Today, Red Hat announced that customers can now purchase Red Hat Enterprise Linux "in the cloud" in conjunction with Amazon Web Services. Wondering what "in the cloud" means? "Cloud"-based web services allow customers to very easily scale up and down their compute power as the demands on a business fluctuate. It’s the use of networked infrastructure software and capacity to provide resources to users in an on-demand environment, offering a set of typically virtualized computers that can grant users the ability to start and stop servers or use compute cycles only when needed, often paying only for the use of those services. Sounds flexible and convenient. And now you can take advantage of it through Red Hat.

With cloud computing services with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you get certified and supported operating platform services purchasable by the hour. That way, you only pay for what you need. It will be available on Amazon’s Web Services site and supported by Red Hat, giving you immediate access to systems and software to start developing and hosting your applications. It includes: a hosted server, bandwidth, storage, the leading open source operating system - Red Hat Enterprise Linux –and valued support. Basically, we’re giving you the opportunity to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux anywhere, at any time, without the limitation of hardware.

While the on-demand service is currently in beta form, it’s supported beta, meaning that you will have access to Red Hat technical support experts to help you out if you need it. The technology of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is enterprise-ready, but there’s still refinement underway for the service and deployment model with EC2.

For $19 per month, per account, you receive access to the web service, updates and support infrastructure. Depending on your extent of use, your hourly charge can be as small as $0.21 per hour. It’s as easy as this:

• Subscribe via Amazon Web Services to gain access to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and register your subscription with Red Hat.
• Configure your client machine with utilities to manage servers in the cloud.
• Determine the size of servers (Small, Large, Extra-Large) you wish to run.
• Start, stop, manage servers within the cloud.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Amazon EC2 is currently in a limited beta testing phase. For more information about cloud computing with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and to sign up for the beta program, see here.