New SUSE Virtualization 1.5 Prime delivers a smarter, enterprise-ready virtualization lifecycle without vendor lock-in
LUXEMBOURG, July 10, 2025, a global leader in innovative, open and secure enterprise-grade solutions, today announced the general availability of SUSE Virtualization 1.5 Prime to help enterprises optimize their virtualization strategies for a cloud native future.
Today, enterprises require virtualization strategies that work in Kubernetes-native environments, without any vendor lock-in or disruptive upgrade paths. With an improved release lifecycle, more flexible patching and upgrades, and an ecosystem that supports production-grade storage integration, SUSE Virtualization 1.5 Prime is designed to be the foundation of the modern enterprise virtualization strategy.
"Enterprises today want freedom of choice, predictability, and innovation-without being locked into restrictive platforms," said Peter Smails, SVP and GM of Cloud Native at SUSE. "With SUSE Virtualization, we are delivering the trusted, open and futureproof virtualization solution customers are asking for."
SUSE Virtualization 1.5 Prime updates:
- Arm®-based Chip Support: SUSE Virtualization now offers full production-ready support for 64-bit Arm architecture (https://www.suse.com/c/suse-virtualization-1-5-prime-more-value-less-lock-in). Enterprises can run x86 and Arm workloads side-by-side, unlocking multi-architecture flexibility. This enables performance and energy efficiency benefits critical to AI/ML, telco, and edge computing use cases while lowering total cost of ownership.
- Enterprise Lifecycle You Can Count On: A predictable 4-month release cadence (https://www.suse.com/c/suse-virtualization-1-5-prime-more-value-less-lock-in) aligned with Kubernetes upstream ensures consistent planning across DevOps teams. Upgrade flexibility allows users to leap from any patch version to the next minor release, with hotfixes rolled into every version-reducing rework and minimizing downtime.
- Data Protection Assurance: SUSE Certified Data Protection for Virtualization (https://www.suse.com/c/suse-certified-data-protection-for-virtualization)for third-party backup, restore, and disaster recovery solutions for seamless integration and production readiness. This certification ensures compatibility with SUSE Virtualization APIs, supports snapshot orchestration, and verifies backup and restore performance through rigorous technical testing. Customers gain confidence knowing their data protection tools are tested for reliability, scale, and hybrid cloud use, while partners benefit from faster time to value and ongoing platform support. Explore the certification (https://www.suse.com/c/suse-certified-data-protection-for-virtualization).
- Certified Storage Ecosystem: SUSE supports all CSI-compatible storage appliances, offering seamless integration with third-party solutions. Customers can confidently use Dell, NetApp, HPE, Oracle, Portworx and more CSI drivers validation make it easier to run production workloads with existing infrastructure while meeting compliance and data protection needs.
- Open Architecture, No Lock-In: Built on a 100% open source foundation, SUSE Virtualization (https://www.suse.com/products/rancher/virtualization/) includes transparent licensing, full API access, and no opaque software bundles-empowering organizations to stay in control of their stack.
"The growing shift toward cloud-native requires virtualization solutions that are as flexible and dynamic as the workloads they support," said Andrew Wafaa, Senior Director of Software Communities at Arm. "SUSE Virtualization on Arm will deliver greater choice, efficiency, and scalability for enterprise customers while reducing complexity and cost."
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"The tools provided by SUSE have truly revolutionized our daily work -our four-person team now works like a team of twenty-something. Automation is our task force multiplier," said Roberto Machorro, Senior Software Developer at CRC.
By leveraging SUSE Virtualization's intuitive API and automation capabilities, CRC effortlessly manages hundreds of workloads, improving operational resilience and maximizing the impact of a lean team. SUSE Virtualization is a core component of the SUSE Rancher Prime platform and part of SUSE's broader vision to provide secure, scalable, and flexible cloud-native infrastructure from core to edge.
To learn more about SUSE Virtualization 1.5 Prime, please visit
- Get the full launch breakdown:Launch Blog (https://www.suse.com/c/suse-virtualization-1-5-prime-more-value-less-lock-in)
- See how we simplify VM management on Arm64:Ampere Blog (https://www.suse.com/c/Simple-VM-Management-on-Ampere-Infrastructure)
- Ensure you're protected with certified backup:Data Protection Certification (https://www.suse.com/c/suse-certified-data-protection-for-virtualization)
- Discover the 258% ROI with SUSE Rancher Prime:IDC ROI Study (https://more.suse.com/IDC_Business_Value_Rancher_Prime_with_Virtualization_LP.html)
About SUSE
SUSE is a global leader in innovative, reliable and secure enterprise open source solutions, including SUSE® Linux Suite, SUSE® Rancher Suite, SUSE® Edge Suite and SUSE® AI Suite. More than 60% of the Fortune 500 rely on SUSE to power their mission-critical workloads, enabling them to innovate everywhere - from the data center to the cloud, to the edge and beyond. SUSE puts the "open" back in open source, collaborating with partners and communities to give customers the agility to tackle innovation challenges today and the freedom to evolve their strategy and solutions tomorrow. For more information, visit www.suse.com.
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Sara Matheson
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