Scale out with Ubuntu Server
Ubuntu Server brings economic and technical scalability to your datacentre, public or private. Whether you want to deploy an OpenStack cloud, a Kubernetes cluster or a 50,000-node render farm, Ubuntu Server delivers the best value scale-out performance available.
What's new in 21.04
- Supported by Canonical until January 2022
- Ability to convert Debian Installer (DI) preseed scripts into Ubuntu Server Live Installer artifacts
- APT phased updates for regressions monitoring and immediate elimination
- Stability updates to the high availability (HA) stack, including pacemaker and corosync
- The latest stable Linux 5.11 kernel for the latest hardware and security updates
- Runs on all major architectures - x86-64, ARM v7, ARM64, POWER8, POWER9, IBM s390x (LinuxONE) and RISC-V
- Updates to QEMU (5.2), libvirt (7.0), PHP (7.4.9), Apache2 (2.4.46), nginx (1.18), GCC (1.189), Python (3.9.2), Bind9 (9.16.8)
What's new in 20.04 LTS
- Supported by Canonical until 2025 with ESM coverage until 2030
- Runs on all major architectures – x86-64, ARM v7, ARM64, POWER8, POWER9, IBM s390x (LinuxONE) and introducing initial support for RISC-V
- Ubuntu Pro cloud images for AWS and Azure, which include hardening, certification, kernel livepatch and more
- The Ubuntu Server Live installer is now able to update itself when connected to the internet for the latest features and bug fixes. Initial support for automated installs is now available as well.
- SSH that supports enabling two-factor authorization (2FA)
- WireGuard® – an innovative VPN technology with modern cryptography defaults and streamlined usability
- AppArmor3 for an even more secure system
- More resilient bootloader that tolerates disk failures
- Greater support for IPv6 on Microsoft Azure
- Support for latest Instance Metadata Service (IMDSv2) on Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- The latest long-term Linux 5.4 kernel for the latest hardware and security updates
- Updates to QEMU (v4.2), libvirt (v6.0), PHP (v7.4), Ruby (v2.7), GCC (V9.3), Python (v3.8), MySQL (v8.0), NGINX (v1.17)
Performance and versatility
Agile, secure, deploy-anywhere technology for fast-moving companies
It doesn't matter whether you want to deploy a NoSQL database, web farm or cloud. Certified by leading hardware OEMs and with comprehensive deployment tools, so you can get the most from your infrastructure.
Our regular release cycle means access to the latest and most performant open source. A lean initial installation and integrated deployment and application modelling technologies make Ubuntu Server a great solution for simple deployment and management at scale.
A release schedule you can depend on
Stay up-to-date with regular updates and upgrades
Long-term support (LTS) releases of Ubuntu Server receive security updates by Canonical for five years by default. Every six months, interim releases bring new features, while hardware enablement updates add support for the latest machines to all supported LTS releases. All Ubuntu Advantage for Infrastructure subscriptions include Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) increasing the support life-cycle to up to 10 years.
Deploys anywhere
Ubuntu is the most widely used developer platform for open‐source cloud building, the reference operating system for OpenStack, and the most popular cloud guest operating system on private and public clouds globally.
Juju — multi-cloud orchestration
With the option of a command line or browser-based interface, Juju enables you to design and deploy entire workloads in just a few clicks. It works on public clouds like AWS and Microsoft Azure, private clouds built on OpenStack and even directly on bare metal, via MAAS.
MAAS — bare metal provisioning
MAAS is a time-saving provisioning system which makes it quick and easy to set up the physical hardware to deploy complex services, like Ubuntu's OpenStack cloud infrastructure. Just plug in your servers, connect them to the network and let MAAS do the rest.
LXD — machine containers
Economics are directly tied to compute density. LXD, the Linux container hypervisor, merges the speed and density of containers with the manageability and security of traditional virtual machines.
Ubuntu Advantage for your Infrastructure
Ubuntu Advantage for infrastructure offers a single, per-node packaging of the most comprehensive software, security and IaaS support in the industry. With OpenStack and Kubernetes support included, Ubuntu Advantage for Infrastructure provides everything you need to future-proof your data centre.
UA for Infrastructure, Advanced includes Server, OpenStack and Kubernetes support and is available at Standard (24x5) and Advanced (24x7) response times.
A thriving community
Exchange expertise and ideas with thousands of other IT professionals
Want to talk to other Ubuntu users straightaway? Share ideas and get advice and help from our large, active community of IT professionals. As a community, we set high standards for friendliness and tolerance, we welcome your questions and contributions!
