We are pleased to announce the beta release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8, the latest version of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 platform. Nearly six years into its lifecycle, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 provides a stable, proven, and predictable foundation for organizations seeking to build and deploy large, complex IT projects with confidence.

The beta release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8 includes a number of new and updated features to help organizations preserve investments in existing infrastructure, bolster platform security, enhance application stability, and systems management/monitoring capabilities, and embrace some of the latest Linux innovations.  Select new and updated features include:

• A more streamlined system administration experience thanks to the inclusion of Relax-and-Recover, a system archiving tool that enables administrators to create local backups in ISO format that can be centrally archived and replicated remotely for simplified disaster recovery operations.

• The simplified addition of packages via an enhancement of the yum tool adds intelligence to locate and streamline the process of locating required packages in unsubscribed Red Hat Network channels when adding and enabling new features.

• Libreswan, an implementation of one of the most widely supported and standardized VPN protocols, replaces openswan as the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 VPN endpoint solution, giving Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 customers access to recent advances in VPN security.

• Increased interoperability with Active Directory and Identity Management servers through the addition of new capabilities to the Identity Management client code (SSSD).

• The availability of an updated Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8 base image which enables customers to migrate their traditional workloads into container-based applications – suitable for deployment on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host.

To review the full list of new features and capabilities within Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8 beta, please visit https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.8 beta is now available to all customers with an active Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription.