Red Hat Diversifies Product Portfolio with RHEL 7.1 Release

Written by Christopher Tozzi
March 10, 2015

Enhanced Active Directory integration and updated support for Docker containers are the headline features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.1, the first sub-point release to the company's flagship open source operating system—which forms the basis for several additional enterprise computing platforms that the company has now introduced for containerization, real-time computing and POWER8 systems.

Enhanced Active Directory integration and updated support for Docker containers are the headline features in Red Hat (RHT) Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.1, the first sub-point release to the company’s flagship open source operating system—which forms the basis for several additional enterprise computing platforms that the company has now introduced for containerization, real-time computing and POWER8 systems.

RHEL 7.0 appeared last June, with an emphasis on container-based virtualization and scalable storage. The upgrade to 7.1 extends the former feature set by including the latest Docker package, as well as the open source Kubernetes orchestration framework for containers.

RHEL 7.1 also makes Active Directory integration easier by connecting the Common Internet File System (CIFS) with backend system daemons. In non-geek terms, that means Red Hat’s newest OS can connect natively to file and print services hosted on Microsoft Windows machines, without having to rely on the venerable, but occasionally flighty, winbind daemon.

Single-sign on functionality has also gained some updates in the new release, which supports one-time password authentication via Kerberos and LDAP using software- or hardware-based tokens. Red Hat has introduced a new tool for managing Certificate Authority policy, too.

All of these changes make RHEL 7.1 a significant release. Although Red Hat is not billing this as a major update, the new version is about much more than mere bug fixes or minor feature enhancements.

And what makes RHEL 7.1 even more notable is that its launch comes at a time when Red Hat is diversifying its portfolio of open source operating systems by introducing new platforms that are based on RHEL, but designed for specific use cases. The company accompanied the RHEL 7.1 release with the announcement of general availability for RHEL Atomic Host, a containter-oriented OS; RHEL for Real Time, for (in case it’s not clear) real-time computing; and RHEL for Power, little endian, which is tailored for IBM POWER8 hardware.