I have decided to write a brief summary of new features and enhancements which are available with the first service pack of Novell's SLES 11. I need to know the major differences between GA and SP1 release during my every day work and perhaps, it will help you in the same way like me. The original post about SLES11 GA is here. So, what's new?
- it is based on GNU/Linux kernel 2.6.32
- it provides web based YaST for remote management called WebYaST
- UEFI booting (useful with disks larger as 2TB) is supported on AMD64/Intel64 now
- it includes many driver updates (e.g., QLogic/Emulex HBAs, Broadcom NICs)
- it includes new XEN 4.0
- KVM hypervisor is now fully supported, good news
- it fully supports the latest enterprise Intel XEON 5600 and 5700 processors which are able to greatly improve performance of XEN hypervisor by decreasing latency of VMs
- finally, it contains all the latest security and bug fixes available since the release of GA
It seems there weren't so many changes included in SP1 but I think XEN 4.0 or KVM support from Novell is enough to move our GA installations to SP1. With XEN 4.0, we are able to benefit from these nifty features:
- fault tolerance
- memory overcommitment
- USB paravirtualization and VGA pass-through
- live snapshots and clones
- 64 vCPUs per VM
- 1TB RAM per XEN host
Now, it depends how fast and how successfully Novell will be able to implement and adjust these features into their management tools like YaST.
For more comprehensive contents about SLES11 SP1, check the oficial release notes at www.novell.com.
For more comprehensive contents about SLES11 SP1, check the oficial release notes at www.novell.com.
