Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 2 Now Available

November 17, 2006; 07:13 AM
Red Hat (NASDAQ:RHAT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 2. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, to be released in early 2007, will provide the latest open source technologies for improved performance, security and flexibility. With a continued focus on technologies designed to drive costs out of deploying and managing infrastructure software, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 will deliver comprehensive integration that will significantly raise the bar for commercial-strength Linux virtualization in an x86 server environment.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, now available in Beta 2, incorporates a new, fully integrated server and storage virtualization solution. This release enables an integrated virtualization solution by coupling server virtualization with Red Hat's clustering support. For enhanced availability, failover at either the application or virtual machine level is provided by Red Hat Cluster Suite. Red Hat Global File System and Cluster Logical Volume Manager technology allows application data to be securely accessed and shared by any guest from any system.

"The incorporation of virtualization technologies into operating system software is a major industry development that will have long term impact on how customers design their computer infrastructure, how they deploy, and how they plan for scalability, availability and continuity," said Al Gillen, Research VP, System Software at IDC. "Red Hat's approach of integrating virtualization software and clustering technology together with file system software gives Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 the capability to go beyond basic server consolidation, and empowers users to address more sophisticated virtualization requirements."

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 represents the result of nearly two years of development spread across the entire core product, and Linux kernel enhancements accrued from version 2.6.9 to 2.6.18. Extensive enhancements to the kernel, network and I/O subsystems ensure optimal performance and scalability. Users will realize unmatched resistance to security exploits through the inclusion of comprehensive security profiles and improved compiler and runtime buffer management technologies.

Additionally, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 presents dramatically improved desktop capabilities and new application development tools that make working in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment better than ever.

"The release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 2 is a great indicator for customers on what to expect in our next release. Integrating technologies such as virtualization is challenging and exciting, and the resulting product will enable customers to utilize their systems more effectively than ever before," said Tim Yeaton, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Solutions, Red Hat. "We continue to drive down costs by optimizing performance, manageability and availability. Other customer-driven innovations, such as security, are inherent to our development model."

Customers and partners can now download Red Hat Enterprise Linux Beta 2 to deploy pilots for production environments. To learn more, please visit http://www.redhat.com

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat, the world's leading open source solutions provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., with satellite offices spanning the globe. CIOs and other senior-level IT executives have ranked Red Hat as the industry's most valued vendor for two consecutive years in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value study. Red Hat is leading Linux and open source solutions into the mainstream by making high-quality, low-cost technology accessible. Red Hat provides an operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, along with applications, management, and middleware solutions, including JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite. Red Hat is accelerating the shift to service-oriented architectures and enabling the next generation of web-enabled applications running on a low-cost, secure open source platform. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide and through top-tier partnerships. Red Hat's open source strategy offers customers a long term plan for building infrastructures that are based on and leverage open source technologies with a focus on security and ease of management. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com