Red Hat, Inc., the world's leading provider of open source
solutions, today announced the general availability of Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7.2, the latest release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 continues Red Hat's goal of redefining the
enterprise operating system by providing a trusted path towards the
future of information technology without compromising the needs of the
modern enterprise.
New features and capabilities focus on security, networking, and system
administration, along with a continued emphasis on enterprise-ready
tooling for the development and deployment of Linux container-based
applications. In addition, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 includes
compatibility with the new Red Hat Insights, an add-on
operational analytics offering designed to increase IT efficiency and
reduce downtime through the proactive identification of known risks and
technical issues.
Security
Retaining Red Hat's commitment to security, including meeting the needs
of financial, government, and military customers, Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 7.2 continues to provide new security capabilities and features.
True security requires both a secure foundation and secure configuration
of systems. OpenSCAP is an implementation of the Security Content
Automation Protocol that analyzes a system for security compliance. The
new Open SCAP Anaconda plug-in allows use of SCAP based security and
configuration analysis during the installation process, ensuring a
secure starting point for system deployment.
A critical part of secure distributed systems is being able to trust the
address resolution performed by DNS servers. DNSSEC extends DNS to
provide a secure chain of trust for address resolution. The Red Hat
Identity Management system (IdM) now supports DNSSEC for DNS zones.
Networking
Networking performance in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 has been
significantly improved - with throughput doubled in many network
function virtualization (NFV) and software defined networking (SDN) use
cases. Other enhancements to the kernel networking subsystem, include:
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Tuning the network kernel stack to dramatically improve packet
processing time, enable Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 to perform at
physical line rates in advanced (virtual and containerized) workloads.
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Inclusion of the Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK), which makes it
possible to rapidly develop low-latency and high throughput custom
applications capable of direct packet processing in user space for NFV
and other use cases. Prior to this enhancement, systems were limited
to running only one type of application (DPDK-enabled or
traditional-network enabled.) Enhancements in Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7.2, specifically the introduction of a new bifurcated driver, now
allow for both types of applications to be hosted on the same system
thus consolidating physical hardware.
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The addition of TCP (DCTCP), a feature for solving TCP congestion
problems in data centers that works smoothly across Windows- and Red
Hat Enterprise Linux-based hosts to maximize throughput and efficiency.
Linux Containers
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 features many improvements to the
underlying container support infrastructure. Updates are included for
the docker engine, Kubernetes, Cockpit and the Atomic command. In
addition, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host 7.2, the latest version
of Red Hat's container workload-optimized host platform, is available
with most Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 subscriptions.
Also available today is the beta of the Red Hat Container Development
Kit 2, a collection of images, tools, and documentation to help
application developers simplify the creation of container-based
applications that are certified for deployment on Red Hat container
hosts, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2, Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Atomic Host 7.2 and OpenShift Enterprise 3.
System Administration
As managing the modern datacenter at scale becomes increasingly complex,
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 includes new and improved tools to deliver
a more streamlined system administration experience. Highlighting these
updates is the inclusion of Relax-and-Recover, a system archiving tool
that enables administrators to create local backups in ISO format that
can be centrally archived and replicated remotely for simplified
disaster recovery operations.
Red Hat Insights
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 is compatible with Red Hat Insights, an
operational analytics service designed for the proactive management of
Red Hat Enterprise Linux environments. Available for up to 10 Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7 systems at no additional cost, the offering is
designed to help customers detect technical issues before they impact
business operations by analyzing infrastructure assets and identifying
key risks and vulnerabilities through continuous monitoring and
analysis. Red Hat Insights provides resolution steps to help IT managers
and administrators respond to these issues and potentially prevent
future problems.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server for ARM 7.2 Development Preview
Red Hat is also making available Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server for ARM
7.2 Development Preview, which was first made available to partners and
their customers in June 2015. This Development Preview enables new
partner hardware and additional features for the ARM architecture.
“With the launch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 in June 2014, Red Hat
redefined the enterprise open source operating system. Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7.2 continues this effort, delivering new capabilities
for containerized application deployments and significant networking
enhancements while retaining our focus on delivering a stable, reliable
and more secure platform for the most critical of business applications.” --
Jim Totton, vice president and general manager, Platforms Business
Unit, Red Hat