Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is the first product to deliver commercial quality open source virtualisation. Experience the power of virtualised computing on your server and client systems in one of three ways:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform includes fully integrated server and storage virtualisation, coupled with high availability clustering capabilities based on Red Hat Global File System and Red Hat Cluster Suite products. This robust environment supports servers of any size and an unlimited number of virtualised guest environments.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux server subscriptions provide support for up to four virtualised guest environments.

Multi-OS desktops Using the Multi-OS option, a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Desktop client system can be enhanced to provide support for up to four virtualised guest environments.

> Read more about virtualisation and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform

Benefits of virtualisation

Virtualisation technology delivers a quantum step in IT operational flexibility, speed of deployment, and application performance and availability. Virtualisation allows IT managers to deliver more to their customers while gaining control of their costs. And new and exciting uses for virtualised environments are being developed every day.

With Red Hat virtualisation, processing and data resources - servers and storage - are logically grouped into a single resource pool. Virtual servers and storage can then be dynamically allocated, in just a few seconds, as business demands dictate.

Red Hat virtualisation architecture

Server consolidation Consolidate the load of several lightly loaded servers onto one.

Hardware abstraction Deploying an older operating system and applications on new hardware is easy.

Resource management and high availability Move guest instances between systems. Give workloads to be to the most appropriate system. Have continued operation during maintenance periods. And a consistent virtualised server environment makes the deployment of disaster tolerant configurations simpler, practical, and trustworthy.

Application isolation Encapsulate an application together into a single entity with its operating system, performance and configuration parameters, and security environment. Tightly control and manage your applications, immune from other changes in the IT environment.

Types of virtualisation

Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides support for two types of virtualised guests, para-virtualised and fully virtualised.

		Para-virtualised guests offer the highest performance and do not require special processor capabilities. Para-virtualization is available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (Update 5) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 guests.
		Full virtualisation is available for a wider range of guests, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4 and 5, and also for third party operating system guests. Full virtualisation requires Intel VT or AMD-V processors.

Intel and AMD x86/x86-64 host-guest virtualisation support

Related Resources

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform

Dynamic IT: Expand your Capabilities with Red Hat Open Source