Red Hat accelerates open hybrid cloud technologies
- New technologies double down on vision to enable customers to ‘build anything, deploy everywhere,’ from the edge to hybrid and multicloud environments
- OpenShift virtualisation and Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes break down application barriers and extend control over distributed resources
- Latest version of enterprise Kubernetes platform delivers enhancements to prime developers and operation teams for cloud-native operations
Red Hat, the global provider of open source solutions, has announced new offerings to help organisations of all sizes and industries optimise, scale or simply protect IT operations in the face of shifting global dynamics.
Red Hat wants to enable customers to build any application and deploy everywhere with the consistency and flexibility an open hybrid cloud foundation provides. Building on this vision, Red Hat’s new offerings are designed to improve the delivery, accessibility and stability of critical services and applications on a worldwide scale on the backbone of the hybrid cloud.
Matt Hicks, Executive VP, Product and Technologies, Red Hat, pointed out that some customers have not been able to add hardware to their data centres at this time, and have to scale in the public cloud instead. "If they have built with OpenShift and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, that's a very easy transition," he said.
Red Hat believes that the technologies that will support organisations' need to evolve in response to demand for always-on digital services and ever-present connectivity will be driven by open source innovation. It is open source activity which will enable organisations to take advantage of cloud-native platforms everywhere, from the edge and on-premises data centres to multiple public clouds.
With open source technologies like Linux and Kubernetes - both supported by Red Hat, organisations not only have access to innovation but also the ability to automate, adapt and scale existing operations across IT environments with greater flexibility than proprietary vendors can provide.
Through Red Hat OpenShift, Red Hat pioneered an enterprise Kubernetes platform that has enabled customers to embrace cloud-native approaches while also supporting existing traditional applications. The platform boasts some 1,700 customers today. To help further eliminate the barriers between traditional and cloud-native applications, Red Hat is introducing capabilities that enable new workloads on OpenShift and that meet customers where they are.
Key announcements at Red Hat Virtual Summit include:
OpenShift virtualisation
This is a new feature available as a Technology Preview* within Red Hat OpenShift, derived from the KubeVirt open source project. Considered a revolution rather than an evolution of existing technologies, it enables organisations to develop, deploy and manage applications consisting of virtual machines alongside containers and serverless, all in one modern platform that unifies cloud-native and traditional workloads.
While Red Hat noted that "some vendors seek to protect legacy technology stacks by dragging Kubernetes and cloud-native functionality backwards to preserve proprietary virtualisation", Red Hat is doing things the other way round. It is bringing traditional application stacks forward into a layer of open innovation, enabling customers to transform at their own speed, instead of being limited by "proprietary lock-in".
Hicks said that OpenShift virtualisation "truly lets customers look at how they are running their infrastructures differently." He said virtual machines can now be imported and run natively on OpenShift.
Frank Feldmann, VP, APAC Office of Technology, Red Hat, shared that there is a lot of interest in the technology, which puts virtual machines under the control of Kubernetes within OpenShift, thereby giving customers a path into a containerised world.
"(We put) virtual machines into a container on top of OpenShift and we manage it the exact same way you manage a container workload," he explained, adding that the move would eliminate costs that come with a virtualisation platform.
Red Hat OpenShift 4.4
Version 4.4 is the latest version of the enterprise Kubernetes platform. Based on Kubernetes 1.17, OpenShift 4.4 introduces a developer-centric view of platform metrics and monitoring for application workloads; monitoring integration for Red Hat Operators; cost management for assessing the resources and costs used for specific applications across the hybrid cloud; and more.
Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes
To address the management challenges of running cloud-native applications across large-scale, production and distributed Kubernetes clusters, Red Hat is also introducing Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes. To be available as a Technology Preview, this management solution provides a single, simplified control point for the monitoring and deployment of OpenShift clusters at scale, offering policy-driven governance and application lifecycle management.
Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes is expected to be available mid-
summer 2020 (Q2-Q320), with Technology Preview availability planned in May.
Beyond these new technologies, Red Hat has invested in helping organisations get the most from existing infrastructure. New developments include:
Enhancements to Red Hat Insights, Red Hat’s proactive security and risk management as-a-service offering, which makes it easier for IT teams to detect, diagnose and remediate potential problems before they impact production systems or end users. Insights is available across every supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription by default.
A new Cloud Connector in Red Hat Smart Management will provide direct integration between Red Hat Insights and on-premises Red Hat Satellite infrastructure. Red Hat Satellite 6.7 is now generally
available, and in addition to the Cloud Connector, also introduces improved integrations with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat Enterprise Linux as well as security and content management enhancements.
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform also helps to address the complexities of expanding network demand and infrastructure footprints by automating time-consuming manual tasks, helping IT teams to more effectively meet customer and end user needs beyond service uptime. A new automation services catalogue will bring curated automation of infrastructure and application deployments to business users with governance and approvals in the Q2-Q320 timeframe, while the Automation Analytics and Content Collections features have been enhanced.
The general availability of Azure Red Hat OpenShift on OpenShift 4 was announced as well. Newly-added features include cluster-admin support, cluster autoscaling, multi-availability zone clustering across three Azure Availability Zones in supported Azure regions, industry compliance certifications and support for connecting third-party identity providers, plus private API and ingress endpoints.
Red Hat training and certification are also available to IT teams seeking to quickly expand skillsets as connectivity needs evolve. From learning the basics of enterprise Kubernetes to gaining certification in telecommunications architecture, Red Hat’s expertise is available to help IT professionals gain new expertise and experience to better address the growing importance of the network.
Paul Cormier, President and CEO, Red Hat said, “Perhaps more than ever before, the unique needs of every organisation are in sharp focus - some need to scale operations immediately to meet relentless services demand while others seek to strengthen and maintain core IT operations.
"Rather than only provide technologies to address one need or the other, Red Hat provides a flexible, fully-open set of solutions to our customers, meeting them where they are with what they need. This could be the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform to drive greater operational stability or the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform to help rapidly scale services for critical demands, all backed by our expertise, experience and commitment to helping global communities at large, not just our immediate customers.”
Red Hat’s involvement in open source communities goes back a long way. Red Hat was an early contributor to the Kubernetes platform alongside Google and remains the second-leading corporate contributor to Kubernetes. Red Hat continues to help advance key technologies in Kubernetes and related communities which are enabling this cross-industry IT evolution.
- OpenShift virtualisation and Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes break down application barriers and extend control over distributed resources
- Latest version of enterprise Kubernetes platform delivers enhancements to prime developers and operation teams for cloud-native operations
 |
| Cormier (top) speaks during a virtual press briefing during the Red Hat Summit. |
Red Hat, the global provider of open source solutions, has announced new offerings to help organisations of all sizes and industries optimise, scale or simply protect IT operations in the face of shifting global dynamics.
Red Hat wants to enable customers to build any application and deploy everywhere with the consistency and flexibility an open hybrid cloud foundation provides. Building on this vision, Red Hat’s new offerings are designed to improve the delivery, accessibility and stability of critical services and applications on a worldwide scale on the backbone of the hybrid cloud.
Matt Hicks, Executive VP, Product and Technologies, Red Hat, pointed out that some customers have not been able to add hardware to their data centres at this time, and have to scale in the public cloud instead. "If they have built with OpenShift and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, that's a very easy transition," he said.
"For a lot of customers, making sure they are
building applications to a flexible infrastructure is critical
to them now."
Red Hat believes that the technologies that will support organisations' need to evolve in response to demand for always-on digital services and ever-present connectivity will be driven by open source innovation. It is open source activity which will enable organisations to take advantage of cloud-native platforms everywhere, from the edge and on-premises data centres to multiple public clouds.
With open source technologies like Linux and Kubernetes - both supported by Red Hat, organisations not only have access to innovation but also the ability to automate, adapt and scale existing operations across IT environments with greater flexibility than proprietary vendors can provide.
Through Red Hat OpenShift, Red Hat pioneered an enterprise Kubernetes platform that has enabled customers to embrace cloud-native approaches while also supporting existing traditional applications. The platform boasts some 1,700 customers today. To help further eliminate the barriers between traditional and cloud-native applications, Red Hat is introducing capabilities that enable new workloads on OpenShift and that meet customers where they are.
Key announcements at Red Hat Virtual Summit include:
OpenShift virtualisation
This is a new feature available as a Technology Preview* within Red Hat OpenShift, derived from the KubeVirt open source project. Considered a revolution rather than an evolution of existing technologies, it enables organisations to develop, deploy and manage applications consisting of virtual machines alongside containers and serverless, all in one modern platform that unifies cloud-native and traditional workloads.
While Red Hat noted that "some vendors seek to protect legacy technology stacks by dragging Kubernetes and cloud-native functionality backwards to preserve proprietary virtualisation", Red Hat is doing things the other way round. It is bringing traditional application stacks forward into a layer of open innovation, enabling customers to transform at their own speed, instead of being limited by "proprietary lock-in".
Hicks said that OpenShift virtualisation "truly lets customers look at how they are running their infrastructures differently." He said virtual machines can now be imported and run natively on OpenShift.
"Virtual machines are treated like any other Linux container," he said.
Frank Feldmann, VP, APAC Office of Technology, Red Hat, shared that there is a lot of interest in the technology, which puts virtual machines under the control of Kubernetes within OpenShift, thereby giving customers a path into a containerised world.
"(We put) virtual machines into a container on top of OpenShift and we manage it the exact same way you manage a container workload," he explained, adding that the move would eliminate costs that come with a virtualisation platform.
Asked if Red Hat introduced virtualisation to "aim at" competitors offering virtualisation technologies Feldmann responded: "We don't aim at competitors in that sense...we look and learn at customers, and basically
respond to that. Customers say 'we would really like to have
that single control play'."
He acknowledged that VMware users which adopt OpenShift virtualisation would do away with the virtualisation layer provided by VMware. "It's a reasonable thing to have a single-plane
perspective," he pointed out.
Version 4.4 is the latest version of the enterprise Kubernetes platform. Based on Kubernetes 1.17, OpenShift 4.4 introduces a developer-centric view of platform metrics and monitoring for application workloads; monitoring integration for Red Hat Operators; cost management for assessing the resources and costs used for specific applications across the hybrid cloud; and more.
Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes
To address the management challenges of running cloud-native applications across large-scale, production and distributed Kubernetes clusters, Red Hat is also introducing Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes. To be available as a Technology Preview, this management solution provides a single, simplified control point for the monitoring and deployment of OpenShift clusters at scale, offering policy-driven governance and application lifecycle management.
The solution will allow businesses to manage Kubernetes clusters for themselves, said Hicks. "(Businesses) can operate at scale from a single
place," he said.
Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes is expected to be available mid-
summer 2020 (Q2-Q320), with Technology Preview availability planned in May.
Beyond these new technologies, Red Hat has invested in helping organisations get the most from existing infrastructure. New developments include:
Enhancements to Red Hat Insights, Red Hat’s proactive security and risk management as-a-service offering, which makes it easier for IT teams to detect, diagnose and remediate potential problems before they impact production systems or end users. Insights is available across every supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription by default.
A new Cloud Connector in Red Hat Smart Management will provide direct integration between Red Hat Insights and on-premises Red Hat Satellite infrastructure. Red Hat Satellite 6.7 is now generally
available, and in addition to the Cloud Connector, also introduces improved integrations with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat Enterprise Linux as well as security and content management enhancements.
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform also helps to address the complexities of expanding network demand and infrastructure footprints by automating time-consuming manual tasks, helping IT teams to more effectively meet customer and end user needs beyond service uptime. A new automation services catalogue will bring curated automation of infrastructure and application deployments to business users with governance and approvals in the Q2-Q320 timeframe, while the Automation Analytics and Content Collections features have been enhanced.
The general availability of Azure Red Hat OpenShift on OpenShift 4 was announced as well. Newly-added features include cluster-admin support, cluster autoscaling, multi-availability zone clustering across three Azure Availability Zones in supported Azure regions, industry compliance certifications and support for connecting third-party identity providers, plus private API and ingress endpoints.
Red Hat training and certification are also available to IT teams seeking to quickly expand skillsets as connectivity needs evolve. From learning the basics of enterprise Kubernetes to gaining certification in telecommunications architecture, Red Hat’s expertise is available to help IT professionals gain new expertise and experience to better address the growing importance of the network.
Paul Cormier, President and CEO, Red Hat said, “Perhaps more than ever before, the unique needs of every organisation are in sharp focus - some need to scale operations immediately to meet relentless services demand while others seek to strengthen and maintain core IT operations.
"Rather than only provide technologies to address one need or the other, Red Hat provides a flexible, fully-open set of solutions to our customers, meeting them where they are with what they need. This could be the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform to drive greater operational stability or the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform to help rapidly scale services for critical demands, all backed by our expertise, experience and commitment to helping global communities at large, not just our immediate customers.”
Red Hat’s involvement in open source communities goes back a long way. Red Hat was an early contributor to the Kubernetes platform alongside Google and remains the second-leading corporate contributor to Kubernetes. Red Hat continues to help advance key technologies in Kubernetes and related communities which are enabling this cross-industry IT evolution.
"You have to earn open source leadership
every single day," said Cormier, noting that the open source mindset is in Red Hat's DNA.
*Technology Preview features provide early access to upcoming product innovations, enabling users to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process. The features are not fully supported under Red Hat Subscription Level Agreements, may not be functionally complete, and are not intended for production use. However, the features are provided to the customer as a courtesy and the primary goal is for the feature to gain wider exposure with the goal of full support in the future.
*Technology Preview features provide early access to upcoming product innovations, enabling users to test functionality and provide feedback during the development process. The features are not fully supported under Red Hat Subscription Level Agreements, may not be functionally complete, and are not intended for production use. However, the features are provided to the customer as a courtesy and the primary goal is for the feature to gain wider exposure with the goal of full support in the future.
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