Red Hat has officially launched the Beta release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1, and with it comes a whole list of welcomed improvements. Virtualization was a key feature added in the RHEL 5 platform, and the virtualization support in 5.1 received a list of improvements as well. Virtualization improvements include: Completion of virtualization support on Itanium2 platforms PV (para-virtualized) and HV (fully-vi Red Hat has officially launched the Beta release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1, and with it comes a whole list of welcomed improvements.Virtualization was a key feature added in the RHEL 5 platform, and the virtualization support in 5.1 received a list of improvements as well. Virtualization improvements include: Completion of virtualization support on Itanium2 platforms PV (para-virtualized) and HV (fully-virtualized) Itanium2 guests are now fully supported on Itanium2 hardware (HV requires hardware support) Support for 32-bit PV guests on 64-bit AMD64/Intel 64 hosts Improved support for HV guests Hot-migration support for HV guests General performance improvements Host infrastructure for PV drivers (the actual drivers will be delivered separately in the context of the individual supported guest operating systems) Update of the libvirt management layerRed Hat expects the Beta period to last until the first week of September. Software Development