Difference between AS WS ES and Desktop of Redhat Enterprise linux

Posted on September 22, 2008

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Products
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux family has been designed to cover the full
spectrum of corporate operating environments in a simple and consistent
manner. The family is comprised of four products, two designed for server
systems, two designed for client systems. There is a high level of commonality
across the products, thereby ensuring that application support, user
environments, and management tools are consistent. The products are
primarily differentiated by the level of system architecture support, system
size, and service offerings.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux supports multiple hardware architectures including:
• Intel x86compatible
(32bit)
• Intel Itanium2 (64bit)
• Advanced Micro Devices AMD64 (64bit)
and Intel EM64T
• IBM POWER series (eServer iSeries and eServer pSeries)
• IBM Mainframe (eServer zSeries and S/390)
Perhaps the most important feature of Red Hat’s multiarchitecture
development process is that all implementations are built from identical source
code. The primary benefit of this commonality is that all the products are
completely compatible, regardless of architecture. This assists ISVs in
supporting their applications on multiple architectures and also simplifies
system administration and product support.

The individual members of the Enterprise Linux family remains unchanged
from version 3:
• Highend
server: Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS
• Entry/midlevel
server: Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES
• Highend
client: Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS
• General purpose client: Red Hat Desktop
An important feature of the family is that it is cleanly subsetted. That is, all the
features of a lowend
product are also available in a highend
product.
Therefore, upgrades from one family member to another do not result in the
loss of features, and server products can be deployed in client environments.
The following sections outline the major features of each Red Hat Enterprise
Linux family member.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS (“advanced server”) is the topoftheline
enterprise Linux solution, designed for large departmental and datacenter
server deployments. Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS is the only family member
that supports IBM POWER and zSeries/S390
systems and is available with
Standard and Premium Edition support. Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS is best
suited for systems with more than 2 CPUs or more than 16 GB of main
memory.
Typical Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS deployments would be used to support:
• Medium to largescale
databases and database applications
• Large web and application servers
• Corporate applications such as CRM, ERP, and SCM
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES (“entry/mid server”) provides an entrylevel
and
midrange
server operating system for the Intel x86, EM64T, Itanium2, and
AMD64 markets. It supports 12
CPU systems with up to 16 GB of memory
and is suitable for a wide range of applications–ranging from the edgeofnetwork
to medium scale departmental deployments. It includes the same
capabilities as Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS and is differentiated by its support
for smaller systems and lower price. Enterprise Linux ES is available with
Basic Edition and Standard Edition support.
Typical Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES deployments are used to support:
• Corporate web infrastructures
• Edgeofnetwork
applications (DHCP, DNS, firewalls, etc.)
• Mail and file/print serving
• Smallmedium
database and departmental applications
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS (“workstation”) is the highend
desktop/client

member of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux family.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS supports 12
CPU 32bit
and 64bit
Intel and
AMD systems (x86, EM64T, Itanium2, and AMD64), and is ideal for “power
user,” software development, and technical applications such as
virtualization/rendering (CAD/CAM, EDA, etc.). It includes a full suite of
desktop productivity applications for tasks such as document creation, email,
instant messaging, and web browsing.
While Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS is based on the same software core as
the server products, it does not include a number of network server
applications (such as DNS and DHCP). Therefore it is suitable only for use in
client environments. Enterprise Linux WS is available with Basic Edition and
Standard Edition support.
HPC with Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS is usually the most cost effective Enterprise
Linux product for use in High Performance Computing (HPC) environments. In
these environments it is deployed in a headless workstation mode without a
monitor, keyboard or mouse. A few common HPCrelated
packages are
included in the Enterprise Linux family such as PVM and LAM.
Red Hat Desktop
Red Hat Desktop is the highvolume
desktop/client member of the Red Hat
Enterprise Linux family. It supports 32bit
Intel x86 and 64bit
Intel EM64T and
AMD64 systems with one CPU and up to 4 GB of main memory. It provides
the same software functionality as Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS but for
smaller systems and at a lower price point. Red Hat Desktop is provided in
multiunit
packages bundled with a Red Hat Network (RHN) Proxy or Satellite
Server. The RHN server is used to efficiently perform desktop management
functions such as the installation of updates and security patches.

Table 1: Summary of the Features of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux family

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