OpenStack distributor Mirantis Inc. has forged a new alliance with SUSE as it bids to become the “one-stop-shop” for all enterprise Linux users of the open-source cloud computing platform. The partnership means Mirantis gets to add a third Linux option, alongside its existing CentOS and Red Hat offerings.

Mirantis is one of the major OpenStack vendors, but seeks to differentiate itself from the crowd by offering what it calls a “pure-play” version of OpenStack, which lets users deploy any kind of Linux they wish alongside it. Mirantis OpenStack is actually able to support any Linux distro, but the close relations it has with CentOS, Red Hat Inc. and now SUSE, means it can better optimize those platforms for its own distro, the company said in a statement.

CentOS, Red Hat and now SUSE will all contribute any code they develop as part of the alliance to the main OpenStack project, which means the entire open-source community can benefit too.

A one-stop OpenStack shop

The idea behind Mirantis’ “pure-play” offering is that companies can continue to use multiple Linux distros in their cloud data centers, but choose a single OpenStack distribution that can be used on each of those platforms.

“Many of our larger customers run two or three different Linux flavors,” Mirantis CMO Boris Renski pointed out. “Now OpenStack users can get support for their major Linux distributions in one place from Mirantis.”

That’s not to say Mirantis OpenStack is the only version of the cloud computing platform that can run multiple versions of Linux atop its platform. Because both technologies are open-source, it’s a simple enough task for many users to modify the various platforms in such a way that just about any kind of Linux-OpenStack pairing can work.

But of course, Mirantis is the company that allows customers to do so without any headaches, whereas most other OpenStack distributions are tied to certain Linux flavors.

By partnering with SUSE, Mirantis also gets to crank up the pressure on Canonical Ltd., the company that develops Ubuntu, the most popular variant of Linux. Mirantis and Canonical used to play nicely together, with Ubuntu 14.04 running like a dream on Mirantis OpenStack. However, later versions of Ubuntu, including the most recent 16.04, are not yet supported.

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