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Red Hat enteRpRise Linux 5.5
tecHnicaL OveRview
By Tim Burke, Vice President, Engineering, Platform Engineering
Abstract
This paper provides a high-level summary of the primary enhancements
included in the fifth update to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 platform.
2 OVERVIEW
2 HARDWARE ENHANCEMENTS
3
Memory Allocation Optimizations
3
Schedular Optimizations
3 Power Efficiency
3
Reliability
3
VIRTUALIZATION
4 TOOLS AND UTILITITES ENHANCMENTS
4 Interoperability Advancements
4 Infrastructure Enhancments
4 Development Tool Features
5 CONCLUSION
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Summary of Contents for Red Hat ENTERPRISE LLINUX 5.5 - TECHNICAL
- Page 1 This paper provides a high-level summary of the primary enhancements included in the fifth update to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 platform. 2 OVERVIEW 2 HARDWARE ENHANCEMENTS Memory Allocation Optimizations Schedular Optimizations 3 Power Efficiency Reliability VIRTUALIZATION 4 TOOLS AND UTILITITES ENHANCMENTS 4 Interoperability Advancements 4 Infrastructure Enhancments 4 Development Tool Features 5 CONCLUSION www.redhat.com...
- Page 2 (formerly code named Nehalem-EX) and AMD's Opteron™ 6000 Series platform (formerly code named Magny-Cours), as well as support for IBM 's new POWER7 processor. These systems truly do usher in a new era of highly scalable computing. To put this into perspective, consider that previously a server configura- tion with 64 processors and 1 TB of memory would consist of a power hungry “big iron” system occupying a full height rack of equipment. In contrast, as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 ships in March 2010, our hardware partners are delivering certified systems in a 4U form factor that offer the same level of scalability. Even more stunning is the fact that individual blade servers will be able to scale to 32 processors and 512 GB. This increase in capacity isn't a typical “speed bump,” rather, it's a major evolutionary step. The hardware is, of course, only half the story because without the companion operating system support and performance optimization, the hardware benefits would not be realized in practical customer deploy- ments. Here are a few examples highlighting the optimizations implemented by Red Hat in cooperation with its hardware partners. An advantage of the collaborative open source development model is that Red Hat's operating system experts can work very closely with their peers in the hardware vendor community to build support for the latest hardware features. 2 www.redhat.com...
- Page 3 From a practical perspective, many current enterprise workloads are not able to fully utilize large scale systems with 64 processors and 1 TB of memory. Enter Red Hat's virtualization capabilities: the standalone Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization hypervisor and management station, and the integrated virtualization provided by Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Both of these products provide workload consolidation capabili- ties that allow the new hardware systems to really shine. And Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 provides a number of virtualization enhancements and optimizations. For example, a customer testimonial for the new Nehalem-EX system running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 describes how a massive lab of 10,000 systems will be consolidating down to 256 systems. The major focus of virtualization optimization in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 involves I/O performance enhancements — notably in the network and disk stacks. There are a variety of I/O optimizations that enable virtual guests to more directly access the device hardware, rather than incurring the overhead of indirect access through the hypervisor. This is accomplished by utilizing hardware features such as SR-IOV, VT-D, and PCI-passthrough. As a testament to the effectiveness of the I/O optimizations, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the only operating system capable of saturating a 10GigE network adapter from a virtual guest. Another example of I/O- and virtualization-related optimization is “hugepage” support, which allows virtual guests to efficiently allocate and use large memory pools — a typical use case for database workloads. www.redhat.com 3...
- Page 4 – has been updated to version 3.1, providing support for the Microsoft Office 2007 and OOXML formats. • Samba – version three of this file and print sharing subsystem has been enhanced for Windows Server 2008 R2 interoperability. • Infrastructure enhancements • Freeradius – updated to version 2.1 providing 802.1 certificate support • PostgreSQL – updated to version 8.4 affording performance enhancements • – the Logical Volume Management storage suite has been augmented to provide hot sparing for mirror journals, enabling automatic replacement or removal of failed logging devices. • Kernel tracepoints – have been added in the network and signal subsystems. These provide pre-configured diagnosis points that have been integrated with the SystemTap tracing tool. • Development tool features • SystemTap – profiling and tracing utility has been augmented to better support C++ application probing. An unprivileged mode that permits use by non-root users has also been added. • – debugger has been enhanced for better C++ application monitoring as well as independent thread debugging. • Valgrind – memory tracking toolset benefits from performance speedups and enhanced detection of race conditions and memory leaks. 4 www.redhat.com...
- Page 5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 Technical Overview | Tim Burke cOncLusiOn Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 continues the progression of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 family by providing industry-leading enablement for the ground-breaking new hardware systems and processor chipsets with their supporting baseboard components. Red Hat Enterprise Linux customers will be able to deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 on the latest genera- tion of hardware, fully optimized, on the first day of system availability in March 2010. Complete applica- tion compatibility across all Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 updates means that customers can take advantage of the significant performance and scalability enhancements provided in 5.5 without having to rebuild and re-certify their application stack — and so harness the true value of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux ecosystem. Customers can securely deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 with the knowledge that the most stringent levels of application compatibility and stability are safeguarded with their certified solution stacks. If you would like more information about Red Hat, visit: www.redhat.com, or call us at 1-888-REDHAT1. www.redhat.com 5...
- Page 6 RED HAT SALES AND INQUIRIES NORTH AMERICA EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST ASIA PACIFIC LATIN AMERICA 1–888–REDHAT1 AND AFRICA +65 6490 4200 +54 11 4341 6200 www.redhat.com 00800 7334 2835 www.apac.redhat.com www.latam.redhat.com www.europe.redhat.com apac@redhat.com info-latam@redhat.com europe@redhat.com Copyright © 2010 Red Hat, Inc. Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Shadowman logo, JBoss, MetaMatrix, www.redhat.com and RHCE are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Linux ® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries. #2119347_0410...
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