SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2 (SLES15 SP2) released

On June 21st 2020 SUSE announced SLES15 SP2 the second service pack SLES 15.  With it’s kernel upgrade it contains many new features for System Z:

• z15 support 
  • compiler (-march=z15), binutils, gdb support new instructions
  • full zlib acceleration support 
  • CPU-MF support
  • Support for the new CPACF (MSA9) accelerations 
  • CEX7 crypto card support
  • support of secure boot
• Kernel
  • Kernel Address Space Layout Randomization (KASLR) support
•  KVM
  • z15 CPU model support
  • DASD passthrough
  • Interrupt Support for Crypto passthrough
  • Support of Secure Execution
• Performance
  • Hipersockets Multi-Write
  • CPU-MF extensions
  • zcryptstats for monitoring crypto cards

The kernel level for SLES15 SP2 has been updated to kernel-default-5.3.18-22.2 from 4.12.x. So a big jump forward. Before you upgrade you should check if you have any kernel dependencies.  Here is my usual list of useful links for further reading:

• SUSE Live Patching Feature
•  Documentation:
  • Overview
  • Release Notes
  • Performance Analysis, Tuning and Tools on SUSE Linux Enterprise Products
  • IBM documentation
    • Device Drivers, Features, and Commands on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
    • Secure Execution 
• Code is available from SUSE’s downloads sites:
  • SLES
  • SLE High Availability Extensions
  • SLE SDK 
• For packages not included – there are unsupported but specially build packages available at the SUSE package hub. As of 7/21 there are 10221 packages for s390x available.

(updated 8/5/2020)