Red Hat had planned to release RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) 5 Beta 2 on Nov. 21, but engineering finished the job early and the beta is already being released to the companys partners and customers.
The release boasts the latest open-source technologies for improved performance, security, and flexibility, according to the company.
RHEL 5 incorporates new, fully integrated server and storage virtualization functionality. This release enables an integrated virtualization solution, by coupling server virtualization with Red Hats clustering support.
For enhanced availability, failover at either the application or virtual machine level is provided by Red Hat Cluster Suite, Red Hat Global File System, and Cluster Logical Volume Manager.
The technology allows application data to be securely accessed and shared by any guest from any system, Red Hat says.
With this version, RHEL moves from Linux kernel version 2.6.9 to 2.6.18. In addition, Red Hat says it has made extensive enhancements to the OS kernel (including some back-porting from 2.6.19), network, and I/O subsystems, to improve performance and scalability.
The beta release also includes security improvements, through the inclusion of comprehensive security profiles and improved compiler and runtime buffer management technologies, according to the company.
