Canonical’s Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server Edition features the ideal deployment platform for Linux server workloads and cloud computing

Long-term support (LTS) version of popular server operating system generally available on 29 April

Canonical today announced the upcoming release of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server Edition which includes extended security and maintenance updates free of charge to all users for five years (versus 18 months for a standard release). The third and latest LTS version of the popular Linux server distribution, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, delivers on the standing commitment to release a long term support version of Ubuntu every two years and builds on the success of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, which has been a hugely popular deployment platform with Ubuntu enterprise users. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS will be available for free download on Thursday 29 April.

In addition to the stability of long-term support, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS extends the cloud-computing capability of Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, powered by Eucalyptus – a technology that is becoming widely used as a basis for building private and hybrid clouds. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS also includes many major applications and packagesadded or updated since the previous LTS release, giving new and upgrading users an extended range of applications that can be easily installed at launch.

“IDC’s models show Ubuntu accounting for 5 percent share of paid subscriptions and nonpaid deployments of new copies of Linux worldwide in 2009. Underlying that number is a nonpaid share of nearly 6 percent, and a paid share of 4.5 percent, with higher shares in some regions such as the US,” said Al Gillen, program VP, System Software, IDC. “We find it impressive for the company to have achieved that level of success in a relatively short time, into what is today a relatively mature market.”

Growing Ecosystem for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server Edition:

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS will also see a larger ecosystem of open-source and proprietary application providers certifying their applications on Ubuntu Server Edition than ever before. Almost 100 organisations have signaled their intent to certify applications on the platform, including Alfresco, Ingres, IBM, VMware, Zimbra, Yahoo! and many others with more expected to follow post-launch.

“The range of industry, analyst and user support we are seeing for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on server has the makings of a breakout release for this technology,” said Jane Silber, CEO, Canonical. “We can consolidate the significant technical advances we’ve made since the last LTS release onto a stable, secure and long-term supported platform that the industry is gathering around. This is exciting for us, for our partners and most of all for our users and I expect to see Ubuntu adoption accelerate as a core infrastructure layer for volume services and cloud computing in the world’s data centres.”

Dell has announced its intention to support Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server Edition and will offer Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud as an option on its PowerEdge-C product line – servers specifically designed for building cloud environments. “At Dell, we want to provide customers with options and choice,” said Andy Rhodes, director, Dell. “We see Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud as a great potential option for customers interested in building out their cloud capabilities.”

New in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server Edition:

• Direct upgrade path for Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and Ubuntu 9.10 users

  • No need to rip and replace, in-place upgrades

• Stability and security enhancements for LTS including:

  • Five years of security and maintenance updates free to all users
  • AppArmor security by default on key packages
  • Kernel hardening (memory protection, module loading blocking, address space layout randomisation)
  • Uncomplicated Firewall extended to all common services
  • Encrypted Home and Private directories

• Multiple added or updated applications and packages since 8.04 LTS available as install options, including:

  • CouchDB
  • Puppet
  • Eucalyptus
  • Django 1.1
  • OpenJDK6
  • Tomcat 6
  • MySQL 5.1
  • ClamAv
  • SpamAssassin
  • Samba 3.4
  • Python 2.6
  • Nagios 3
  • Ruby
  • PowerNap
  • PHP 5.3
  • KVM 84
  • Libvirt 0.7.5
  • RabbitMQ 1.7

• Virtualisation enhancements, including:

  • Building on Libvirt and KVM for simple deployment and management. KVM now supports:
  • Kernel Samepage Merging (KSM) memory aggregation
  • Live migration of virtual machines
  • Automated and fast image creations with VMBuilder
  • Ubuntu as Virtual Machine (VM) supported for VMWare, Xen, KVM, Virtualbox, EC2 and UEC

• Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) and Amazon EC2 enhancements, including:

  • UEC as well as EC2 images are included in five years of free security and support updates
  • Minimal installation profile for minimum footprint VMs optimised for EC2 and UEC
  • Ubuntu EC2 images can be booted from EBS
  • Multi-language AWS library support
  • Easily customised and frequently refreshed images at boot time for super flexibility using cloud-init
  • Puppet, a configuration management framework, can be used to mass control instances from their start

• Advanced storage capabilities built in, including

  • RAID support from the installer
  • iSCSI and multipath support and booting

• Simpler to mass deploy and manage

  • Puppet integration in the cloud or as an add-on
  • Version control configuration changes (integrated with Puppet), provides history and accountability
  • Many new and improved installation profiles
  • Built-in package mirroring and network installation tools

  • Improved management from Canonical’s Landscape, including:

    • Mass registration
    • Managing both physical servers and VMs
    • Managing Cloud instances on both UEC and EC2, including:
      • Security credentials and zones
      • Elastic Block Storage (EBS) and Walrus storage elements
      • Elastic IPs management
      • Cloud topology monitoring
    • Scheduled maintenance (shutdowns and restarts, package updates and script execution)
    • Direct view into server configuration
    • Logical groupings of machines for ease of administration

Availability

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server Edition, including Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, will be widely available for free download from http://www.ubuntu.com on Thursday 29 April 2010.

At that time, users can upgrade directly to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS from the previous Ubuntu 8.04 LTS version as well as the Ubuntu 9.10 release from October 2009.

Useful links:

• Intel and Canonical whitepaper: http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-cloud-builder/
• Ubuntu Server user survey: http://www.ubuntu.com/files/server-survey-2010.pdf
• Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud: http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud
• Canonical cloud blogs: http://cloud.ubuntu.com
• Landscape server management system: http://www.canonical.com/projects/landscape

About Canonical

Canonical provides engineering, online and professional services to Ubuntu partners and customers worldwide. As the company behind the Ubuntu project, Canonical is committed to the production and support of Ubuntu – an ever-popular and fast-growing open-source operating system. It aims to ensure that Ubuntu is available to every organisation and individual on servers, desktops, laptops and netbooks.

Canonical partners with computer hardware manufacturers to certify Ubuntu, provides migration, deployment, support and training services to businesses, and offers online services direct to end users. Canonical also builds and maintains collaborative, open-source development tools to ensure that organisations and individuals can participate fully in innovations within the open-source community. For more information, please visit www.canonical.com.