When looking at the Charon-SSP product features, one can look at the differences between the different emulated models (such as shown in the supported virtual hardware section).

Another comparison is the comparison between the different product variants. This section provides an overview of important differences between the product variants.

Contents

Product Variant Overview
Product Variant Comparison

Product Variant Overview

The basic functionality of Charon-SSP in the different product variants is very similar. However, the product variants also have important differences.

Currently available Charon-SSP product variants:

Conventional product
- Individual RPM installation
- Barebone installation
Baremetal version
Cloud-specific versions

Conventional product

This product variant exists in two flavors:

The product is installed as individual RPM packages on a supported Linux distribution and version.
The product is delivered as an ISO installation file that contains the operating system, the product RPMs and any additional software typically required (Barebone version).

The conventional product, especially when installed as individual RPM packages, offers the greatest flexibility for any customization and for integration into the customers’ system management environments.

The Barebone version offers additional features, but is more restrictive in what changes a user can make to the operating system.

Baremetal product

Charon-SSP Baremetal is a software appliance distributed as an ISO installation file. The host operating system is encapsulated and not visible to the user.

A customized GUI offers the necessary system management tools.

The Baremetal variant provides a fast and easy way to set up Charon-SSP if no major customization and integration requirements exist.

Cloud-specific versions

Cloud-specific Charon-SSP products provide a Marketplace image for the respective cloud provider that can be used to easily launch a Charon-SSP host containing all the necessary software as an cloud instance.

Licensing is set up automatically at launch, and usage is billed through the cloud provider.

The instance configuration (e.g., network configuration) can be adapted to the customer’s requirement, but only a subset of a full Linux host operating system is accessible.

Product Variant Comparison

The following table lists important differences between the Charon-SSP product variants (as opposed to the differences between the different emulated architectures):

Functionality differences	Conventional product		Baremetal	Cloud-specific image
	RPM	Barebone
General differences
User shell access to host OS	Y		N	Y (limited)
Linux operating system upgrades from distribution repositories	Y	Restricted (kernel version dependencies)	N	N (package installation is possible if agreed by Stromasys)
Special GUI for host management	N		Y	N
Special user accounts for Charon	N ⁽⁴⁾		Y⁽⁵⁾	Y ⁽⁶⁾
Licensing general	HL/SL/Network license			Cloud license server
Changes to number of host CPUs / amount of host memory possible	Y (if software license is used, new license may be needed)			N (invalidates license, requires setup of new cloud instance)
Internet connection required	N			Y
Jumpstart	Y			N
Network interface sharing (not recommended)	Y			N
Configurable log path	Y		N	N
Additional tools	X11, iSCSI, NFS	X11, iSCSI, NFS, VNC	X11, iSCSI, NFS, VNC	X11

Emulated HW differences
4U+ and 4V+ support	N	Y	Y	Y
PCI pass-through devices (Digi and GPIB)	N	Y ⁽²⁾	Y ⁽²⁾	N
Digi AccelePort emulation	Y ⁽²⁾			N
Additional on-board serial lines	Y			N
USB devices	Y ⁽²⁾			N
Parallel port	Y ⁽³⁾			N
Floppy drive	Y ⁽³⁾			N
Physical SCSI devices	disk, tape, CD-ROM, generic			disk
External serial console via TCP	Y			N
Physical serial ports	Y			Only via terminal server

Host HW differences
Customer selectable hypervisor support	Y ⁽¹⁾			N ⁽⁷⁾

Notes

⁽¹⁾ Not for Charon-SSPU/4U+/4V+ (require VT-x/EPT support); supported Hypervisors are listed in Host System Requirements.

⁽²⁾ Not on Charon-SSP/4M

⁽³⁾ Charon-SSP/4M only

⁽⁴⁾ A charon user is created on Barebone systems during installation. However, normal Linux account management is possible. Interactive command-line access not restricted.

⁽⁵⁾User charon for GUI operation, SFTP and VNC access, and Charon Manager integrated SSH tunnel. User sshuser for setting up the general SSH VPN tunnel. No interactive command-line access.

⁽⁶⁾ User charon for GUI operation, SFTP access, and Charon Manager integrated SSH tunnel. User sshuser for setting up the general SSH VPN tunnel, and for interactive command-line access (limited command set); root access possible.

⁽⁷⁾ Normal cloud instances run on shared hardware; a "baremetal" virtual hardware type must be offered by the cloud provider to run Charon-SSP/4U+/4V+. Please contact Stromasys or your Stromasys VAR if you require this type of emulated SPARC hardware.

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