The Wombelix Post - SLES

SUSECON 25 is coming, four session proposals accepted!

2024-12-18T00:00:00+01:00

I have the pleasure and great opportunity to represent Amazon Web Services (AWS) with two Sessions at SUSECON 25 in Florida (Archive: [1], [2]) together with my SUSE co-speaker Kevin Ayres and Nicolas Lowman. In addition, two other proposals I've submitted were accepted for recording and will be published after the Event. Stephen Mogg and Graham Hares well be my co-speaker for them.

I'm looking forward to it, even though there is a lot of work ahead the next two months :O

In-Person

TUTORIAL-1061: Paint it Green, automate migrations to SLES with SUSE Manager on AWS

Imagine you want to go from Red to Green with a large fleet of Servers. How do you achieve this? Which solutions and tools can you leverage? In this session we demonstrate an approach to migrate at scale. We dive-deep how SUSE Manager plays a crucial role and becomes our Automation control center. This includes Infrastructure Orchestration and the actual Server as well as Data migration. You have systems that you can’t migrate to SLES? No worries, we have an alternative option for you! Join us on the journey to make your Linux Landscape a little more Green.

TUTORIAL-1085: Rancher as GitOps and application platform with Fleet and Epinio on AWS

Learn in this session how to address the problem of undifferentiated heavy lifting for Cluster management and application deployment of your DevOps Teams. We dive-deep on Rancher as GitOps and application platform with Fleet and Epinio on AWS. A brief overview of features and concepts will help you which one to choose based on different use-cases. We talk about the Architecture of Rancher with Fleet and Epinio on Amazon EKS. And going to spend the rest of the session with Demos of Fleet and Epinio for cluster management and application deployment on AWS. We want you to leave this session with the knowledge and curiosity to leverage Fleet and Epinio in your own environment.

Digital

TUTORIAL-1071: SUSE Storage (Longhorn) on AWS - Architecture, Backup, Disaster Recovery and Observability

Learn in this session best practices when deploying SUSE Storage (Longhorn) as cloud-native storage solution on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS). We talk about storage optimization options by leveraging different Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volume types. How to perform Backup and Restore with Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and build Cross-Region Disaster Recovery. Gain detailed insights with federated observability across all your SUSE Storage clusters with Amazon Managed Service for Prometheus and Amazon Managed Grafana. Leave this session with knowledge of deployment and integration options of SUSE Storage on AWS.

TUTORIAL-1070: SUSE Virtualization (Harvester) on AWS - A Science Experiment and its (unexpected) outcome

Curious how our little “science experiment” to deploy SUSE Virtualization (Harvester) on AWS went? In this session we share details of our journey with you. What exactly is SUSE Virtualization and why do we even want to run it on AWS? We take a look at some key technical and architecture considerations during our Engineering adventure. What worked, what didn’t and where did some duct tape had to hold everything together? What are the learnings and how might the future for SUSE Virtualization on AWS look like? We want you to leave this session with the knowledge and curiosity to experiment yourself with your own SUSE Virtualization on AWS project.

SUSE Certified Engineer in SLES High-Availability 15

2024-06-17T00:00:00+02:00

And I'm back at 100% SUSE Certified :D I took the Exam on the first day of SUSECON 24 in Berlin. Glad that I passed, couple of tricky questions, but fair for an advanced level cert. I can see why Richard Mayne is proud of the Exam questions he wrote :)

Now I have to wait till the SUSE Training Team releases a new Exam. I've heard something about Longhorn during SUSECON, let's wait and see.

Summary:

Demonstrates knowledge of how to deploy workloads along with performing maintenance tasks and upgrading the cluster software on an existing HA cluster.

Source & Copyright: https://www.suse.com

Skills

Cluster Terminology
High Availability Extension Components
Cluster Administration Tools
Hawk2
Command Line Tools
Configuring and Synchronizing files with csync2
Cluster Resources
Resource Agents
Resource Types
Location Constraints
Order Constraints
Colocation Constraints
Deploying and Configuring Cluster Managed Storage
Configuring Lock Management for Shared Storage
Deploying OCFS2
Deploying Clustered LVM
Deploying Clustered DRBD
Cluster NFS using DRBD Storage
Testing Clustered NFS Configuration
Using Maintenance Mode
Shutting Down the Cluster
Updating the Cluster Node Software
Deploying System Updates
Troubleshooting a Cluster
Performing a Cluster Health Check
Command Line Troubleshooting Tools
Logs
Cluster Startup Configuration

Source & Copyright: https://www.suse.com

Certificate

Downloads
- Certificate (ID 266) (PDF, 39.7K)
Links
- Verify Certificate
- SUSE Badges

SUSE Certified Deployment Specialist in SLES High-Availability 15

2024-05-13T00:00:00+02:00

SUSE invited me as Beta tester for the new SUSE Certified Deployment Specialist in SLES High-Availability 15 Exam. It was my pleasure to provide feedback and help to improve the Exam. Nice side effect that I also passed :) One more to go before I'm back at 100% SUSE certified ;)

Preparation was as usual, I mainly used the official SUSE Lecture and Lab Guide. I like to read them on my tablet at the evening and find that more convenient than watching videos.

Summary:

Demonstrates knowledge of how to plan the deployment of an HA cluster, deploy the cluster and perform post deployment configuration and testing.

Source & Copyright: https://www.suse.com

Skills

Cluster Terminology
High Availability Extension's Components
SLE HA in the Public Cloud
Overview of SLE15 HA Implementation Process
Collect the Required Parameters
Planning Storage
2 Node Clusters
Designing Test Cases
Testing and Documentation
Local Filesystems
Preparing the Infrastructure
Cluster Networking
Bonding Configuration
Time Synchronization
Name Resolution
User Management
Software Management for the HA Environment
Deploy the First Cluster Node
Deploy the Second Cluster Node
Configure Fault Tolerance for corosync Communications
Advanced Quorum Configuration with Qdevice and QNetd
Hawk
Command Line Tools
Configure and Synchronize files with csync2
Split Brain in a Cluster
Fencing
STONITH - Shoot the other Node in the Head
Prepare a System to become a Cluster Node
Prepare the Cluster for the New Node
Add a Node to the Cluster
Update the Cluster Configuration

Source & Copyright: https://www.suse.com

Certificate

Downloads
- Certificate (ID 200) (PDF, 39.7K)
Links
- Verify Certificate
- SUSE Badges

SUSECON 2023 recordings public available on YouTube

2023-10-05T00:00:00+02:00

Since July the SUSECON 23 session recordings were available on-demand but required a registration. They now became public available on YouTube!

I talked about Rancher integration with AWS services, possibilities, challenges and outlook (PROD 1178) and SUSE ALP prototype on AWS, Experimental, but fun (TUT 1179).

The sessions from my peers at AWS I want to highlight are SUSE Maintenance Operations on AWS Demystified (TUT 1137) and How SUSE and AWS partner to drive customer success (TBO 1042).

I'm looking forward to next years SUSECON and hope I have the opportunity to speak again about SUSE on AWS.

SUSE forks RHEL, SUSE Liberty Linux reloaded?

2023-07-11T00:00:00+02:00

I will not go into details about the recent announcement from Red Hat to stop publishing RHEL sources on git.centos.org and the millions of reactions from all sides of the community.

What I want to quickly comment on, but from a probably very different view, is the announcement that SUSE made today about a hard-fork of RHEL, as communicated in SUSE Preserves Choice in Enterprise Linux (Archive: [1], [2]) and At SUSE We Make Choice Happen (Archive: [1], [2])

I saw a lot of reactions and comments about it on various platforms and realized, most people doesn't seem to be aware, that SUSE already has a "RHEL Clone" and provides commercial support for Enterprise Linux compatible systems, for many years.

Until last year, the offering was called Expanded Support and was then basically just renamed into SUSE Liberty Linux. Rumors said, SUSE had in mind to create a own Enterprise Linux compatible Distribution and to release it under this new name. But then decided to keep it low and proceed with the, in my opinion not very well known, commercial offering, which mainly targeted customer that want to migrate to SLES at some point.

I also wrote a letter to the editor (german only) (Archive: [1], [2]) about those history, after an Article about SUSE Liberty Linux was released last year in the iX Magazine in Germany.

Google Translate (german > english) direct link: https://www-heise-de.translate.goog/select/ix/2022/4/2203310005881141836?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Don't get me wrong, I really like what SUSE already did all the years and have the feeling it's a logical step to use the existing knowledge and finally publish SUSE Liberty Linux (or whatever name they will give it now). I just think we should keep in mind, they not going to start something from scratch and personally I assume that existing costs for SUSE Liberty Linux are, to a certain extend, already included in the nice sounding $10+ Million dollar investment :)

Still, SUSE is 30 years in the business and now seem to get serious with SUSE Liberty Linux, I really hope they moving fast, publishing what they have and start building an active community around their very own version of an Enterprise Linux compatible Distro.

Maybe at some point, people can get commercial support from SUSE for EL and switching from a community supported to a commercial supported operating system, and vice versa, as easy as it's possible today with openSUSE Leap 15 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15.

SUSE Certified Deployment Specialist in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15

2023-06-28T00:00:00+02:00

Back at 100% after passing SCDS in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 today. Right now, I'm holding all available SUSE Certifications, a milestone I reached the first time in November 2022. I'm proud about it and plan to keep up with whatever Certification SUSE is going to release next :)

This one was also very special for me because SUSE invited me as BETA tester for the Exam and I had the opportunity to provide feedback, which was used to further improve the questions and answers before the official release at SUSECON 23 in Munich.

Summary: Knowledge and understanding of various deployment methods and techniques, including manual deployment, automated installation using AutoYaST, image-based deployment using KIWI and deployment on public cloud platforms.

Source & Copyright: https://www.suse.com

Skills

Supported Platforms
SUSE Customer Center
Product Lifecycle
How to Access the Product Packages
Technology Previews
Products, Modules and Extensions
Deployment Infrastructure
Deployment Services
Manual Deployment of SLES
- Preparation for a Manual Installation
- Accessing a System during the Deployment
- Remote Installation Process
Automated Deployment of SLES using AutoYaST
- AutoYaST Components
Image Based Deployment of SLES Using KIWI
- KIWI Basic Workflow
- KIWI Build Host
- KIWI Image Description File
- Building KIWI Images
- KIWI Image Maintenance
Deployment of SLES to the Public Cloud
- Preparation for Deployment
- Bring Your Own Subscription or Pay As You Go?
- Cloud Images
- Deployment of SLES to the Public Cloud
- Manual Instance Deployment in the Cloud
- Automated Deployment Tools
- Post Deployment Configuration

Source & Copyright: https://www.suse.com

Certificate

Downloads
- Certificate (ID 1002) (PDF, 40K)
Links
- Verify Certificate
- SUSE Badges

SUSE Certified Engineer in SLES for SAP Applications 15

2023-02-12T00:00:00+01:00

Proud to be SCE in SLES for SAP 15 number 166, after passing the two necessary Exams today. It's the first time SUSE requires two Exams to get certified and they were really tough ones. Tackling the SCA+ in SLES for SAP 12 and SCA+ in SLES High Availability last year as well as previous SAP NetWeaver and HANA experience definitely helped, but still, these both are the hardest SUSE Exams I took so far. I also decided to take both Exams in a row, means 3 hours with 140 Questions, very intensive, I would probably do it again, but not recommend to others doing it like that ;)

But as much I like SUSE, I have the impression that the quality of the Training Material but also Exams drops. For example, the courses to prepare for the Exam are based on different SLES 15 versions, which leads to situations where in Course A you learn about a specific version of a tool just to basically learn the opposite, caused by a new release, in Course B. Also during the Exam lot of questions where just not clear in what is asked for, more than once it was just guessing.

Such things can happen, but I would love to see a little increase in content Quality in future.

Other than that, the Exam isn't only single or multiple choice anymore, there are input fields where you have to fill in a command including all parameter to solve a problem. There are also screenshots from command output or web / gui interfaces and you have to place a marker on the right place depending on the question, for example on the line that provides you a specific information in a CLI output.

I like that there are some more variations but asking commands including arguments isn't that beneficial in my personal opinion. I'm in the industry my whole life and looking up exact syntax and parameter in the docs and man pages is something I still do all the time. If you want to test commands, I suggest provide a practical Exam and to let the Student build something in a real environment under real conditions, including the availability of the standard documentation ;)

Anyway, I passed, with a Score of 84% in part 1 and 86% in part 2, solid numbers given the difficulty of the Exam, the passing score is 70%.

Overall I still can recommend the SUSE Courses and Exam, they might not perfect but can help you to improve your Skills a lot! And that's at the end good for yourself, your career, the company you working for and most important: Your Customers.

Summary: "SUSE Certified Engineer in SLES for SAP Applications" is designed for System Architects, Deployment Engineers and System Administrators. Building on the "SCA+ in SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability", this certification demonstrates knowledge of how to plan, deploy, test and manage SLES for SAP Applications to provide High Availability for key SAP workloads, following SUSE Best Practice. The two key SAP workloads included in the certification are "SAP HANA with System Replication in a Scale Up Performance Optimized configuration" and "SAP Enqueue and Enqueue Replication Server"

Source & Copyright: https://www.suse.com

Skills

The Standalone Enqueue Serve
The Enqueue Replication Server
Architectural Overview of ENSA1
Architectural Overview of ENSA2
Deploy the Enqueue Server with High Availability
Configure Storage for the Enqueue Server in an HA Environment
Configure Name Resolution for the ASCS and ERS Instances
Create the Linux Users for the ASCS and ERS Instances
Install the Enqueue and Enqueue Replication Servers
Use saptune to Tune a Host for the SAP NetWeaver Workload
Deploy the SLE HA Cluster
Adapt the SAP Profiles to Match the SAP Certification
Integrate the Cluster Framework with sap-suse-cluster-connector V3.x
Adapt the SAP Profiles to Match the SAP Certification
Create and Configure the Cluster Resources for ENSA2
Overview of a Multi-SID Central Services Cluster Configuration
Design and Perform Cluster Tests
Monitor the HA Components
Monitor the SAP Enqueue Servers
Recovery Procedures after a Fail Over
Applying a Rolling SAP Kernel Switch
Manage and Deploy System Updates
Log Files
Administer the Cluster
SAP HANA Database Terminology
SAP HANA Architecture
SAP HANA Deployment Options
Scale Up and Scale Out
HANA System Replication
Component Redundancy
Server Hardware
Data Centers and HANA System Replication
SAP HANA High Availability Features
Service Auto-Restart
SAP HANA Auto-Restart
SAP HANA Disaster Recovery Support
SAP HANA System Replication
Backing Up SAP HANA
Performance vs Cost Optimized
SAP HANA Hardware and Cloud Measurement Tools
Appliance vs SAP HANA Tailored Datacenter Integration (TDI)
SAP HANA Hardware Directory
Supported Operating Systems
Supported File Systems for SAP HANA
Storage for SAP HANA
HANA User and Group Accounts
HA with SAP HANA System Replication
SAP HANA Platform Lifecycle Management Tools
Prepare the SAP HANA Primary System before Configuring System Replication
Configure HANA System Replication
Test a manual SAP HANA System Replication Takeover
Use saptune to Tune Systems for a SAP HANA Workload
Install the SLES for SAP Applications HA Components
Deploy the Cluster
Global Cluster Configuration
Perform Basic Cluster Functionality Tests
Cluster Bootstrap Configuration
Configure SAP HANA HA/DR Providers
Create and Configure the Required Cluster Resources
Design and Perform Cluster Tests
Monitor the HA Components
Monitor SAP HANA System Replication

Source & Copyright: https://www.suse.com

Certificate

Downloads
- Certificate (ID 166) (PDF, 121.5K)
Links
- Verify Certificate