INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres
support for the Elastic Network Adapter
(ENA) on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to
enable new network capabilities.
Linux Containers and Red Hat
Enterprise Linux Atomic Host
Linux containers present an evolution
in how businesses develop, deploy,
and manage modern applications,
helping enterprises scale to new levels of
operational efficiency, speed application
development and drive increased
flexibility in managing application life
cycles. Based on Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 7.4, the latest version of Red Hat
Enterprise Linux Atomic Host further
refines enterprise-grade Linux containers
with enhancements that include:
Jim Totton, vice president and
general manager, Platforms Business
Unit, Red Hat
secure the underlying file system and
provides the ability to use docker and
namespaces together for fine-grained
access control.
Improved security without sacrificing
performance, thanks to integrated
support for SELinux and OverlayFS,
as well as full support for the overlay2
storage graph driver.
Full support for package layering with
rpm-ostree, providing a means of adding
packages like monitoring agents and
drivers to the host operating system.
Performance
Modern business applications require
more bandwidth and increased
storage, placing a performance strain
on traditional operating systems and
hardware. Engineered to meet the
needs of organisations seeking to both
modernise and optimise their enterprise
IT infrastructure, Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 7 offers new features designed
to improve the performance of both
networking and storage.
New features include: Support for
NVMe Over Fabric helps to provide
customers with increased flexibility
and reduced overheads when
accessing high performance NVMe
storage devices located in the data
centre on both Ethernet or Infiniband
fabric infrastructures.
Other features include general
enhancements to Red Hat Enterprise
Linux’s performance when deployed on
the public cloud, highlighted by decreased
boot times to better enable mission-
critical applications to start sooner, and
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INTELLIGENTCIO
“Red Hat
Enterprise Linux
7.4 offers new
automation
capabilities
designed
to limit IT
complexity
while enhancing
workload
security and
performance for
traditional and
cloud-native
applications.”
The introduction of LiveFS as a
Technology Preview, which enables users
to install security updates and layer
packages without a reboot.
Management and automation
With datacentre footprints that
span from bare-metal to the cloud,
the complexity associated with
controlling IT environments continues
to increase. Complementing the
capabilities of Red Hat Satellite and
automation via Ansible Tower, Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7.4 introduces Red
Hat Enterprise Linux System Roles as
a Technology Preview. System Roles
provide a common management
interface across all major versions of
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, enabling
an automated workflow via Ansible
automation to be created once and
used across large, heterogeneous Red
Hat Enterprise Linux deployments
without additional modifications.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for
multiple architectures
Red Hat remains committed to
providing customer choice when it
comes to datacentre infrastructure.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 maintains
this commitment with availability
across multiple architectures, including
IBM Power, IBM z Systems and 64-bit
ARM (as a Development Preview).
For the IBM Power Little Endian
architecture, this release enables
support for the High Availability and
Resilient Storage Add-Ons as well as
the Open Container Initiative (OCI)
runtime and image format.
Jim Totton, vice president and general
manager, Platforms Business Unit, Red
Hat, said: “The modern enterprise will
not be solely based in physical servers
or cloud services; rather, the path to
digital transformation weaves across
four distinct technology footprints. The
latest version of the world’s leading
enterprise Linux platform supports each
of these deployment methodologies
with new security features, improved
performance and introduces new
automation capabilities to cut
through the inherent complexities of
heterogeneous datacentres.” n
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