Red Hat updates enterprise Linux

RHEL 5.4 released today with support for KVM and Xen hypervisors.

Red Hat has today announced details of the latest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL 5.4.

Pitched at growing virtualised environments, Red Hat said RHEL 5.4 is the foundation of its portfolio of virtualisation solutions, adding that the update would support a broad ecosystem of hardware and software.

During a webcast, Red Hat executives discussed how the release fitted into its vision for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation, which it first began talking about in June of this year. According to Paul Cormier, president of products and technologies, RHEL 5.4 includes support for both the kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) and Xen hypervisors and gives customers an increased choice, depending on their own personal requirements.

"We are very proud to get this out on time and to our customers' quality expectations. In 2009 we will fill out the rest of the portfolio," he said.

Cormier added that a separate standalone hypervisor will also be released.

The firm has chosen to include both the newer KVM along with Xen in order to give its users a cross-over period. Executives said that because RHEL 5 has a ten-year lifecycle it has decided to stick with Zen, which has only been a feature for two years, at least for the near future.

Navin Thadani, senior director for Red Hat's virtualisation business, explained that this announcement was just the first part of the firm's plans.

"RHEL 5.4 sees us integrate with KVM for the first time and support a broad eco-system. This is the foundation for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation", he said.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 is globally available now and will be automatically delivered to customers with the appropriate subscription.

Further tools including server and desktop management tools will be released later this year, Thadini added.