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Follow UsAgainst the backdrop of searing humidity, the grandeur of Singapore's
Fullerton Hotel stood out. And the scorching heat had little to do with the Red
Hat Asia Pacific Strategy Kick Off 2007, which was held between March 14 to 16.
The event was attended by nearly 200 participants from Red Hat and was marked
by the launch of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. Making the announceÂment, Gery
Messer, President- APAC/Japan, Red Hat said, “The result of a two-year endeavor,
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is now available for mission-critical server
deployments and an updated enterprise desktop for user productivity. With this
advanced platform, customers would be able to greatly reduce the cost and
complexity of purchasing; integrating and managing separate virtualizaÂtion,
storage management and high availability software. This helps customers to shift
their investment away from expensive infrastructure and back into their
business.”
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 includes enhancements like additional performance,
scalaÂbility and security features, extensive new hardware support, expanded
development environÂment and toolset, improved interoperability with Microsoft
Windows and UNIX. Unique to the new version is 'virtualization' technology,
which embraces the idea of having both servers and storage to think and act as
if they are many separate units working together. This ability to create
'virtual' environments within the same computing platform for different
operating environÂments had been built into the Linux offering for the first
time. This feature would allow users to create smaller virtual machines within
the same server whether they are running Windows, UNIX or other operating
systems.
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| GERY MESSER: “The result of a two year endeavor, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 helps customers to shift their investment away from expensive infrastructure and back into their business” | SCOTT CRENSHAW: “We will work |
Enterprise Linux 5 comes with beefed up security features, including tools
for smart card verification and interfaces for 10 Indian languages. This feature
could ride the wave of new e-governance initiatives, in countries like India and
the company is working closely with many state governments, which have decided
to adopt open source software for fuelling government and education.
Additionally the new version is supposed to be 'Web 2.0-ready.' (Web 2.0 is an
improved form of the worldwide web, that would be browser driven, and emphasizes
on generating and distributing web content by open communication,
decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use.)
Along with Enterprise version 5, Red Hat announced the availability of three
new solutions, which include the Red Hat datacenter solution, the database
availability solution and the Red Hat high perforÂmance computing solution.
| One laptop per child As part of its initiative to get technology on an open source platform to more and more people across the globe, Red Hat is a founding sponsor for the global group effort called 'One laptop per child' (OLPC) program. Targeted at school children of various age groups, this program hopes to deliver laptops at low cost so as to make technology as well as knowledge available and accessible to millions of children across the globe. A non-profit endeavor, OLPC is set to get adopted across many countries and would attempt to ensure that learning material reaches out to more children, more effectively and at low cost. The age group of the children to be included in the program would be the decision of the respective governments of the participating countries that include china and India. Incidentally, the origin of OLPC stretch back to more than |
New Resolution Center
Significant among other announcements that were made at the event, was the
creation of the Red Hat Cooperative Resolution Center. An attempt to simplify
the Red Hat standard support service level agreements (SLA) with the customers,
this joint customer support center would help customers solve issues, regardless
of whether it is Red Hat technology or a partner solution. Announcing the
creation of the center, Scott Crenshaw, VP-Marketing, Red Hat said, “The center
will enable customers to experience the benefits of the close, collaboraÂtive
partnerships that Red Hat has established with other leading technology
providers by having a quicker route to resolution. We will work with the support
staff of the customer's vendors to solve a problem, regardless of whether or not
Red Hat software was the cause.”
Stressing that partnerships are critical for Red Hat, Crenshaw indicated that
Red Hat would expand its partner network across the globe as well as the APAC
region. This would include new partner programs, appointment of partners as well
as provision of customer leads for the channel. The company would also focus on
winning new customers and customer renewals. The key verticals, for Red Hat
would be telecommunications, BFSI, education, government and healthcare.
A part of relationship building initiative is also the Red Hat Exchange (RHX),
which provides pre-integrated business application software stacks including
infrastructure software from Red Hat and business application software from Red
Hat partners. A single source for research, purchase, online fulfillment and
support of open source and other commercial software business application
stacks, customers through RHX, can acquire pre-integrated open source software
solutions incorporating infrastructure software from Red Hat and business
application software from Red Hat partners. Red Hat will provide a single point
of delivery and support for all elements of the software stacks. “Through RHX,
Red Hat seeks to reduce the complexity of deploying business applications and
support the development of an active ecosystem of commercial open source
business
application partners. RHX will be available later this year,” Crenshaw added.
Subbalakshmi BM
The author was hosted in Singapore by Red Hat