Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Release Candidate Available to Partners

Back in April, we began talking about the development road toward the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 when we delivered the first beta of the platform, with noteworthy improvements spanning performance enhancements to new security features to expanded virtualization capabilities. With the introduction of the first beta, we began working with our customers, partners and the community to test and further develop the release into an ambitious and robust operating platform. Since then, we have continued the momentum of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 development with the delivery of a second beta in June with additional updates and technologies. We also recently announced an agreement to certify Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 under Common Criteria at Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 4+ in August.

Today, we take a large step forward toward Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 with the delivery of the Release Candidate for the product, marking our entrance into the final stages of product delivery for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

The Release Candidate is available to a small set of strategic testing partners, including our OEM partners, and Red Hat’s independent software vendor (ISV) partners. We encourage all of our ISV partners to enable our joint customers to experience the significant enhancements in performance, reliability and security offered in this version of what is intended to become our new flagship platform by accelerating testing and final certification of ISV offerings on the Release Candidate. We expect no further changes to the ABI or API that might otherwise affect application compatibility as we finalize Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and make it generally available later this year.

For more information on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, including access to the product betas, visit here.

Existing Red Hat ISV partners can visit here to learn more about how to access the Release Candidate. Please keep in mind that as with earlier beta releases, there is no formal support provided for the Release Candidate and only the x86 64-bit version of the platform is currently available with this Release Candidate. If you are a Red Hat ISV partner and have questions regarding access to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Release Candidate, please contact isvpartners@redhat.com.