Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6, the latest version of the company’s Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 platform. Nearly four years since the launch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 in 2010, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 provides a stable and secure foundation that enables organizations to tailor their infrastructure for the business needs of today while remaining flexible enough to prepare for the challenges of tomorrow. This flexibility enables enterprises to confidently build, deploy and manage large, complex IT projects across physical, virtual and cloud environments.

The new features and capabilities of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 are centered on three critical areas for enterprise IT:

  • Performance
  • System Administration
  • Virtualization

From the kernel to the network stack, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 has been tuned to optimize performance. With support for higher processor counts and memory limits as well as kernel optimizations that allow for more efficient CPU utilization on large NUMA systems, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 better accommodates dense single-server workloads. Other system performance enhancements include support for additional 40 GbE network adapters, reductions in network latency and jitter, and support for high performance, low latency applications.

Improving upon an already powerful feature set for simplifying deployment processes and system configuration, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 offers new capabilities to build and manage large, complex IT environments. In large high availability configurations, full support for HAProxy and keepalived load balancer technologies improves stability, while the improved manageability of resource lists simplifies administration. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 also includes new Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) functionality for compliance testing and Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) for better monitoring and management in distributed environments.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 improves its functionality as a virtual guest by including several enhancements to improve the overall virtual guest experience. Support for a host to feed randomness to a virtual machine increases security for cryptographic applications while multi-queue performance improvements boost guest network and storage throughput when running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 host.

Available now, the full list of capabilities and features within Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 can be viewed at https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/.

Supporting Quotes

Jim Totton, vice president and general manager, Platform Business Unit, Red Hat

“With the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6, we continue to refine the stable and secure Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 platform which provides a reliable foundation to mission-critical systems across industries and regions. Whether you’re operating on bare metal, building out your virtual infrastructure, or leveraging the open hybrid cloud, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, with enhancements to virtualization, performance and system administration, continues to be an excellent choice for deploying and managing large and complex IT projects.”

Additional Resources

  • Learn more about Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • Read more about Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6

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About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat is the world's leading provider of open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to reliable and high-performing cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization technologies. Red Hat also offers award-winning support, training, and consulting services. As the connective hub in a global network of enterprises, partners, and open source communities, Red Hat helps create relevant, innovative technologies that liberate resources for growth and prepare customers for the future of IT. Learn more at http://www.redhat.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to delays or reductions in information technology spending; the effects of industry consolidation; the ability of the Company to compete effectively; the integration of acquisitions and the ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; uncertainty and adverse results in litigation and related settlements; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; the ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and technological innovations on a timely basis; risks related to data and information security vulnerabilities; ineffective management of, and control over, the Company's growth and international operations; fluctuations in exchange rates; and changes in and a dependence on key personnel, as well as other factors contained in our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic and political conditions, governmental and public policy changes and the impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

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