Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel R2 delivered for Oracle Linux

Oracle has announced the general availability of the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 2 for Oracle Linux.

Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 2 includes performance and scalability enhancements that allowed Oracle to achieve record database benchmark results, the company said. Based on the 3.0.16 mainline kernel, Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 2 also includes improved memory and resource management, and is optimised to be deployed as a virtual guest.

Tried and tested

“Oracle Linux continues to deliver timely Linux innovations, backed by real-world testing, providing users a modern, scalable and reliable platform for their business critical workload demands,” said Wim Coekaerts, senior vice president of Linux and Virtualisation Engineering, Oracle, in a statement. “Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 2 further demonstrates Oracle’s investment in Linux technology and the community, and delivers on our goal to make Linux better for everyone.”

The B-tree file system (Btrfs) is now production-ready with this release. Standard in Oracle Linux, Btrfs supports data stores of up to 16 exabytes, is optimised for solid state disks, is easy to administer, and includes built-in data integrity. Btrfs is known as the “next generation file system” for Linux. With btrfs included, Oracle Linux can support large files and file systems, snapshots and checksums for data and meta-data, provides integrated RAID and volume management, and simplifies administration, Oracle said.

In addition, Oracle is offering technology previews of the popular dynamic tracing mechanism, DTrace, and an instance isolation capability, Linux Containers, to Oracle Linux support subscribers. Linux Containers allow multiple isolated Linux instances (containers) to run on the same host. Processes running in containers can have their own private view of the operating system, file system structure and network interfaces, and their use of server resources can be tightly controlled.

Oracle Linux with Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel is extensively tested with demanding workloads, both on third-party servers and Oracle’s, including Engineered Systems such as Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine and Oracle Big Data Appliance – to help ensure superior performance and reliability, the company said.

Oracle Linux is open source with a public git source code repository and compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.