The new release schedule is much more accelerated than the company’s previous release timing.
This week AWS announced the release of Amazon Linux 2022, aka “AL2022.” This is Amazon’s new general purpose Linux for AWS. The company claims it is “designed to provide a secure, stable, and high-performance execution environment to develop and run your cloud applications.”
Then they made a bold announcement. “Starting with AL2022, a new Amazon Linux major version will be available every two years and each version will be supported for five years,” they stated.
In addition, customers will also be able to take advantage of quarterly updates via minor releases and use the latest software for their applications.
This is a vast improvement over AWS’s release schedule heretofore. Indeed, Amazon first released their Linux varietal in 2010. Then they faield to release anything fore seven long years. The successor to the first release of Amazon Linux, known as “Amazon Linux 2”, did not appear until December of 2017.
Delivering flexibility to customers in how and when they update
AL2022 provides the ability to lock to a specific version of the Amazon Linux package repository. This, Amazon says, gives customers control over how and when they absorb updates.
AL2022 combines the benefits of our current Amazon Linux products with a predictable, two year release cycle, so customers can plan for operating system upgrades as part of their product lifecycles. The two year major release cycle provides customers the opportunity to keep their software current while the five year support commitment for each major release gives customers the stability they need to manage long project lifecycles.
AL2022 uses the Fedora project as its upstream to provide customers with a wide variety of the latest software as part of quarterly releases. In addition, AL2022 has SELinux enabled and enforced by default. This, Amazon says, enables customers to improve their security posture. It also reduces the operational overhead that comes with managing custom security policies, and helps comply with common industry standards.
AL2022 is now available in preview in all commercial regions and is provided at no additional charge.