Red Hat announced it has extended the production life cycle of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6 from seven to 10 years in response to enterprise customer demand.

With this move, enterprise customers now have additional deployment alternatives for their Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system implementations as they plan the future of their strategic IT deployments, Red Hat said in a Jan. 31 press release on the extension.

"Enterprise customers require flexibility when planning strategic, long-term technology deployments," said Jim Totton, vice president and general manager of the Platform Business Unit of Red Hat, in a statement. "Many of our customers have come to realize that standardizing on Red Hat Enterprise Linux improves efficiency and helps lower costs. With a ten-year life cycle, customers now have additional choices when planning their Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployment and overall IT strategy. We are pleased that customers are looking far into the future with Red Hat."

For some IT environments, upgrading to a new version of an operating system requires detailed advance planning, Red Hat officials said. Red Hat extended the Red Hat Enterprise Linux life cycle so customers can remain on their current version longer.

For many years, enterprises have chosen Red Hat as their strategic operating system provider because of the functionality and product stability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the company said. This, coupled with support and the broad ecosystem of certified hardware platforms and ISV applications from Red Hat partners, makes it highly suitable for long-term deployments, Red Hat said. With the new Red Hat Enterprise Linux life cycle, customers will benefit from continued feature enhancements while Red Hat's ABI and API compatibility leverages their application investments, company officials added.

Red Hat offers services for each major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux throughout four life cycle phases: Production 1, 2 and 3, and an Extended Life Phase. Details of the phases can be found on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle page.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and 6 are offered with 10 years of Production Phase support, followed by a three-year Extended Life Phase. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux life cycle phases are designed to reduce the level of change within each major release over time and make release availability and content more predictable, the company said.

Moreover, a breakdown of the Red Hat Enterprise Lifecycle policies said: