Final Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta Now Available

When Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 was first introduced in 2007, it was done so with an expected seven year lifecycle. Five years later, in 2012, we saw the continued strong adoption of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and decided to extend its seven year lifecycle to 10 years. Now, in 2014, the original retirement year for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, we still see an active, dedicated customer base that has come to value this long, predictable lifecycle in addition to the platform’s inherent security, stability, and reliability.

Today, we are pleased to announce beta availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.11. This release continues to provide system administrators with a secure, stable, and reliable platform for their organization's enterprise applications.

While primarily focused on improving security and stability, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.11 Beta provides additional enhancements to subscription management, debugging capabilities, and more. Updates include:

• New storage drivers -- Updates that provide customers with the benefits of some of the latest storage adapters from Red Hat hardware partners.
• Enhancements to Red Hat Access Support’s debugging capabilities -- Red Hat Access Support makes it easier for customers to manage, diagnose, and engage with Red Hat directly through a console within Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
• Improvements for Red Hat Enterprise Linux guests running on VMWare ESXi.
• More information from subscription management services that makes managing subscriptions easier through both the GUI and command line.

Although this is the final minor release for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 continues to be supported with security updates and important bug fixes, fulfilling Red Hat's commitment to a 10-year product lifecycle for all major Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 remains actively supported until March 31, 2017, when it is scheduled to be retired.

To review the product lifecycle phases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, see: https://access.redhat.com/site/support/policy/updates/errata/

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.11 Beta is available now on the Red Hat Customer Portal to all customers and partners with an active Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription at: https://access.redhat.com/downloads/

For access to the documentation for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.11 Beta, including the release notes, please visit: https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/docs/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/

In addition, as always, questions and comments are also welcome via the comments section (below).