IBM has announced that the latest version of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) beta is now available through its Power Development Platform (PDP), as it looks to boost data centre efficiency.
Developers and testers can download the version today through the IBM PDP and at IBM Innovation Centres and Clients Centres around the world, IBM said in a blog post.
It comes after the company announced that RHEL 7.1 was adding support for IBM’s Power8 Systems, which is based on little endian hardware architecture, in December last year.
Doug Balog, general manager for Power Systems at IBM’s Systems & Technology Group, says the version will make it easier for software vendors, in-house and open source developers to try the beta and start testing applications.
He said: "IBM and Red Hat’s collaboration to produce open source innovation demonstrates our commitment to developing solutions that efficiently solve IT challenges while empowering our clients to make their data centres as simple as possible so they can focus on core business functions and future opportunities."
IBM, which sold off its x86 server business to Lenovo last year, announced plans to invest $1bn in building Linux applications on the POWER7 and POWER8 in 2013.
