Red Hat Enterprise Linux Version 6.2 Focuses on Storage, Scalability

Red hat is out with the new version 6.2 of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), which has a focus on cutting costs and optimizing resources for enterprise storage. "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 operating system achieved the largest multi-core Linux configuration results certified to-date on the two-tier SAP(R) Sales and Distribution (SD) standard application benchmark," the company said in a statement. Red Hat has been focusing heavily on the cloud, and RHEL version 6.2 has been performance tuned for physical, virtual and cloud environments.

According to Red Hat, storage enhancements in the new version are significant:

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 adds enhancements to storage and file system features including full support of iSCSI extension for RDMA. Now, benefits of low latency and high throughput through a standard SAN implementation based on 10Gb Ethernet are available to even the most demanding storage environments. This allows customers to opt out of expensive Infiniband hardware or other dedicated interconnect fabrics. Other enhancements around file system include delayed meta data logging, asynchronous and parallel file system writes, as well as support for multiple active instances of Samba in a cluster which improves overall throughput and increases availability for large Samba clustered deployments."

Red Hat recently launched a feedback portal for suggestions on what to build into Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 7--the next major version. We covered the portal here.  According to the company, feedback provided there has been significant. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 is in development now, and Red Hat officials say they "received an outstanding response from all Red Hat subscribers -- users and partners -- for requested features coming from the recent Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Ideas discussion group posted on the Red Hat customer portal."

Red Hat specializes in support subscriptions, and regularly renews subscriptions from its top customers. We've already noted how the company has increasingly boosted its training offerings, including free webcasts, and these, too, reduce the company's support burden in the long run. Expect to see a number of new training offerings focused on RHEL versions 6.2 and 7 arriving.