New IT technologies and abstractions, such as cloud computing, layer on top of existing ones. This may make the foundational layers less visible, but they remain just as important (or even more so).

The capabilities of a specific operating system aside, the operating system as a technology layer remains highly relevant in a cloud computing world. It insulates the application from lower-level technology (such as hardware) changes, provides a rich set of services to applications, and provides a consistent, long-lived set of interfaces to which applications can write.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides applications with a consistent, certified environment across physical servers, virtual servers, private clouds, and public clouds through both technical certifications and business relationships. Read this white paper now to learn some of the ways that these volume processors have improved their error-handling ability in the cloud computing world.