SUSE, an enterprise-grade open-source solutions provider, has unveiled Rancher 2.7.2, the latest iteration of its Kubernetes management platform. With new extensibility features, the platform is poised to accelerate ecosystem adoption even further. Additionally, SUSE has augmented its open-source commercial subscription for Rancher with the launch of Rancher Prime, providing enterprises with additional value. It has also made updates to its open-source projects, including Rancher Desktop, and revamped its Rancher Academy training portal, which is free to use.
“As the Kubernetes ecosystem expands and becomes more complex, innovation, interoperability, and simplicity have never been more important. Our free-to-use Rancher UI extension framework empowers users and independent software vendors (ISVs) to create customized user experiences, significantly enhancing the operationalization of their entire Kubernetes environment,” said Peter Smails, General Manager of Enterprise Container Management at SUSE.
SUSE has integrated the “Tested & Certified – Rancher Extension” certification into its SUSE One Partner Program, enabling partners to develop and host extensions from Rancher’s application catalog and validate their dependability using the new certification standards. This enhanced program promotes greater cooperation and interconnectivity throughout the Rancher partner community and is supported by the Rancher Prime subscription.
The new UI extension framework allows users to extend and enhance the Rancher UI independently from Rancher Manager. It provides users with the flexibility to build custom, peer-developed, or Rancher-developed UI extensions, enabling them to better integrate Rancher into their environments.
The framework comes with three Rancher-developed extensions, including:
- Kubewarden Extension: It provides a comprehensive way to manage Kubernetes policies across Rancher clusters.
- Elemental Extension: This enables operators to manage cloud-native OS and Edge devices within the Rancher platform.
- Harvester Extension: It allows operators to load their virtualized Harvester cluster into Rancher for easy management and inspection.
SUSE’s approach to Rancher focuses on delivering the fundamental capabilities of hybrid and multi-cloud multi-cluster management while allowing extension providers to offer their customers a tailored user experience through the same interface.
Rancher Prime customers can now boost performance and resiliency
Rancher Prime customers can benefit from new components added by SUSE to the enterprise commercial subscription. These components are designed to improve the performance and resiliency of enterprise-grade production clusters. With the latest Rancher Prime capabilities, customers can:
Experience trusted delivery and extensibility: A trusted, private registry delivery mechanism, combined with the new UI extension framework in Rancher v2.7.2, provides SLA-backed support for Policy & OS Management natively within the Rancher platform through Kubewarden and Elemental extensions.
Solve business challenges with more efficiency: Prime subscribers can access SUSE’s customer engagement platform, SUSE Collective, which offers access to peers, exclusive roadmap materials, reference architectures, operating at scale documentation, and white glove on demand start-up guides.
SUSE continues to innovate in open-source projects, with recent updates including Rancher Desktop, Kubewarden, Opni, S3GW, and Epinio. These updates include new features and improvements such as configurable application behaviors, Policy as Code using traditional programming languages, observability feature updates, and UI improvements with Dex integration.
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