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Release: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1

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Red Hat has announced the general, worldwide availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1, the first update to the platform since the delivery of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 in November 2010.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 enhancements provide customers with improvements in system reliability, scalability and performance, coupled with support for upcoming system hardware. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 also delivers patches and security updates, while maintaining application compatibility and OEM/ISV certifications.

In addition to performance improvements, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 also provides numerous technology updates, including:

– Additional configuration options for advanced storage configurations with improvements in FCoE, Datacenter Bridging and iSCSI offload, which allow networked storage to deliver the quality of service commonly associated with directly connected storage

– Enhancements in virtualization, file systems, scheduler, resource management and high availability

– New technologies that enable smoother enterprise deployments and tighter integration with heterogeneous systems

– A technology preview of Red Hat Enterprise Identity (IPA) services, based on the open source FreeIPA project

– Support for automatic failover for virtual machines and applications using the Red Hat High Availability Add-On

– Integrated developer tools that provide the ability to write, debug, profile and deploy applications without leaving the graphical environment

– Improvements to network traffic processing to leverage multi-processor servers that are getting increasingly common

Does Shift happen ?

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Last week’s announcement of RHEL 6 Beta not including Xen anymore probably is the start of a new era in open source virtualization. While the signs were on the wall since RedHat acquired Qumranet it has never been more visible.

The tone has been set …in the same week RedHat announces RHEL6 Beta with only KVM support, Canonical announces 12000 UEC Deployments. UEC is Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud , it’s their Eucalyptus implementation, or should we say integration ?
12000 deployments of UEC sounds like a lot, maybe a bit too much to believe today … ,

It’s probably too early to say that there are more KVM than Xen deployments today (certainly taking into account Amazon’s giant Xen deployments ) , but when talking to different ISP’s and Cloud Vendors you feel that there is a trend towards preferring KVM over Xen.

The biggest argument for KVM today is the fact that you can turn any recent Linux box into a Virtual Machine container with a couple of comands. The fact that KVM is part of the Linux Kernel and doesn’t require you to add extra components to your distibution makes it a lot easier to deploy and validate as opposed to a Xen setup that still needs extra changes and isn’t in the main kernel.

Today main reason why people are still considering Xen in some projects is legacy hardware not having a VT chipset yet … lots of older hardware can be put to good use with the performance that Xen’s paravirtualization brings .

When given choice of KVM / Xen or VirtualBox for their future Open Source virtualization deploymetns, Almost 50% of the people questioned plan on using KVM for their next deployment, as opposed to only about 30% planning to use Xen.

So at first KVM was being ignored, then being laughed at for not being a dedicated hypervisor but being part fo the Operating System .. and now apparently it’s time for the fight … and what a fight .

With much sadness we read Simon Crosby’s FUDitorial about RedHat’s KVM adoption.

When people start calling OEL a “superior enterprise version of RHEL” a red light starts flashing for me , so is Oracle planning to acquire Citrix any time soon ? As the only way to explain Simon talking about RHEL not being available for download and no sources being availble at all, I can think off is that he is already thinking about how to please his next employer.. Simon’s reaction tries to make the RedHat move look insignificant for some, for others it might be the drop that makes them really switch to KVM as it clearly is full of FUD regarding to RedHat

Oracle was betting heavily on Xen, Sun was also putting a lot of effort into xVM, however the Sun xVM effort seems to wander off towards more VirtualBox efforts. Obviously Citrix won’t head towards KVM anyh time soon .. but the big question is .. what will the masses do ?

CohesiveFT Adds Ubuntu 9.04 SE and Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 to its Elastic Server Platform

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CohesiveFT today announced the addition of both Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition (Jaunty Jackalope) and Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 (Lenny) operating systems to its Elastic Server platform, the company’s web-based factory for real-time virtual and cloud server assembly. The Elastic Server platform lets users assemble custom virtual and cloud servers using a point-and-click, self-service interface. The addition of the most recent stable versions of Ubuntu and Debian as operating system options gives users the ability to assemble and deploy their custom Ubuntu or Debian Elastic Servers to numerous virtual and cloud environments including Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).

Ubuntu is a widely popular operating system distributed freely by Canonical based on GNU/Linux. Ubuntu is available under the GNU/GPL but is commercially supported by Canonical. Debian is also an extremely popular operating system based on GNU/Linux. Debian is not supported by a commercial enterprise but by an independent decentralized organization of developers.

The Elastic Server platform is a complement to virtualization and cloud offerings. Users assemble custom servers by choosing from a library of popular components. Once assembled, these custom application stacks can be configured to a variety of virtualization and cloud-ready formats, downloaded and deployed in real-time. There are over three thousand users of the service who have assembled more than seven thousand Elastic Server images for public and private use. The addition of Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope and Debian Lenny operating systems highlights CohesiveFT’s platform momentum following recently introduced support for Eucalyptus, Fedora Core 10, ElasticHosts, and KVM.

OpenOSX Releases WinTel 3.0, Speeds Up Virtualization Performance

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OpenOSX Thursday announced WinTel version 3.0, the company’s Windows, Linux and other OS virtualization solution for Mac OS X.

WinTel is an application that allows host operating systems (and applications) such as Microsoft Windows and Ubuntu Linux to run in protected, virtual environments within windows on Mac OS X. WinTel’s new virtualization performance is comparable with the performance of VMWare’s Fusion and Parallels Inc.’s Parallels Desktop software.

According to OpenOSX, the update allows users to run most of the instructions of the virtual machine natively, drastically increasing performance in the process. The firm said performance was comparable to VMWare’s Fusion or Parallels.

The OpenOSX WinTel product is available immediately for US$30 plus shipping delivered on CD-ROM, with download-only delivery available for US$25.

VirtualLogix To Unveil Virtualized Android Phone Solution

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VirtualLogix today announced the availability of the Android mobile phone environment on a range of 2G/3G cellular system solutions from ST-Ericsson, on a Linux single processor (ARM926) platform.

This solution relies on VirtualLogix’ VLX virtualization software to enable developers to create low cost, high volume phones that provide state-of-the-art user experience and services while effectively preserving the predictability and performance of communication and multimedia functionality. VirtualLogix will demonstrate the solution at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

VLX-patented, innovative virtualization technology brings the benefits of server-side virtualization functionality to mobile devices. Designed for real-time performance, VLX delivers a high performance communication capability which minimizes latency and communications between software running in separate containers on the same processor. Through a shared device framework, VLX provides an innovative and structured mechanism for sharing peripheral devices between different execution containers to enable multi-vendor support. VirtualLogix’ virtualization software allows developers to predictably add new functionality to mobile devices post-delivery, without compromising the initial configuration of any device.