Automation everywhere, for everything? It feels like an overstatement, i.e., we would normally agree that cloud (or any other still-evolving technology) is for every user, but not every single application instance or dataset, so surely the same prudence should apply to AI accelerators.
Open source computing platform company SUSE isn’t advocating a carte blanche approach to broad-brush automation at every level of the stack, but it is saying that AI-assisted infrastructure is the smart foundation to start from. Appropriately then, the Nuremberg, Germany-headquartered company is detailing the latest mechanics of its tools that operate at the base substrate level.
Linux, Now Context-Aware
The company confirms that its “long-term strategy” is to deliver AI-assisted infrastructure services, i.e., where Linux itself becomes context-aware, secure by design and integrated with intelligent management and automation layers.
“At SUSE, we’re shaping a future where managing your entire infrastructure at scale becomes more intuitive, adaptive and aligned with business goals, where natural language, policy and automation all work together securely under human supervision.”
Trento Cloud-Native Web Console
All big talk then, but what toolset functionalities fall in line with these ideals? The SUSE engineering team blog details new developments in the shape of the MCP Server technology preview for SUSE Multi-Linux Manager and Trento.
For the unitiatied, Trento is an open source, cloud-native web console from SUSE that helps administrators manage and monitor SAP environments on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications. This is SAP-specific technology, so although some non-SAP workloads might operate without a hitch (especially in a development or testing space), it is not necessarily recommended.
This particular collection of services is designed to form part of a SUSE portfolio-wide effort to enable operations staff and developers to move from a reactive, manual process into a proactive, automated and optimized system. This MCP Server is a foundational component that acts as a secure, open-standard bridge, which translates natural language requests into direct actions across a Linux infrastructure.
A Working Example
Let’s say a sysadmin is now able to ask, “Do we have any servers affected by critical vulnerabilities?”… and get the reply, “Yes, five systems require immediate patching. Two of those will need a reboot to complete the process. Shall we proceed with scheduling?”
The above example and its answer are delivered with a detailed explanation of which machines are affected, the reasoning behind the analysis, as well as suggested mitigations and the reasons behind them.
“The user is then able to instruct the fix and watch as the suggested mitigations are applied. That’s the direction we’re heading with automated infrastructure,” blogged Rick Spencer, SUSE product and engineering leader. “Crucially, this technology is built for enterprise integration. The MCP Server exposes a standardized API designed to be consumed by MCP host components (like those in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16) and connected to the Large Language Model (LLM) of your choice.”
If You’re a Fan of ITAM
Furthermore, says Spencer, this architecture also enables integration with third-party services, such as IT service management (ITSM) platforms, allowing AI to automatically log tickets, execute tasks based on business rules and even respond directly to business needs. The entire process remains open, transparent and secure, always under human supervision and full customer control.
While the current release focuses on core functionality, the next version will introduce OAuth-based authentication to deliver an enterprise-ready identity and access mechanism, all to strengthen security for production environments.
Market Analysis: AI-Infrastructure
While SUSE’s enthusiasm for its latest offerings is laudable, it is not the only enterprise software company driving forward with services at the AI-infrastructure level. Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers playbook-based automation options that run across infrastructure, networking and security tasks. The Ansible platform is known for its automated provisioning and configuration management functions that work across different application deployment processes throughout hybrid cloud environments.
As well as HashiCorp (inside IBM) with Terraform for infrastructure-as-code driven provisioning and lifecycle automation, on the wider menu in the IaC space, there’s VMware Aria Automation, Pulumi AI and Pulumi Copilot for automating IaC (again with natural-language assistance) and, of course, Datadog with Watchdog for AIOps to deliver an intelligence layer for automated alerting. Google Cloud, Progress, Puppet and the Microsoft Azure Resource Manager (ARM) team would also be offended if they were not mentioned in this same (albeit lengthy) breath.
What will define true market success in this space going forward is tough to say. Core aspects of these tools, like natural language capabilities and even price, are unlikely to be the deciding factors. More important – as this market segment continues to evolve – are likely to be concerns over platform agnosticism and to what degree vendors in this space are able to productize and package these services into easily consumable products.