Red Hat ‘s Icehouse-Based RHELOSP 5.0 Distro Will Offer Three Years of Support, VMware Integration
On July 8, Red Hat released version 5 of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform. RHELOSP 5.0 is based on April’s Icehouse release of OpenStack, plus RH Enterprise Linux 7, and RH Enterprise Virtualization 3.4 -- both released last month. The new spin will offer three years of support, double that of RHELOSP 4, released seven months ago.
Longer support sounds reassuring to enterprise customers contemplating large-scale production deployments. eWeek, however, among other media, noted that OpenStack’s six-month release cadence and rapid evolution at least raises the question whether customers are better served by long-term support or by a simplified upgrade path from release to release, which Red Hat has also promised. InfoWorld’s Serdar Yegulalp, meanwhile, reflected on whether longer-term support, RHEL 7 certification, the recent eNovance support acquisition and other moves bespoke a desire by Red Hat to lock customers in -- while also quoting Forrester analyst Dave Bartoletti’s opinion that it reflects, instead, the growing maturity of the OpenStack ecosystem.
Features of RHELOSP 5.0 largely reflect those inherent to Icehouse, including improved Nova-compute and modular Neutron networking functionality, the Trove database system, and the OpenStack Sahara Big Data project, the latter included as a technology preview. Also featured in the new Red Hat distro is support for VMware’s vCenter and ESXi hypervisor and NSX network virtualization. Features unique to RHELOSP 5.0 include server groups functionality derived from RH Enterprise Virtualization 3.4, and support for RHEL 7’s improved cryptographic processing.
Longer support sounds reassuring to enterprise customers contemplating large-scale production deployments. eWeek, however, among other media, noted that OpenStack’s six-month release cadence and rapid evolution at least raises the question whether customers are better served by long-term support or by a simplified upgrade path from release to release, which Red Hat has also promised. InfoWorld’s Serdar Yegulalp, meanwhile, reflected on whether longer-term support, RHEL 7 certification, the recent eNovance support acquisition and other moves bespoke a desire by Red Hat to lock customers in -- while also quoting Forrester analyst Dave Bartoletti’s opinion that it reflects, instead, the growing maturity of the OpenStack ecosystem.
Features of RHELOSP 5.0 largely reflect those inherent to Icehouse, including improved Nova-compute and modular Neutron networking functionality, the Trove database system, and the OpenStack Sahara Big Data project, the latter included as a technology preview. Also featured in the new Red Hat distro is support for VMware’s vCenter and ESXi hypervisor and NSX network virtualization. Features unique to RHELOSP 5.0 include server groups functionality derived from RH Enterprise Virtualization 3.4, and support for RHEL 7’s improved cryptographic processing.
Resources:
Red Hat OpenStack Platform 5 Delivers Long-Term Support of Icehouse
Red Hat | Red Hat Announces General Availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 5
RHEL OpenStack 5: Red Hat hogs the OpenStack spotlight | Openstack - InfoWorld
Red Hat Extends Support, VMware Integration for OpenStack Platform | Cloud Computing
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Openstack 7 reaches general release- The Inquirer
Red Hat Pushes VMware Integration with New OpenStack Release - Linux/Open Source on Top Tech News
Will Red Hat, Inc. Profit From its Investment in This Burgeoning Market? (RHT, VMW)
- oVirt Community Update: July 2014 — Red Hat Open Source Community
