RHE Platforms

Red Hat Enterprise Linux supports multiple hardware architectures including:
• Intel x86compatible
(32bit)
• Intel Itanium2 (64bit)
• Advanced Micro Devices AMD64 (64bit)
and Intel EM64T
• IBM POWER series (eServer iSeries and eServer pSeries)
• IBM Mainframe (eServer zSeries and S/390)

Enterprise Linux Business Model

Enterprise version is sold in a per year subscription model of computing. Standard and premium subscriptions are all inclusive. They provide unlimited incident support and it doesnt matter how many clients are attached to a server. The service level varies by product two tiers within each . The standard edition comes with 12 X 5 support with 4 hour response time and the premium version comes with 24 X 7 support with one hour response time.

The subscription component comes via the Redhat network that provides updates and patches via the internet.

Whats different in Redhat Enterprise Linux ?

It was spun of from Linux 2.4 Kernel at about the time Redhat 7.2 shipped in 2001. Since that time the code's received significant enhancements to improve its scalability especially oracle database scalability.

Asynchronous I/O is another feature that attacks latency penalty. Applications can request an I/O operation and then continue processing without having to wait for its completion

Redhat has also improved the granularity of the locks it uses to co-ordinate access to critical I/O code in a multiprocessor system.

Outside the Kernel a significant addition is high availability clustering derived from Kimberlite technology.