[rhelv6-announce] Red Hat Launches Latest Version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (Santiago) announcement mailing-list
rhelv6-announce at redhat.com
Thu Nov 21 20:30:42 UTC 2013
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 optimizes performance, stability and
scalability across physical, virtual and cloud environments
Raleigh, N.C. – November 21, 2013 – Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the
world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the
general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5, the latest version
of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 expands Red
Hat’s vision of providing an enterprise platform that has the stability
to free IT to take on major infrastructure challenges and the
flexibility to handle future requirements, with an extensive partner and
support ecosystem.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 is designed for those who build and manage
large, complex IT projects, especially enterprises that require an open
hybrid cloud [1]. From security and networking to virtualization, Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 provides the capabilities needed to manage
these environments, such as tools that aid in quickly tuning the system
to run SAP applications based on published best practices from SAP.
Securing the Next-Generation Enterprise
---------------------------------------
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 continues the push for integrated security
functionality that combines ease-of-use and up-to-date security
standards into the platform. The addition of a centralized certificate
trust store enables standardized certificate access for security
services. Also included are tools that meet leading security standards,
including OpenSCAP 2.1, which implements the National Institute of
Standards and Technology’s (NIST’s) Security Content Automation Protocol
(SCAP) 1.2 standard. With these additions, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
provides a secure platform upon which to build mission-critical services
and applications.
Networking – When Every (Micro)Second Matters
---------------------------------------------
In the financial services and trading-related industries, application
latency is measured in microseconds, not seconds. Now, the latest
version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 fully supports sub-microsecond
clock accuracy over the local area network (LAN) using the Precision
Time Protocol (PTP). Precision time synchronization is a key enabler for
delivering better performance for high-speed, low latency applications.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 can now be used to track time on trading
transactions, improving time stamp accuracy on archived data or
precisely synchronizing time locally or globally.
Thanks to other networking enhancements in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5,
system administrators now have a more comprehensive view of network
activity. These new capabilities enable sysadmins to inspect IGMP
(Internet Group Management Protocol) data to list multicast router
ports, multicast groups with active subscribers and their associated
interfaces, all of which are important to many modern networking
scenarios, including streaming media.
Virtualization Enhancements
---------------------------
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 continues Red Hat’s commitment to improving
the overall virtualization experience and includes several improvements
that make it a compelling choice for running in virtualized
environments. Sysadmins can now dynamically enable or disable virtual
processors (vCPUs) in active guests, making it an ideal choice for
elastic workloads. The handling of memory intensive applications as Red
Hat Enterprise Linux guests has also been improved, with configurations
supported for up to 4TB of memory on the Kernel-based Virtual Machine
(KVM) hypervisor.
The KVM hypervisor also integrates with GlusterFS volumes to provide
direct access to the distributed storage platform, improving performance
when accessing Red Hat Storage or GlusterFS volumes. Finally, guest
drivers have been updated to improve performance of Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 6.5 running as a guest on supported third-party hypervisors.
Evolving Ease-of-Use, Storage, and More
---------------------------------------
As application deployment options grow, portability becomes increasingly
important. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 enables customers to deploy
application images in containers created using Docker in their
environment of choice: physical, virtual, or cloud. Docker is an open
source project to package and run lightweight, self-sufficient
containers; containers save developers time by eliminating integration
and infrastructure design tasks.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 stays current with the advancements in
Solid-State Drive (SSD) controller interface, introducing support for
NVM Express (NVMe)-based SSDs. The NVMe specification aims to
standardize the interface for PCIe-based SSDs and its inclusion in Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 positions the platform to support an expanding
range of future NVMe-based devices.
Improvements have also been added to improve enterprise storage
scalability within Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5. It is now possible to
configure more than 255 LUNs connected to a single iSCSI target. In
addition, control and recovery from SAN for iSCSI and Fibre Channel has
been enhanced, and updates to the kexec/kdump mechanism now make it
possible to create debug (dump) files on systems configured with very
large memory (e.g. 6TB).
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 makes it easier to track and manage
subscription consumption across the enterprise, integrating subscription
tracking into existing business workflow. Usability enhancements include
support for remote access to Windows clients and servers that use a
newer version of the RDP protocol, including Windows 7 and 8 desktops
and Windows Server 2012.
Jim Totton, Vice President and General Manager of the Platform Business
Unit at Red Hat, had this to say about Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5:
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 provides the innovation expected from the
industry’s leading enterprise Linux operating system while also
delivering a mature platform for business operations, be it
standardizing operating environments or supporting critical
applications. The newest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 forms the
building blocks of the entire Red Hat portfolio, including OpenShift and
OpenStack, making it a perfect foundation for enterprises looking to
explore the open hybrid cloud."
Additional Resources
--------------------
* Learn more about collaboration between Red Hat and Docker by reading
the public announcement at:
http://www.redhat.com/about/news/press-archive/2013/9/red-hat-and-dotcloud-collaborate-on-docker-to-bring-next-generation-linux-container-enhancements-to-openshift
* To read the public announcement, please visit:
http://www.redhat.com/about/news/press-archive/2013/11/red-hat-launches-latest-version-of-red-hat-enterprise-linux-6
* To access and download an evaluation copy for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6.5, see:
http://www.redhat.com/products/enterprise-linux/server/download.html
Please note that downloading an evaluation copy requires an active
account on the Red Hat Customer Portal. On the download page, the user
must filter and navigate to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and the
architecture of interest (e.g., x86_64, Power, System z, etc.).
* For access to the documentation for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5
including the release notes, see:
https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/docs/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/
[1] http://www.redhat.com/open-hybrid-cloud/
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