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WASHINGTON, D.C.—Red Hat Inc. on Wednesday released the next version of its flagship enterprise operating system, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0.
This new edition, based on the Linux 2.4.21 kernel, supports seven 32- and 64-bit architectures: the Intel x86 and Itanium; the AMD64; and the IBM zSeries, iSeries, pSeries and S/390. RHEL also boasts a native Posix threading library and improved scalablity for SMP—up to 16 processors on Intel/AMD architectures.
According to Stacey Quandt, principal analyst for the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL), RHEL 3 is more than just another Linux upgrade. “RHEL 3 continues to narrow the gap between enterprise Linux and Unix.” At the same time, “it also puts Red Hat at a competitive advantage over Microsofts server family, which still doesnt have a 64-bit operating system and wont until 2004.”
Mike Balma, Linux business strategist with Hewlett-Packard Co. of Palo Alto, Calif., said benchmarking done on HP systems with RHEL 3 and Oracle 10 indicates that the Posix threading library will markedly enhance scalablity and performance of application servers and DBMSs. This performance boost, according to Balma, could be as much as 70 percent over RHEL 2.
Goverment and corporate attendes at this weeks Linux Enterprise show here said they welcome the upgrade. They said that the improved back-end support will enhance Linuxs appeal as a platform for major federal and private application servers, especially Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)-based systems and large-scale DBMSes.
Customers running RHEL 2.1 will automatically receive access to Version 3.0. RHEL 3.0 also is available now as part of an annual subscription that includes Red Hat Network and services. Current Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscribers can upgrade now via Red Hat Network. Red Hat OEM partners will deliver RHEL 3.0 in preconfigured hardware solutions in the next 30 to 60 days.
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