IBM was one of Red Hat’s initial investors way back before Red Hat went public. Since then, IBM has seen great demand from customers for the Red Hat platform and considers it a standard for value, performance and security. The availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Advanced Platform today provides even more opportunity for IBM and Red Hat to serve customers well by reducing complexity while providing for the most reliable, secure Linux platform to date.
Through increased collaboration on hardware platform support, middleware compatibility and quality of support, the IBM and Red Hat relationship is very strong and continues to grow in its strategic nature. This is true in that both partners are dedicating more resources to key projects, while closely working together in striving to prove to more and more customers the choice for a broad range of applications available from the Mainframe to the servers and down to the desktops.
IBM is very excited about the launch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and the robust capabilities that joint customers can begin taking advantage of including virtualization. Listen to what Scott Handy, VP WW Linux Business at IBM has to say about the launch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 in this video.
Support and certification of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 will span the entire IBM Server platform line. Most notably, this will include System x and BladeCenter, System p, System z, System i, Clusters 1350 and 1600, IntelliStation and System Storage. With all of its key server product line certified on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, IBM will be able to offer and market its hardware solutions to its Business Partner Channel as well as the horizontal and vertical markets. Solutions such as virtualization, Trusted Linux and Real-time Linux all address specific industry needs for optimization. They also provide security, increased reliability and choice with open source solutions, which not only IBM, but joint customers feel is important.
IBM is also planning to provide certification and support for the wide range of software products that it offers to the market. IBM Software Group is excited in supporting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with such brands as Lotus, Information Management, Rational, WebSphere and Tivoli.
Today IBM and Red Hat are the world’s two largest commercial Linux contributors. IBM announced just today that the developers at the company’s Linux labs have been in close collaboration to integrate new technologies in the Linux kernel. The goal is to help customers improve efficiency and gain a competitive edge in their industries.
Developers at IBM’s Linux Technology Center, which has some 600 engineers in 40 locations worldwide, collaborated with Red Hat’s Engineering team to integrate “Real-Time Linux” capabilities, improved virtualization features and security enhancements into the latest version of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Hundreds of IBM and Red Hat developers work full-time on making Linux better as part of the open source community.
You’ve heard about the virtualization and security capabilities in the Linux kernel that will also be available in the new release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. IBM was a major contributor to these features and capabilities. “Real-Time Linux” technologies are currently being incorporated into the kernel and will be extended to IBM and Red Hat customers in a future offering. IBM is currently testing and certifying Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 across all of its standards-based systems hardware and middleware. IBM also plans to provide services and support for the upcoming release of the Linux distribution.
To net, IBM and Red Hat are working together in three major ways to help customers:
- To optimize Xen Virtualization for IT environments
- To ensure to offer greater data protection by addressing demand for features that provide greater data protection.
- Work on Innovation for the Future: “Real-Time Linux” Application Development Platform
IBM is also continuing work with Red Hat and members of the open source community worldwide on improving kernel performance through a SystemTap toolkit, Samba, kernel scalability, customer testing and numerous ongoing technology projects.
By working closely with Red Hat, IBM strives to ensure optimum performance across all of its hardware and software products. Customers can benefit from the unique advantages of this Linux collaboration - including comprehensive services, technology leadership and global reach. We believe that this IBM and Red Hat alliance gives customers the confidence to deploy a resilient infrastructure through their enterprises.
To learn more about the IBM – Red Hat relationship, visit here.
