Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 Now Available

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Continues to Help Fuel Linux Growth Rate

Red Hat is pleased to announce the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7. Today’s update adds features that enhance the flexibility, security, and stability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 environments, and includes a number of features incorporated from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. Application interface consistency is maintained between Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 and prior updates, allowing systems to be updated easily without application re-certification.

Countless leading, global companies have built – and successfully grown – their businesses on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 since it was first introduced in 2007. In fact, in a recent report1, IDC cites Red Hat as the largest Linux server distribution with 64.4% revenue share, and predicts a Linux server revenue CAGR of 18.6% for 2009 – 2014.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 is available to subscription customers today and is accessible online using Red Hat Network or by using the new Subscription Manager feature. Red Hat Enterprise Linux updates are released approximately twice a year following a defined seven-year lifecycle described here. Subscription options are available to extend the lifecycle of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for up to 10 years.

Highlights of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 include:

• Hardware enablement

Support for new hardware from Red Hat partners encompassing processors, chipsets and new drivers for storage, networking, and graphics allows Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 deployments to benefit from new hardware platforms delivered in 2011, including Intel, AMD, POWER and IBM System z.

• Virtualization improvements

Several virtualization enhancements in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 include improved migration performance for KVM, as well as several performance and scalability improvements for the Xen hypervisor.

• SCAP support

OpenSCAP introduces support for the Security Content Automation Protocol, including a library and set of utilities, giving a standardized approach to validating Red Hat Enterprise Linux security.

• Introducing Subscription Manager in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

First introduced to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 customers and now to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 customers, the new X.509 certificate-based Subscription Manager feature delivers Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions and software services in a flexible, scalable, and secure way. The Subscription Manager tracks subscriptions assigned to a system and configures software updates for better availability and faster update speeds.

• Networking and storage enhancements

Added features for network bridging and LDAP features for autofs improve centralized management of user filesystems in an enterprise environment.

• Availability Fencing

New fencing features boost cluster reliability in Cisco UCS system and VMware environments.

For more information about Red Hat Enterprise Linux, visit here. To access the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7 release notes, visit here. Detailed technical notes are available here.

1: IDC: Worldwide Linux Operating Environment 2011–2015 Forecast: Accelerating Toward the Era of Cloud - Doc #227778, April 2011