RHEL 7.3 beta targets enterprise-scale IoT implementations

Red Hat has released the new beta version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.3. The new platform is aimed at easing enterprise-scale IoT implementations through several new features and improvements over its predecessor, which was launched last November.

To natively enable some affordable connected devices, RHEL 7.3 beta comes with support for Bluetooth LE (low energy). Red Hat has also provided customers with an option to embed the new Linux platform into some high-end industrial controllers using the controller area network (CAN) bus support.

The beta version of the upcoming RHEL includes smart card authentication with Active Directory. Additionally, there are SELinux tools to speed up policy creation and offer ease of use. The platform also includes support for the OpenSCAP workbench and Media Access Control security (MACSec) version 2 for a secure user experience.

There are several reliability and redundancy features to give clients reason to switch to RHEL 7.3. In particular, the beta platform has complete support for high availability add-ons on IBM z systems. Customers can also dynamically configure RAID devices via RAID Takeover.

Apart from the IoT world, RHEL 7.3 beta is planning to ‘streamline the life cycle’ of containerised and cloud-native applications. There is an option to sign and verify container signatures using the technology preview of the Atomic CLI. Also, the platform has both the identity management (IdM) client and server services as container images through the Red Hat Container Registry, which enables the deployment of containers.

The latest beta version of RHEL comes with some performance enhancements as well. There are lightweight tunnels and an enhanced bulk packet memory allocator. Red Hat has included its support for non-volatile, dual in-line memory modules (NVDIMMs) to let the platform leverage high-performance storage.

Customers with an active RHEL subscription can test the features of the beta version. However, its final version would take some time to reach servers worldwide.