Deploy SUSE Rancher Workloads on IONOS Cloud

To meet the growing demand for data residency and compliance, IONOS Cloud and SUSE have collaborated to establish SUSE Rancher Prime in the IONOS Cloud ecosystem. This partnership provides a fully sovereign Kubernetes management platform, allowing European enterprises to scale containerized workloads without compromising on regulatory standards or digital autonomy.

This solution empowers companies and public institutions in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) to achieve digital independence through technological sovereignty, compliance with EU directives, and reduced dependency on non-European providers. SUSE has confirmed that the IONOS Cloud Infrastructure meets all requirements for securely operating Rancher-based environments at scale. A clear, simple, and flexible deployment is guaranteed by a well-defined support model between SUSE and IONOS Cloud.

Why digital independence with SUSE Rancher Prime?

The DACH region faces the challenge of protecting critical infrastructure and data sovereignty—whether through regulatory mandates such as NIS2 and EU supply chain requirements, or through strategic decisions about European technology stacks. SUSE Rancher Prime offers a fully controllable, open, and interoperable platform that provides the following advantages:

Technological sovereignty

• 100% European development and hosting options: IONOS Cloud in Germany – No dependency on US or Asian cloud providers.

• Open Standards: Utilizing Kubernetes, OpenTofu, and Harvester to enable vendor-lock-in-free architectures and flexible migration paths (e.g., from VMware to RKE2/K3s).

• Certified compliance: Alignment with BSI IT-Grundschutz, NIS2, and EU GDPR, which is ideal for government agencies and critical infrastructure, such as Telecommunications, Energy, etc.

Flexibility for Datacenter, Cloud, and Edge

• Unified management: Manage Kubernetes clusters—on-premises, in the IONOS Cloud, or at the Edge—via a single control plane.

• Hybrid and multi-cloud support: Designed to avoid dependency on individual hyperscalers.

• Scalability: Ready for everything from resource-intensive workloads to advanced AI platforms.

Security and compliance "Made in Europe"

• SUSE security: Advanced container runtime security and automated CIS benchmark checks.

• Integrated observability: Built-in Prometheus, Grafana, and Loki for transparency and auditability—essential for NIS2 compliance.

• Secret management and RBAC: Robust Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for granular access management in sensitive environments.

Set Up SUSE Prime on IONOS Cloud

Deploying SUSE Rancher Prime on IONOS Cloud is a simple, straightforward process when following this deployment guide. SUSE and IONOS Cloud provide the necessary configurations and sequence to help you initialize your management server and downstream clusters efficiently within the IONOS Cloud sovereign cloud environment.

Download the instruction guidelines:

3MB

SUSE-Rancher-Deployment-Guide-for-IONOS-Cloud-v1.0.pdf

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SUSE Rancher Prime infrastructure pricing

Usage of SUSE Rancher Prime on IONOS Cloud follows a Bring Your Own Subscription (BYOS) model. While the infrastructure utilized to host your clusters is billed at standard IONOS Cloud rates, the SUSE software licenses are not included in IONOS Cloud billing.

IONOS Cloud does not charge hidden "integration fees" for this partnership. All software-related costs—including subscriptions for SUSE Rancher Prime and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server must be handled through your existing agreements with SUSE or your preferred software distributor.

Component	Billing Entity	Responsibility
Cloud Infrastructure	IONOS Cloud	Billed via your IONOS Cloud account
SUSE Licenses	SUSE / Distributor	Bring Your Own Subscription (BYOS)

Limitations of deploying SUSE Rancher Prime on IONOS Cloud

Deploying SUSE Rancher Prime on IONOS Cloud follows a self-managed deployment model. To ensure a successful implementation, consider the following:

• Self-Managed Deployment: IONOS Cloud does not provide SUSE Rancher Prime as a "Managed Service" offering. Users are responsible for the full lifecycle of their SUSE Rancher Prime environment, including installation, scaling, and ongoing maintenance of the management server.

• Technical expertise: Operating SUSE Rancher Prime on the IONOS Cloud infrastructure requires internal proficiency in container orchestration. You must be prepared to handle the configuration and administration of your own cluster landscapes.