IBM Corp.’s line of in-memory data processing appliances landed a key supporter from the operating system world this morning in the form of SUSE LLC, which announced that its namesake Linux distribution is now officially certified to run on the machines. It’s the latest pit-stop along the latter’s journey beyond the x86 servers powering most of the enterprise.

That battleground has long been decided in favor of arch-nemesis Red Hat Inc. and Microsoft Corp. with its Windows Server, driving the company to turn its attention towards the emerging platforms that may replace Intel’s dominant processing architecture in the future. The Power chips inside IBM’s appliances are one of the main contenders.

That’s thanks in large part to a recently implemented open business model that saw the company make the underlying design available for chip manufacturers that wish to produce custom versions tailored to the specific needs their customers. That strategy was pioneered ARM Holdings plc, the second major contender for Intel’s data center throne that SUSE has aligned itself with.

The British processor designer stands an arguably  even better chance than IBM to take on the chip titan thanks to the power-efficient nature of its designs, which are starting to gain serious steam in the enterprise with the shift towards ultra-economic hyperscale data centers. SUSE started distributing an ARM-optimized version of its operating system to server makers and other key members of its ecosystem a couple weeks ago.

The move came months behind Red Hat, which announced an ARM partner program all the way back last year and has managed to attract dozens of manufacturers since. But it’s the opposite situation with the Power Systems for HANA, which SUSE is the first to support among the major operating system vendors..

However, given that Red Hat does already provide compatibility with the underlying Power processors in its distribution, it’s safe to assume support for the appliances will follow suit sooner or later. That’s not encouraging for SUSE, which lost its exclusive relationship with SAP AG, the fellow German software giant that makes HANA, to the company last year.

But it is for IBM. The widening support for its Power processors, and currently no less strategic analytics appliances, provides a welcome boost amid increasing competition from the likes of ARM.

Photo via power.org