In a significant development, Amazon has announced that customers can now run Amazon Linux 2023 (AL2023) as a virtualized guest outside of directly being run on Amazon EC2. This expansion comes with the availability of KVM (qcow2) and VMware (OVA) images, catering to different hypervisor environments. These images are designed to facilitate the migration of workloads to AL2023 and enable customers to standardize on a single operating system across their on-premises and cloud environments.
The latest release, AL2023.3, brings several new packages, including libreswan, NodeJS20, and Boto3. Libreswan, an implementation of the Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol, is instrumental in establishing IPsec tunnels and supports versions 1 and 2 of IKE. NodeJS 20, the latest LTS release of the NodeJS JavaScript runtime environment, offers enhanced capabilities for developers. Additionally, Boto3, the official AWS SDK for Python, is now part of the AL2023.3 package.
For more information on the features and capabilities of AL2023.3, interested parties can visit the official documentation at [link].
Amazon Linux 2023 is now generally available in all AWS Regions, including the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions and the China Regions. Customers seeking further details about Amazon Linux 2023 can refer to the official documentation at [link].
This expansion of virtualization options and the introduction of new packages in Amazon Linux 2023 demonstrate Amazon’s commitment to providing enhanced flexibility and functionality for its customers. With the ability to run AL2023 as a virtualized guest and the addition of new packages, customers can expect improved capabilities and streamlined operations across their environments.
