Those of you who attend monthly product update webinar may already know about Open Enterprise Server 2023 release. We thank you and value your time and feedback.

If you have not signed up for the webinars, then this is new to you. I want to brief you on this upcoming major milestone Open Enterprise Server 2023. Before that, for those of you in the DACH region we are coming to a city near you to talk about OES and other products in Collaboration and End Point Management portfolios. I am excited to be at the Micro Focus Vision Tour 2022 and meeting you in person after a long hiatus.

Now back to the topic, we are making three key shifts with Open Enterprise Server 2023:

Platform Update 

Open Enterprise Server 2023 is built on the more robust SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4 for improved stability, reliability, and interoperability. SLES 15 brings in several technological innovations like unified installer, advanced security, system roles, and more. The SLES 15 SP4 release notes is a good read to learn more about the changes. Also included in this release is the latest eDirectory 9.2.7.

Administration 

Unified Management Console (UMC)

Open Enterprise Server administration includes several web and command line tools. Over the years we have added new capabilities and their management require knowledge of multiple tools. Also, most web management tools are built on technology stack that is hard to maintain. With Open Enterprise Server 2023, we are excited to announce the introduction of brand-new management console, Unified Management Console.

Primary goal of the project (code named project Sahyadri) is to build a highly responsive, simple, and secure management tool for managing any small or large heterogeneous deployments.

Let’s dive deep to understand what that means:

• Highly responsive UI/UX Designed by the experts and built on modern technology stack for ease of deployment and debug-ability. Includes support for localization and accessibility
• Simplified management End-to-end workflows allows for starting a task and finishing it within the same tool, unlike OES 2018 where you need multiple tools to achieve a task. It also supports managing multiple servers simultaneously. The clearly laid out dashboard provides insights for better storage management
• Secure platform Access to the tool is protected with OAuth2 authentication and in future with multi-factor authentication
• Hybrid management Manage storage services backed by eDirectory or Active Directory from single tool
• REST-based core service Centralized REST server provides functions required by UMC and the same is available to all for building custom tools

We will be doing a live demo session of UMC in the Micro Focus Vision Tour 2022 and request those who can, please attend the event in a city near you.

iPrint Printer Driver and Profile Management Tool

If you haven’t already known, Open Enterprise Server include iPrint Advanced for advanced printing abilities like Web and email printing, Secure printing, and WalkUp printing from anywhere and on any device. The printer and driver management has been traditionally performed using iManger on Internet Explorer. With Internet Explore going out of support and the inherent issues associate with it, we are announcing a Windows desktop tool for managing drivers and profiles. The new tool is built into the iPrint Client for Windows and require admin privileges to manage drivers and profiles with iPrint on Open Enterprise Server or iPrint Appliance.

Security

While security is at the core of building any enterprise platform the recent geographical development has only heightened the sense of security. We are introducing several security advancements with Open Enterprise Server 2023

TLS 1.3, LDAPs, and HTTPS

TLS 1.3 is the latest version of the security protocol used in most network communication. TLS 1.3, LDAPs, and HTTPS are enabled by default on all applicable interfaces on Open Enterprise Server 2023. Please note that eDirectory will only support TLS 1.2.

SMB Encryption 

Open Enterprise Server now supports the recently introduced more secure and faster AES-256-GCM and AES-256-CCM in addition to the AES-128-CCM and AES-128-GCM cryptographic suites for SMB encryption.

SMB pre-authentication integrity 

With added support for SMB 3.1.1, Open Enterprise Server 2023 can now detect and prevent intercepting attacks that attempt to downgrade the client-server negotiated protocol or the capabilities. SMB 1.0 proven to be less secure is also disabled by default.

Other Key Features

In addition to the advancements in platform, administration, and security, Open Enterprise Server 2023 also includes: 

SMB Compression

The recently updated SMB specification allows to compress files as they transfer over the network. The file compression capability is transparent to the user or application and helps optimize network bandwidth usage.

SMB Multichannel

SMB Multichannel enables server to use multiple network connections simultaneously for improved fault tolerance and throughput.

Long path support in Client for OES

In this release, the hard-wired path limits in the Client for OES are removed to allow for managing files under deep nested levels beyond 256-characters. 

Cloud Integrated Storage (CIS)

CIS allows for effective management of storage requirements by offloading unused or less frequently accessed data to the cloud. End users’ access to the data is location transparent. In this release, the CIS deployment now supports extending nodes in infrastructure cluster for improved disaster recovery and horizontal scaling experience. A new algorithm has been employed in the recall agent for improved download performance with large or large number of small files.

Thin provisioning with vSAN storage

Open Enterprise Server 2023 is certified with support for thin provisioning on vSAN virtualized storage. Thin provisioning allows for accurate reporting of storage utilization to help you better plan your storage cost estimates.

Open Enterprise Server 2023 Public Beta 

Today, we are inviting our customers, partners, and non-customers to try out the Open Enterprise Server 2023 release.

How To?

• Review the Open Enterprise Server 2023 release notes and system requirements
• Register and download the ISO from Micro Focus Marketplace
• Install, validate, and share your feedback by
  • Dropping a note in the review section on Marketplace
  • Writing to us on oes at microfocus dot com