Red Hat 5: Virtualize Everything!

After much waiting, the reknowned software powerhouse, Red Hat, has unveiled version 5 of its Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) software. The most striking new feature of this new version is the focus on virtualization of operating systems going from processing with XEN to data storage with Gloabl File System.

Virtualization

Virtualization is first class technology. This new feature allows the liberation of the operating system from the underlaying hardware, making it possible to run several heterogenious operating systems on the same hardware. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, virtualization is an integral part of the platform and not just added software on top of the OS, which makes it more efficient.

The benefits of virtualization are many:

• Consolidation of workload on a server
• Installation of new hardware without re-verifying software
• Data access control and fault isolation
• Assign processing power where you need it the most
• Building a secure testing space

Global File System (GFS)

GFS allows access to centralized data from multiple servers. This is storage virtualization. This file system type has the advantage that only one copy of the data is necessary in the whole cluster and any of the servers can access it. Moreover, this solution makes the whole system more reliable since there are less points of failure. Other benefits of GFS are:

• Simplify backup and restore tasks
• Reduce storage requirements by eliminating data duplication
• Add servers just by mounting filesystem in GFS

Red Hat Cluster Suite

This allows for high availability in corporate applications, services and platforms. Red Hat Cluster Suite is the ideal solution for mission critical systems that cannot afford to fail. The Red Hat Cluster Suite suscription is per node and new customers requiere a minimum of 2 nodes. Its main characteristics are:

• Load Balancing
• Failover
• Distributed data storage
• SCSI and Fibre Channel support