[rhelv6-announce] Latest Beta Release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Now Available

Tue Oct 8 18:29:55 UTC 2013

Today, we are pleased to announce the beta release of Red Hat Enterprise 
Linux 6.5. To keep pace with the demand for enterprise-class 
infrastructure, the newest version of the leading Linux platform extends 
its scalability and manageability to aid in the build-out and control of 
large, complex IT environments. For example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 
6.5 will be designed to simplify the operation of mission-critical SAP 
applications by automating the optimal configuration of common SAP 
deployments. The beta release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 also 
offers enhancements and new capabilities in the following key areas:

Subscription Management Services
--------------------------------
Red Hat Enterprise Linux seamlessly integrates with Red Hat subscription 
management services to manage the local system and its allocated 
subscriptions. The Subscription Manager agent connects the system to the 
Red Hat Customer Portal or to an on-premise subscription management 
service set-up by the customer using Subscription Asset Manager. Once 
connected, the customer can realize centralized control of their 
subscription assets and manage inventory, status, and gain enhanced 
reporting for the support of multiple systems.

Scalability
-----------
Scalability at the administrative level is increased by changes made to 
the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 beta kernel. Kernel dump files on large 
systems can now scale to multiple terabytes of data, and a new 
compression algorithm (LZO) speeds the creation of dump files, leading 
to reduced down time during crash dump generation and faster 
troubleshooting. An enhancement to the perf tool’s tracing and testing 
commands also provides additional infrastructure event monitoring 
capabilities.

Networking
----------
Networking enhancements delivered in the beta of Red Hat Enterprise 
Linux 6.5 range from improved performance to expanded compliance with 
industry-specific requirements. These new capabilities include:

   * Better analysis of multicast traffic by inspecting Internet Group 
Management Protocol (IGMP) data to list router ports and groups with 
active subscribers

   * Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) association statistics 
in support of SS7 M3UA (Message Transfer Part Level 3 User Adaptation 
Layer) implementations provide additional monitoring capabilities for 
customers within the telecommunications sector

   * The introduction of IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol Version 2 
(PTPv2), used for precisely synchronizing clocks in an Ethernet network. 
PTPv2 is capable of achieving clock accuracy in the sub-microsecond 
range and supports network driver time stamping for many of the widely 
adopted network drivers.

Storage
-------
The storage additions to the beta version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 
6.5 deliver improved scalability, performance, and ease of use. 
Enterprise storage customers benefit from improved control and recovery 
in iSCSI and Fibre Channel Storage Area Network (SAN) environments. The 
performance and high-availability features of multipath IO are available 
to a broader set of devices and multipath device automatic naming 
enhancements provide shorter, more convenient device names. The beta 
version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 also supports Intel's NVM 
Express driver, the industry standard specification for accessing PCI 
Express bus-based SSDs. Also, FUSE-based file systems, like GlusterFS, 
can now use asynchronous IO for improved performance.

Virtualization
--------------
The beta version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 continues to deliver 
virtualization to provide for a robust guest environment. The Red Hat 
guest can serve as a client to the highly scalable Gluster filesystem 
and Red Hat Storage. The path to Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is 
streamlined by utilities that convert VMware OVF and Citrix Xen guests 
to Red Hat guests, helping customers to simplify their complex and 
diverse virtual infrastructure onto Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) 
technology. The maximum memory for Red Hat guests has increased to four 
terabytes, allowing guests to run large-scale workloads, and dynamic 
hot-add functionality for virtual CPUs enables customers to add compute 
resources to installed guests on-the-fly, reducing downtime.

Security
--------
Security enhancements keep the beta version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 
6.5 up-to-date with essential government and industry regulations as 
well as emerging best practices. NSS, GnuTLS, OpenSSL and Java can now 
share a single, system-wide static data store, which can be used by 
crypto-toolkits as input for trusted certificate decisions, something 
that is required by many corporate deployments. Additional security 
capabilities include:

   * Support for smartcard authentication by providing single-sign-on 
capabilities across more application subsystems

   * The latest version of OpenSCAP, an authenticated scanner that meets 
the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) SCAP 1.2 
certification requirements

   * Support for the latest Transport Layer Security (TLS 1.2) standard, 
allowing secure network communication.

The beta of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 also features several desktop 
and graphical enhancements. Users can now remotely operate Windows 7 and 
Windows 8 desktops and Windows Server 2012 consoles using the RDP 
protocol, and customers running the Evolution mail client will now 
experience better integration with Microsoft Exchange, especially from a 
calendaring perspective. Additionally, the base LibreOffice software is 
updated to 4.0, which provides a host of office workflow improvements.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 beta is available now on Red Hat Network to 
all customers with an active Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription. For 
access and downloads, please visit: 
https://rhn.redhat.com/rhn/software/channels/Beta.do

We greatly appreciate the dedication and collaboration within the 
company and with our community to develop and deliver the highest 
quality open source enterprise platform available today.

Sincerely,

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Team

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Please visit the resources below for more information about Red Hat 
Enterprise Linux 6.5.

Access documentation for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 (requires login):

   * Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 beta release notes: 
https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6-Beta/html/6.5_Release_Notes/index.html

   * Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 beta documentation: 
https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/docs/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/