvement

  • Node Management

    Allows for the administration and oversight of individual devices or systems within a network.

    Category average: 8.2

  • Version Control

    Track changes made to configurations over time. Allowing for rollback to previous configurations if needed.

    Category average: 8.5

  • Reporting & Logging

    Generate reports and logs to track changes made to configurations, aiding in troubleshooting and auditing.

    Category average: 7.7

Reviews

What users are saying about SUSE Manager.
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A one-stop shop for a SUSE system admin

Incentivized
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have about 170 SUSE linux enterprise virtual machines, we were looking for an easy way to manage them (from bootstrapping to configuring, patching, upgrading to decomissioning). By hand, this would be an enormous task, so we looked for a platform that would help us. We chose SUSE Manager because it's vendor supported and is able to manage our infrastucture effectively.

Pros

  • update management
  • lifecycle management
  • patch management
  • configuration management
  • bootstrapping

Cons

  • upgrade procedure is sometimes a bit complex
  • api documentation could use more examples
  • licensing is a bit complex and changes over the years

Return on Investment

  • it's a timesaver
  • it's easy to manage your subscriptions
  • gives a complete overview of the state of your SUSE products

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform

Other Software Used

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, SAP BW/4HANA, Microsoft 365

Less work, more security

Incentivized
Andreas OllenburgView profile
IT-Sicherheitsexperte in Information Technology at OWL-IT (501-1000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

When I started in my company, all our SUSE servers had to be installed and managed manually or by scripts. When SUSE Manager introduced, a lot of daily stuff became easier. The management of our AutoYaST-profiles and thus the automatic installation works like charm. Managing our system regarding updates and having an overview of our level of patching became very easy. Auditing systems when new messages about security leaks are coming in is also a great help for us. The possibilities with Salt to manage and distribute (configuration) files on and to our servers is another great feature to have a uniform and stable environment. All in all, our environment became easier and faster to manage. Especially setting up and managing standards for our servers helped a lot increasng our level of security. And not to forget the saving of a lot of time and the decreasing of headaches and pains in our daily business.

Pros

  • automatic installation using AutoYaST
  • standard environment
  • auditing servers reagrding CVE
  • patching the servers

Cons

  • making it easier to get individual patches to channels

Return on Investment

  • saving time and resources

Usability

Other Software Used

Kubernetes

The Smart Choice for Managing S/4HANA landscapes

Incentivized
Younes Lakhdari
Senior Software Engineer in Information Technology at sonatrach (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using SUSE Manager as a local database configuration for all of our Linux servers and devices . This helps a ton because we were having issues compiling a list and organizing our Linux environment under one roof. We are able to easily find and manage our Linux environment such us making sure that all critical patches are gradually rolled out over the landscape, auditing our systems using openscap, ensuring that all our systems have exactly the same baseline (regarding software selections AND software versions) it is the central system, it provides us a top-tier support team that is very intuitive and 24/7 proactive. the first go-to when managing our SLES infrastructure whereas before it was pretty messy. It's easy to deploy and manage.

Pros

  • Content lifecycle management
  • Workflows automation
  • Network discovery
  • Easy for bootstrapping and patching and configuring of our systems

Cons

  • our Configuration management was simplified
  • Reduces runtime. And maintenance cost and saving resources
  • Easy access for troubleshooting

Most Important Features

  • content lifecycle management
  • configuration management
  • patching management
  • Asset Management Tools

Return on Investment

  • Manages patch levels for most Linux OS by: date, group, cloud or custom channels
  • Make it easy to audit our own infrastructure.
  • Allows the joining of groups inside SUSE Manager to quickly access or work with servers so grouped.
  • 24/7 support team.
  • Automatic deployment.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft System Center and Red Hat Satellite

SUSE Manager - Great to manage Linux systems

Marcel HuismanView profile
Linux/Storage Administrator in Information Technology at G-Star Raw C.V. (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have a quite large Linux environment with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (for SAP Applications), Red Hat, Centos and other distributions. It is hard to create an update plan in a DTAP environment. SUSE Manager helps us a lot in our Life Cycle management for Linux distributions. It is a product from SUSE, but we can also manage our Red Hat, CentOS and Debian distributions. Currently there are a lot of Security Vulnerabilities which need to be addressed. Notifications come in form of CVE's which can also be checked in SUSE Manager and immediately be patched for the involved Servers.

Pros

  • LifeCycle Management
  • Security and Compliance
  • Patch Management

Cons

  • Adding Other distributions
  • Removing channels and products
  • Servers sometimes disconnect

Most Important Features

  • Life Cycle Management
  • Security compliance management

Return on Investment

  • Timesaving by managing patches and Security vulnerabilities.

Other Software Used

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, NetApp AFF A-Series All Flash Arrays, IBM AIX, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Well supported, mature, and feature rich!

Arthur HammView profile
Senior Systems Administrator / Analyst Infrastructure III in Information Technology at LafargeHolcim (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

  • Automate processes, run scripts and control software updates on our 250+ Linux OS servers, including SUSE, OEL, and RHEL
  • Create operational efficiencies and cost management (the two biggest reasons we purchased SUSE Manager originally)
  • Security team also uses SUSE Manager to audit our patch levels and create vulnerability reports

Pros

  • OS updates and patching
  • Salt Stack lite automation

Cons

  • The inability of the proxy servers to cache anything not cached on the main server

Most Important Features

  • Salt Stack lite included
  • Proxy servers

Return on Investment

  • Reduced administrative effort by replacing four other products.
  • Reduced time and resources to implement with Salt

Other Software Used

Salt Open Source Automation Engine