Red Hat Readies Enterprise Linux 3
In a recent interview with CRN, Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik said the launch of the company's open-source architecture is designed to meet the high-end 64-bit computing and management needs of large companies.
The launch consists of the Enterprise Linux 3 line and enhanced Red Hat Network with new features to handle enterprise end-to-end management, he said.
Red Hat plans to brief the public on the lineup next week, but Enterprise Linux 3 will officially launch in mid-October, the CEO said. Both products will be delivered in the next 90 days, he added.
"It's an open-source architecture for the enterprise," Szulik told CRN. "Enterprise Linux 3 will provide robust functionality that will really challenge the proprietary operating systems for the data center business, that will allow Red Hat to move up from the appliance and the front end and midtier clients where we're doing a good job now, and move to the 64-bit, high-end data center environments."
Szulik also said Red Hat Network will offer enhanced security and provision management to the enterprise. The service is designed for "customers managing five, six [to] 8,000 servers," Szulik said, and will handle all functions from monitoring to patch management, configuration and provisioning.
Red Hat is clearly trying to snag major enterprise infrastructure deals with its forthcoming Enterprise Linux 3 line. Earlier this month, the Raleigh, N.C., software company announced a big win with VeriSign. The project involves migrating more than 2,000 of VeriSign's servers running Unix to Red Hat's Linux distribution on Intel servers.
Sources said Red Hat,a commercial company,has also been aligning itself more closely with the open-source community as of late.
As Red Hat gets set to launch the Enterprise Linux 3 platform and a new channel program, Microsoft's Martin Taylor, general manager of Platform Strategy, is preparing partners to battle Linux in the marketplace, sources said.
The software giant plans to launch at its partner event next month two new tools partners can use to show the benefits of Windows infrastructure over Linux, including a product life-cycle development tool that states when servers will ship and the dependencies between various new releases, according to sources.
In addition, Microsoft plans to provide some online demonstrations that illustrate how the products integrate, sources said.