User manual REDHAT ENTERPRISE LLINUX 5.5 TECHNICAL OVERVIEW

[. . . ] 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 includedinthefifthupdatetotheRedHatEnterpriseLinux5platform. 2 2 OVERVIEW HARDWARE ENHANCEMENTS 3 Memory Allocation Optimizations 3 Schedular Optimizations 3 PowerEfficiency 3 Reliability VIRTUALIZATION TOOLS AND UTILITITES ENHANCMENTS 4 Interoperability Advancements 4 Infrastructure Enhancments 4 Development Tool Features CONCLUSION 3 4 5 www. redhat. com RedHatEnterpriseLinux5. 5TechnicalOverview|TimBurke OveRview InMarch2010, RedHatreleasedthefifthupdatetoitsRedHatEnterpriseLinux5family, RedHat EnterpriseLinux5. 5. ThisreleasebuildsuponthestrongenterprisefoundationoftheRedHatEnterprise Linux5releasestream, andaugmentsitwithsupportforamajornewgenerationofprocessorhardware. [. . . ] · Reliability ­ enhancements that provide mechanisms to more precisely pinpoint system faults, trap errors, createhighlyavailableconfigurations, andtakecorrectiveactions. Suchcapabilitieswere previouslytheexclusivepurviewofexotichighendsystems­andarenowforthefirsttimeavailable oncommoditysystems. viRtuaLiZatiOn From a practical perspective, many current enterprise workloads are not able to fully utilize large scale systemswith64processorsand1TBofmemory. EnterRedHat'svirtualizationcapabilities:thestandalone RedHatEnterpriseVirtualizationhypervisorandmanagementstation, andtheintegratedvirtualization providedbyRedHatEnterpriseLinux. Bothoftheseproductsprovideworkloadconsolidationcapabilitiesthatallowthenewhardwaresystemstoreallyshine. AndRedHatEnterpriseLinux5. 5providesa numberofvirtualizationenhancementsandoptimizations. Forexample, acustomertestimonialforthe newNehalem-EXsystemrunningRedHatEnterpriseLinux5. 5describeshowamassivelabof10, 000 systemswillbeconsolidatingdownto256systems. ThemajorfocusofvirtualizationoptimizationinRedHatEnterpriseLinux5. 5involvesI/Operformance enhancements--notablyinthenetworkanddiskstacks. ThereareavarietyofI/Ooptimizationsthatenable virtual guests to more directly access the device hardware, rather than incurring the overhead of indirect accessthroughthehypervisor. ThisisaccomplishedbyutilizinghardwarefeaturessuchasSR-IOV, VT-D, andPCI-passthrough. AsatestamenttotheeffectivenessoftheI/Ooptimizations, RedHatEnterpriseLinux istheonlyoperatingsystemcapableofsaturatinga10GigEnetworkadapterfromavirtualguest. Another exampleofI/O-andvirtualization-relatedoptimizationis"hugepage"support, whichallowsvirtualguests toefficientlyallocateanduselargememorypools--atypicalusecasefordatabaseworkloads. www. redhat. com 3 RedHatEnterpriseLinux5. 5TechnicalOverview|TimBurke ThesescalabilityandI/OenhancementssignificantlyreducethevirtualizationoverheadforI/Oboundworkloads, typicallytojustafewpercent. Thisopensthedoorforvirtualizationtobeapracticaldeployment modelforawholenewclassofapplicationworkloads--includingdatabase, fileserving, andhightransaction ratemessagingmiddleware. Theseworkloadscannowbenefitfromtheconsolidationefficiencyandflexibilitythatvirtualizationoffers. RedHatEnterpriseLinux5. 5isanidealvirtualizationfoundationthatcanenablehundredsofvirtualized guests, LinuxandWindows, insameenvironment, tobeconsolidatedonasinglecommodityhostsystem. Andnotjustwimpyguestseither, butgueststhatcanbeconfiguredwith32processorsand512GBof memory, and deliver performance that is essentially identical to non-virtualized environments, even with I/Oboundapplications. tOOLs and utiLities enHanceMents InadditiontothehardwareandvirtualizationfeaturesincludedinRedHatEnterpriseLinux5. 5, there arealsoalargevarietyoffixesandenhancementstomanyoftheotheroperatingsystemcomponents. · Interoperability advancements · OpenOffice­hasbeenupdatedtoversion3. 1, providingsupportfortheMicrosoftOffice2007 andOOXMLformats. · Samba­versionthreeofthisfileandprintsharingsubsystemhasbeenenhancedforWindows Server2008R2interoperability. · Infrastructure enhancements · Freeradius­updatedtoversion2. 1providing802. 1certificatesupport · PostgreSQL­updatedtoversion8. 4affordingperformanceenhancements · LVM­theLogicalVolumeManagementstoragesuitehasbeenaugmentedtoprovidehotsparing formirrorjournals, enablingautomaticreplacementorremovaloffailedloggingdevices. · Kernel tracepoints­havebeenaddedinthenetworkandsignalsubsystems. Theseprovide pre-configureddiagnosispointsthathavebeenintegratedwiththeSystemTaptracingtool. [. . . ] CustomerscansecurelydeployRedHatEnterpriseLinux5withtheknowledgethatthemoststringentlevels ofapplicationcompatibilityandstabilityaresafeguardedwiththeircertifiedsolutionstacks. IfyouwouldlikemoreinformationaboutRedHat, visit:www. redhat. com, or call us at 1-888-REDHAT1. www. redhat. com 5 RED HAT SALES AND INQUIRIES NORTH AMERICA 1­888­REDHAT1 www. redhat. com EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 0080073342835 www. europe. redhat. com europe@redhat. com ASIA PACIFIC +6564904200 www. apac. redhat. com apac@redhat. com LATIN AMERICA +541143416200 www. latam. redhat. com info-latam@redhat. com Copyright©2010RedHat, Inc. RedHat, RedHatEnterpriseLinux, theShadowmanlogo, JBoss, MetaMatrix, andRHCEaretrademarksofRedHat, Inc. , registeredintheU. S. andothercountries. Linux® is the registered trademarkofLinusTorvaldsintheU. S. andothercountries. www. redhat. com #2119347_0410 [. . . ]