[rhelv6-list] Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 Beta Announcement

[Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (Santiago) discussion mailing-list]

Dear Red Hat Customers and Partners:

Today, we are pleased to announce the availability of the Beta release 
of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8.  Red Hat’s proven, long lifecycle model 
considers customer needs and preferences while enabling a stable and 
feature-rich operating system environment.  Through minor releases, such 
as the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux customers 
experience significant and ongoing value from their subscriptions.

This beta release includes a broad set of updates to the existing 
features and also provides new functionality, particularly in the areas 
of power and security management, and virtualization.  Support for a 
range of new hardware is also included.

Key functionality in this beta is as follows:

Installation and Operation Management
-------------------------------------
* Support for Power Management Quality of Service (QoS) provides 
automatic power management at the device level for managing latency and 
throughput based on QoS needs.  During critical production windows, 
system administrators can enforce a high-performance, low-latency mode 
in lieu of achieving power savings.

* The configuration of IP over Infiniband (IPoIB) adapters is now 
supported by the system installer, making installation of Infiniband 
adapters easier.

* New iotop support enables the monitoring of I/O resources, such as 
storage devices, at the process level, providing insight into potential 
performance issues.

* PCI-e 3.0 enablement provides support for new and emerging PCI-e 3.0 
adapters.

* Network and storage driver enhancements increase the number of devices 
supported.

Security Management
-------------------
* OpenSCAP (Open Security Content Automation Protocol) support is now 
compliant with the SCAP 1.1 (Security Content Automation Protocol) 
specification, the most recent standard framework defined by National 
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for creating a standardized 
approach for maintaining secure systems.

Virtualization
--------------
* The spice-client package now adds support for Red Hat Enterprise 
Virtualization 3.0 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 hosts.  These 
improvements also allow users to access their virtual machines over a 
WAN connection in addition to the local network.

* KVM enhancements include improved guest boot times and improved clock 
and timer support. The KVM hypervisor has updated real time clock (RTC) 
support to improve the performance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 guests 
on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 KVM hosts.

* Additional KVM improvements increase the usability and stability of 
KVM hosts and Red Hat Enterprise Linux guests.

* Xen enhancements provide improved guest performance, improved logging 
for debug, and virtual disk re-sizing while a guest is running.

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 beta can be accessed at the following link:
https://access.redhat.com/downloads/

The Release Notes can be accessed at the following link:
https://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5-Beta/html/5.8_Release_Notes/index.html

Red Hat extends its continued appreciation to its partners and customers 
for their help in developing and delivering a high quality enterprise 
operating system platform for users worldwide.

Sincerely,

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Team