There is now a choice of three different editions of rPath rBuilder:
rPath have written a page summarising the differences between each !
The 6 Musts of Intelligent System Automation
“This (free-of-charge) (e)book (from rPath) provides a clear, actionable, step-by-step guide to intelligent automation that embeds knowledge, eliminates routine operations, and frees up strategic resources. It shows how IT can deliver the seemingly contradictory needs for control and flexibility, for stability and change, for better service and cost reduction.”
Andi Mann, VP of research, systems and storage management,
Enterprise Management Associates (EMA)
Red Hat customers can now use the rPath release automation platform to manage their systems running Red Hat Enterprise Linux RHEL 4 and RHEL 5.
rPath let you chose rPath, Ubuntu or CentOS 5 as your base distro !
just goto http://www.rpath.org/rbuilder/project/<your-distro>/editVersion and choose
“CentOS 5 delivered by rPath” in the Appliance Platform dropdown !
According to www.rpath.com/rbuilder/search there are now over 9,800 rPath based projects so it shouldn’t be long before there are over 10,000 software appliance virtual machines that you could choose between and run on Parallels or Xen or most other virtualisation platforms !
http://www.rpath.com/corp/2008-press-release-archive/rpath-suse.html
Under the agreement, Novell will provide SUSE Linux Enterprise, including source code and maintenance patches, to rPath, who will then include SUSE Linux Enterprise in the rPath Appliance Platform. All of the software certifications associated with SUSE Linux Enterprise will continue to apply to customers who build their appliances using the rPath Appliance Platform. Customers will receive support directly from rPath, who will be backed up by Novell for Level 3 support issues.
http://www.rpath.com/corp/2008-press-release-archive/rpath-at-cern.html
CERN turned to virtual appliances to facilitate the analysis of data created by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments. The complete software environment needed by the LHC applications is assembled by rBuilder and distributed to run as a virtual machine on physicists’ desktops. Virtual appliances provide a consistent application environment for the LHC applications while, at the same time, allowing scientists to use their desktops for analysis, regardless of operating system.
Billy Marshall (CEO rPath) thinks that walled gardens will ultimately be overshadowed by clouds because you cannot achieve webscale computing if every application has to run on a server owned by Google … The faster we take the market to cloud computing, the sooner we can kill off the walled gardens through webscale shadows that deprive them of economic sunlight.
rPath Xen software appliance virtual machine build options
Non Xen
Xen domU
Xen domU+pae
The updated version of rBuilder, rPath’s flagship product, provides a new Appliance Model which allows software companies to centrally define configurations for the development, testing and release stages of their appliance. This makes it easier for multiple groups to coordinate on the development and launch of a new appliance. It also ensures that consistent processes are used across multiple appliance releases.