SUSE Manager Reviews

My main use case for SUSE Manager was to configure it for client purposes, specifically for centralized Linux system management. I register and manage clients, perform patch management, synchronize repositories, manage software channels, and onboard systems using activation keys and bootstrap repositories. I monitor system inventory and automate tasks through Salt. I also use the SUSE Manager Proxy to manage systems in disconnected or remote environments. All these tasks are done for clients, including a project I worked on for Dr. Reddy's.

One specific task I worked on involved onboarding an Ubuntu client to SUSE Manager through a disconnected SUSE Proxy. I created the activation key and bootstrap repository and registered the client, after which I requested and accepted the Salt key to verify the communication between SUSE Manager and the client for pushing package updates and running commands remotely. I also troubleshot connectivity and firewall issues until the client communicated with the manager properly.

The features of SUSE Manager I appreciate the most are patch management, centralized management, client management, repository and software channel management, Salt automation, and activation keys. The SUSE Manager Proxy is the main feature I like because, even in a disconnected environment, it is more secure as it allows me to test updates before promoting them to production. This feature reduces manual work, keeps systems consistent, and makes managing a large number of Linux servers much easier.

One feature that has significantly saved me time is patch management. Instead of logging into each Linux server individually, I schedule updates from my SUSE Manager dashboard for multiple systems at once. I monitor the job from the dashboard and verify the results, ensuring that all the servers are successfully and consistently updated. This reduces my manual work and minimizes the chance of missing any systems.

The biggest advantage of SUSE Manager is that it centralizes everything—from client registration and patching to automation and compliance. Everything can be managed from one single view, improving consistency, saving time, and making troubleshooting much easier, especially when managing a large number of Linux systems, such as thousands of systems.

Regarding the impact of SUSE Manager on my organization, it has significantly improved our efficiency. Most of our administrative tasks are centralized and automated now, such as patching, client management, and software deployment, which take much less time than doing them manually. It has also improved our reliability by keeping the system consistent and making monitoring easier. If any issues arise, I can troubleshoot everything from one single dashboard.

Earlier I mentioned that patching multiple Linux servers manually took two to three hours since I had to log into each system one by one. With SUSE Manager, I can schedule and monitor the updates centrally, allowing me to complete the same task in just thirty to forty-five minutes. It also reduces configuration mistakes since every system receives the same approved updates and policies.

I find that while SUSE Manager is generally good, the initial setup and repository synchronization can be a little complex, especially for new users or those working in disconnected environments. Troubleshooting sometimes requires checking multiple logs, and I believe the user interface could be more intuitive for some advanced tasks. Better built-in troubleshooting guidance and easier repository management would improve the overall experience. Additionally, the official documentation is not comprehensive enough; many commands are missing, and it could benefit from screenshots to help with installation, such as adding clients.

I believe that more built-in health checks and clearer error messages would greatly assist not just me but everyone in the organization during troubleshooting. Simplifying the proxy configuration and disconnected environment setup would also save time. Overall, the product is stable and works well once it is configured properly.

I have been working in this field for approximately one point eight years, which is almost two years.

From my experience, SUSE Manager is very stable. It has proven reliable in day-to-day operations, and once it is configured correctly, client communication, patching, repositories, and Salt automation work very well in production. Most issues I have encountered have been related to initial configuration and connectivity rather than to the product itself.

In terms of scalability, I find that SUSE Manager scales very well. I can manage a growing number of Linux systems by adding SUSE Manager Proxies for remote sites and distributing the workload effectively. It handles client onboarding, patching, and automation efficiently without major changes to the overall architecture.

I have interacted with the SUSE support team numerous times, mainly for product guidance and licensing queries. My experience has been good; they are responsive and technically knowledgeable, providing clear documentation and troubleshooting steps in most cases. I was able to resolve several issues, including one regarding the registration of SUSE Manager and the keys for both SUSE Manager and proxies, which the SUSE team helped clarify after I had been stuck for several days.

For those looking into using SUSE Manager, I recommend spending time understanding the architecture before proceeding with any deployment. Focus on software channels, activation keys, repositories, Salt, and the crucial SUSE Manager Proxy. Proper planning of the environment from the beginning is essential, and if possible, test everything in your lab. Once everything is running and configured correctly, SUSE Manager is a reliable tool that simplifies managing Linux clients across various distributions.

My experience with SUSE Manager has been positive. It provides a reliable solution for managing Linux infrastructure, especially for organizations handling thousands of clients. Everything can be done from a single platform, making centralized patch management, automation, and repository management much easier in my daily administration. I would definitely recommend it to other organizations as an enterprise Linux management solution. I would rate this product nine out of ten.

My use cases include using SUSE Manager for patching the Linux operating system. I used to use SUSE Manager in my previous company. Currently, in my company, we are not using SUSE Manager.

What I appreciate best about SUSE Manager is that it supports most of the Linux flavors.

It supports more than six or seven Linux flavors, and when compared to other tools such as Satellite, which only supports the Red Hat operating system, SUSE Manager supports Red Hat, Ubuntu, Debian, and some other Linux operating systems for patch management.

We can manage these patches, and there are additional features, such as managing Ansible and system reboots from the web interface, as well as configuration checks.

From an integration perspective, it is difficult to integrate with Jira or any ticketing tool, which is challenging. We didn't try that, but we opened a case with SUSE support, and they said that it requires consultation for this new use case.

In terms of support, both response time and knowledge-wise, they need to improve.

In my previous company, I worked at Saturn Metropolis, where I implemented SUSE Manager for one customer and provided support for it from the Saturn Metropolis perspective.

Their support is adequate.

I wonder how they can improve their service.

Neutral

I am currently using many tools, such as Office and Outlook.

The price is costly, and there are open-source versions of the same clones that we can use for free. We are paying for the additional support from SUSE Manager, and price-wise, it is quite high.

When we compare their pricing to other management tools, the price of SUSE Manager is higher.

I rate SUSE Manager a six out of ten.

Positive

The use case for SUSE Manager is for several tasks such as bringing up the instances for SAP HANA, bringing them down, and performing automatic procedures such as housekeeping on HANA files. There are several files related to the database, and mostly those related functions of HANA.

I utilize the automation features for configuration management and patching. We have several HP-related software and devices that help. We use SUSE Linux and Red Hat. We have OneView, which we incorporate with Synergy.

Regarding SUSE Manager, one of the most valuable features is the logical volume manager and file management. The logical volume manager allows for expanding files whenever we need more space on disk for the files and HANA.

We can reduce human errors with the automation features.

I utilize the system auditing and reporting capabilities, which provide us with audit trails.

They are helpful in this particular instance for system security, performance, and troubleshooting.

SUSE Manager's integration with other DevOps and workflows is helpful.

The integration of some functions on cybersecurity could be improved if possible, along with features that can be helpful in disaster recovery.

My experience with SUSE Linux spans about five years. We previously worked with UNIX and used it with SAP. We had SAP with UNIX, HP-UX, with Oracle. The new version, SAP HANA, required the HANA database with Linux SUSE. We have been working with the SUSE environment and the new HANA environment for five years.

I have experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I mostly work with SUSE Linux, but we have a couple of servers with Red Hat.

I use SUSE Manager.

My review rating for SUSE Manager is 10 out of 10.

I'm a freelancer and I have a number of customers and I need to patch their systems. The beauty of SUSE Manager is that it supports different Linux systems such as Red Hat and SentOS, SLES, and Ubuntu.

When it comes to managing both Red Hat and SUSE environments, it provides the support for live patching, which is something I really, really appreciate.

The other thing that I use a lot as well is embedded monitoring. You can use these cool tools that you use in the cloud, such as Grafana Prometheus, to do monitoring of your system. 

Actually deploying stuff is quite easy.

I really would like to have a broader library of VCP's or playbooks that I can deploy. That's the only thing I would sometimes really need. I'd like a proper code library.

I would like to see some AI or machine learning or some mechanism that can predict my potential errors. For instance, if I'm running out of a space in my server X maybe it can raise an alert and tell me, "with the current consumption of a storage in the server in 10 days, you're going to run out of space." 

I've used the solution since April of 2021.

It's quite stable. Usually, even though I manage different customers and I have sometimes connectivity problems with the VPN, I haven't had to reboot the system or the services whatsoever. I'm quite happy with that.

I can't really speak to the scalability. I don't have a big environment. I have multiple small environments and I can connect easily to any of them, therefore, I'm happy.

I would increase my users if my customers added more servers, which may happen. I'm based in Spain and usually, the fiscal year tends to start in January and people are getting more money for the first quarter. I may get some servers for my customers or add some more customers to my list. I don't know if that will happen or not.

I only opened a case when I did the update. They pointed me to the documentation and I felt silly as I could have also found that on the website without them. Beyond that, I didn't need to open any cases, which is good.

I also deal with Ansible and Salt. What I have are those solutions embedded into SUSE Manager as SUSE Manager supports both Salt and Ansible with the latest release. That was my driver to include 4.2 in my roadmap instead of just sticking with 4.1. I'd say that SUSE Manager goes beyond configuration management. Sometimes I also use Ansible as a standalone to string some VMs to the cloud and so on. That's great. However, my traditional configurations with Salt or Ansible are just not enough, which is why I also have SUSE.

In terms of the initial setup process, I inherited the solution from someone who just passed over the business for me. I did not need to set it up. However, in relation to the maintenance process, I had to deploy one as we had this migration from SUSE Manager 4.1 to 4.2. It's not an initial setup. I had to spin another 4.2 box and then I migrated the content of my 4.1 environment to my 4.2 environment. It was quite smooth. The documentation was quite nice. I just followed the steps and I had no problems.

I haven't done an ROI evaluation yet as we have this new pricing model. What I can say is the savings are going to be good as it's not the same to deal with one tool as opposed to dealing with three tools. 

I don't have the exact cost on hand right now as that's something I tend to negotiate in my new year. Thus far, I didn't pay for it. That's going to happen mid-January or something like that. What I was told, by the person who had it before me was that when he made the comparison with other tools, it was cheaper due to the fact that now I basically have the SUSE Manager to manage all environments. In the past, he had Spacewalk to manage the SUSE stuff, and then he had Satellite to manage the record stuff and he had Landscape to manage the Ubuntu stuff. When he consolidated everything, he saved a lot of money.

One of the biggest benefits would be that it incorporates multiple managers in one platform saving you on licensing for multiple solutions. That said, at this time, I don't even know how much it's going to cost as they've changed the pricing this year. I got an email back in the summer saying that, in the past, I would pay for the server and then all the clients. Now, I don't have to pay for the server and then the clients anymore. I just have a flat fare where I can deploy as many servers as I want and everything will be included at the same price. 

The reality is that the server that I'm using right now is only 12 GBs of RAM and I'm considering doing an upgrade to 24GBs. When you include more functionalities and more features, you certainly need more resources. For me, the hardware would be the only real additional cost.

I am a SUSE partner. 

I have a central server and then I'm connected to the VPN. That way, I can connect to all different customers.

I'd advise new users to certainly read the documentation, as that's what I tend to skip. However, it's an important step. Try to automate as much as you can. One of the most powerful things that I noticed when I arrived, was that it was underutilized, and there are all of these automation capabilities that SUSE Manager has. It's saved just so much time for me.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

We use SUSE Manager to automate infrastructure security to compliance, which helps our infrastructure. Automating patch and configure management provides auto-remediation. SUSE Manager helps to optimize operations at a reduced cost. It also provides patching support. Its setup is straightforward compared to Red Hat. It provides asset management, system provisioning, and patch management that are more secure and up-to-date.

Sometimes, the solution can be very complex, and at some level, you require technical expertise to use it. Some users have reported that the user interface is difficult to navigate. It can be complex and difficult for users who are new to Linux and don't have any technical expertise.

I have been working with SUSE Manager for around seven to eight months.

SUSE Manager is a scalable solution. Our customers are mostly medium-sized businesses.

We had a SUSE partner and a sales manager who initially used to come to help us regarding some issues. After some time, we stopped getting the support from SUSE.

Neutral

SUSE Manager's initial setup is easy.

If we are on-premises, we can deploy SUSE Manager within another two to three hours.

It is easy to maintain SUSE Manager if you have a deep knowledge of the solution.

At the test level, we found that we are facing issues with some things. When we were doing the installation, we faced some issues with the environment they provided.

The main advice would be to go through the centralized monitoring and management they provide. SUSE manager handles the seamless management of various client systems, such as SUSE Linux, openSUSE, and Red Hat. It is a bit difficult to manage while handling all these things.

They should work on the documentation initially because documentation is very important. If there is a lack of clarity in documentation, it becomes a problem.

Overall, I rate SUSE Manager an eight out of ten.

My clients are using the solution for patch management and the software repository.

We like that, from one platform, we can manage the package repository and package upgrade for all of Linux, for most of the Linux flavors. We can easily manage the upgrades. For example, if we manage thousands of Linux servers, it's difficult to patch the servers individually. With this, it's centralized and upgraded in bulk. In one click, we can upgrade all of the patches. 

Also,  if a new vulnerability comes, the SUSE Manager web interface will give an alert that there is a new patch for the system. We get notified when we need to patch. 

It's easy to manage. 

Overall, it's a great tool.

The setup is straightforward. 

Technical support is helpful.

It's a scalable product. 

I've not explored the entire feature set. However, we have not seen any shortcomings. 

We sometimes have server issues and need to restart the service. 

I've been using the solution for one year.

For my client, who has around 280 hosts added to SUSE Manager for patch management, sometimes it shows that the server to the SUSE Manager to the client has some issues. They are unable to check. This issue may mean some tuning is needed. It may not be a stability issue. However, I'm not sure. This issue happens sometimes. When it does, we need to restart the service. Once we restart, the server will check for updates. 

The solution can expand. It's not a problem at all. 

We've dealt with technical support and found them to be helpful and responsive. 

There are other tools, like Red Hat Satellite. The thing with using Red Hat Satellite is that Red Hat Satellite only supports the Red Hat service. SUSE, however, supports Red Hat and other Linux solutions, like Ubuntu, CentOS, SUSE, et cetera.

The solution is straightforward and very simple. It's not overly complex or difficult to implement. 

We implemented the solution for a client.

We have purchased a license for SUSE. I can't speak to the exact price. 

We are not SUSE partners. 

I am implementing the SUSE Manager on one of our clients on their side.

For those with a Linux environment, it's a good solution, and I would recommend it. It makes it easy to manage patches, update reboot servers, and run commands. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

Some one thousand SUSE Enterprise Linux servers use the solution for patching, OS deployment, auditing purposes, VA scans, and everything SUSE Manager can do. It's the one place where you can manage your entire SUSE environment.

We found patch deployment and deploying the operating system to be the solution's most valuable features.

I can't really say what product or service could be improved because we use limited features.

We've been using this solution for five years.

The solution is very much stable.

The solution is not used for scalability. 

The initial stage is a bit complex, but after that, everything runs seamlessly.

Product deployment took a bit longer than an hour.

The SUSE environment runs seamlessly.

The solution is very easy to maintain.

SUSE Manager can manage multiple operating systems. Some Red Hat configuration tools only allow you to maintain Red Hat-related servers. However, SUSE Manager allows you to control Red Hat servers, SUSE Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Open SUSE, and Ubuntu, which is something new that other tools do not support.

I would say that SUSE Manager is the best solution for maintaining the Linux environment.

I would rate SUSE Manager as 10 out of 10.