Red Hat Puts Out the Developers Welcome Sign

Beginning in early 2006, Red Hat Inc. will offer new support via its Red Hat Network for a set of three application development stacks.

Red Hat will certify and support each stack on RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). The stacks support will be delivered via its Red Hat Network subscription model.

The first stack is the familiar LAMP (Linux, Apache Web server, MySQL database and PHP scripting language) stack. In Red Hat jargon, this is the Web Application Stack. Customers may also use the PortgreSQL database, instead of MySQL.

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Red Hats Java Web Application Stack is for more dynamic Web applications. It includes support for the Web Application Stack and it includes support for the Apache Tomcat Servlet and JSP (JavaServer Pages) container. This stack also includes support and updates for Apache Struts, Apache Axis, Spring, Ant and other important Java libraries and tools.

Finally, the Red Hat Enterprise Java Stack includes support for the Java Web Application Stack and support for the ObjectWeb Consortiums J2EE JOnAS (Java Open Application Server).

None of these stacks include support for other J2EE servers such as JBoss Inc.s JBoss Application Server, according to Todd Barr, Red Hats product director. Red Hat does support JBoss on RHEL, as well as other J2EE servers, but JOnAS, which is a Red Hat co-branded J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) under the name Red Hat Application Server, is the only one with full Red Hat support.

Novell Inc., Red Hats main Linux rival, announced support for a LAMP and LAMP plus J2EE stack in August. Novells stack for SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) is built on top of JEMS (JBoss Enterprise Middleware System), which includes the JBoss Application Server.

"Red Hat will be offering these three related stacks to improve time-to-market for customers development projects by helping reduce their certification and testing burden with our known and trusted RHN (Red Hat Network) service and support model," said Barr.

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"These new certified stacks will help (developers) get to market faster, while giving them the confidence to deploy, knowing that Red Hats proven production support capability is behind them," said Paul Cormier, Red Hats executive vice president of engineering in a statement.

"Red Hats move to add value above the RHEL platform and into open-source solutions stacks is consistent with these organizational priorities. It is my view that this announcement will be well received," added Dan Kusnetzky, vice president of IDCs System Software research

Each Red Hat certified stack includes free access to Red Hats Eclipse-based Developer Suite, and will be available as a layered subscription on top of RHEL. In other words, you have to be an RHEL subscriber before subscribing to the development stack packages. However, the Red Hat code itself is available for free download.

The Red Hat certified stacks will be available beginning in the first calendar quarter of 2006 directly from Red Hat. Subscription pricing will start at $599 per server.

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