What's new in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1?

An in-depth look at the latest features

We've outdone ourselves—again. The latest release of Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® is the ideal platform to translate current and future technology innovations into the best value and scale for IT solutions. The proof? See for yourself in the impressive list of updated features below.

Stable, secure, scalable, and innovative

Red Hat subscriptions provide continuous access to Red Hat software as it’s created, tested, and certified by Red Hat and its partners—all supported versions, including security updates, bug fixes, and feature enhancements. With a rich ecosystem of customers, community and partners, there’s always something new about Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Consolidated patches and security updates

On May 19th, Red Hat released the first service pack since the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. As with every service pack, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 consolidates all patches and security updates since the introduction of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, while maintaining application compatibility, independent software vendor (ISV), and independent hardware vendor (IHV) support.

 

A new SpecVirt record

The established performance leader as both a virtual machine guest and hypervisor host, we already set another new SpecVirt record in multicore scaling with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 due to lower latencies in networking and I/O.

 

Storage, hardware, and process updates

Many customers moved immediately to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 for the latest in file system performance and options. Version 6.1 updates our advanced networking storage offerings. FCoE, datacenter bridging, and Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) offload allow networked storage to deliver high quality of service.

Keeping pace with the latest hardware innovations, we worked with Intel to support the latest hot-plug processors and memory, as well as the latest Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) architectures and PCI Express 3.0.

Developers can now process memory with Valgrind improvements and learn even more about running processes with SystemTap. These enhancements have been integrated into the Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE) for a unified development experience.

 

Datacenter and infrastructure support

Red Hat Enterprise Linux supports the entire datacenter architecture and major infrastructure projects, including:

  • Moving to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) easily with optimized networking, firewall, and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)/Domain Name System (DNS) services.

  • Intelligent application consolidation using control groups functionality for resource control of applications and virtual machines.

  • Managing application uptime using transparent proxy or the Red Hat Enterprise Linux High-Availability add-on, which can failover applications, services, or virtual machines.

  • Tracking Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployments and subscriptions by using the new Subscription Manager, currently only available with version 6.1 and for use with Red Hat Network.

  • Planning user authentication and authorization with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), Kerberos, Active Directory (AD) integration, or Red Hat Enterprise Identity (IPA) services, now in tech preview.

 

Find the answers to your RHEL 6.1 questions. Plan, deploy, connect.

 

Security certifications for Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat is committed to providing secure and stable software that can be easily used in security-sensitive environments. We continue to work closely with US government customers and security specialists to get Red Hat products certified for government use and accredited by the appropriate authorities. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 continues on the path of critical security certifications to help our customers have smooth transitions to newer Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases.

 

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