Red Hat fires up Enterprise Linux 5

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 now has support for open source Xen virtualisation

Red Hat has unveiled Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL 5) after nearly two years in the making. 

The software focuses on "customer pain points", according to Red Hat executive vice president of engineering Paul Cormier.

"Customers were unable to consume all the technology being sold to them, and it was not solving their business problems effectively. Our resolve has been, and will always be, to deliver software that solves real business needs," he said.

The software's most important new feature is support for the open source Xen virtualisation technology.

Xen allows virtual system images to run directly on the operating system without the need for additional software, and supports hardware acceleration technologies that AMD and Intel have built into their processors.

Novell's SuSE Linux distribution was the first to offer Xen support with the launch of SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 last year.  

Virtualisation technology is generally believed to be the 'next big thing' in enterprise computing, allowing users to consolidate multiple physical servers on a single machine, thereby increasing server utilisation while cutting maintenance costs.

Red Hat previously offered two versions of its operating system: the low-end RHEL Edge Server and the high-end RHEL Advanced Server. 

The Advanced product has now been rebranded as RHEL 5 Advanced Platform. The low-end product will become simply Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

The two new versions are a departure from Red Hat's previous packaging. Prior versions offered the same underlying technology and differentiated through basic or 24/7 support and the number of supported processors.

"Now with RHEL5, we have the basic version and Advanced Platform," Nick Carr, a marketing director with Red Hat, told vnunet.com.

"There are significant technology differences for virtualisation in the form of unlimited server guests and storage virtualisation.

"We are moving form the same technology at different price levels to different technology in the two products."

Most of Red Hat's customers purchase RHEL ES, but the vendor expects them to shift to Advanced Platform.

The availability of storage virtualisation is expected to drive that transition. It is a vital component for virtual server environments because it allows users to move virtual systems between physical servers.

Both Linux versions only support RHEL 3 through 5 as guest operating systems, preventing users from consolidating Windows or SuSE Linux systems on a Red Hat machine.

Microsoft and Novell are currently working on supporting each other's operating systems to run as a virtual instance on their software.

A one year subscription for Red Hat's entry level Linux product starts at $349 and reaches $1,299 for premium support. The Advanced Platform costs $1,499 for a standard subscription and $2,499 for premium.

Red Hat has also created specific application bundles of its server product with middleware applications, consultancy and training services.

The offering aims to provide a one-stop shop for companies looking for a common solution such as a database server, high performance computing clusters or application migration.

The vendor has yet to set pricing on the bundles, but Carr said that they will be less expensive than the standalone products.

Red Hat is the market share leader in the enterprise Linux market, but is facing increasing challenges.

Oracle started undercutting Red Hat's prices last year by offering what is essentially an exact clone of the Red Hat software.

Although the database vendor made big waves when it announced the deal, it has yet to unveil a single customer for the service.

A larger potential threat comes from SuSE Linux developer Novell which inked a partnership with Microsoft last year that essentially renders SuSE the only Microsoft supported and approved Linux distribution.

As one of the more controversial aspects of the deal, the two companies signed a patent licensing deal.

Although this protects SuSE users from patent claims by Microsoft, critics have flamed the agreement because it provides support for patents which they believe should not have been awarded in the first place.