Red Hat sharpens OpenShift tools for hybrid cloud ubiquity
Question: how do you build a hybrid cloud strategy?
To start with, it’s a good idea to think about having Kubernetes at the core, to enable the orchestration of container workloads around the various nodes, instances and layers of your hybrid fabric.
But, that’s not enough.
In addition to a container orchestration engine, IT shops will also need an extensive set of application services and a selection pack of integrated developer features to provide an on-the-job toolset of functions for true agility.
Yes, but, how much agility?
Enough agility to navigate end-to-end from the hybrid network edge to the public cloud in the new world of serverless computing, right?
It’s almost as is senior vice president for Red Hat Cloud Platforms division Ashesh Badani was listening to our train of thought.
“Building a hybrid cloud strategy with Kubernetes at its core requires more than just a container orchestration engine; wide-ranging enterprise transformation requires extensive application services, hardware and public cloud support and a strong ecosystem of supporting partners,” said Badani. “Red Hat OpenShift delivers all of these features to IT organisations, from integrated developer features with Quarkus and OpenShift Serverless to supporting technology strategies from the datacenter to the network’s edge to the public cloud.”
Badani thinks that true digital transformation requires a common platform to build and innovate upon — and (guess what?) he sees that platform as Red Hat OpenShift.
To make Red Hat OpenShift capable of such hybrid cloud ubiquity and control, the company has now launched updates to OpenShift Serverless for enhanced developer efficiency to extended support across architectures.
Applications built for (hybrid) cloud-scale
The company says that traditional application development tools and technologies can struggle to meet the demands of a cloud-native world, especially when containerised deployment models blur the lines between developers and IT operations. In answer to this then,the latest update to OpenShift Serverless with Red Hat OpenShift Serverless 1.11 brings full support for Knative eventing. This enables containerised applications to consume as many resources as needed at a given time, without leading to over or under consumption.
The company has also tabled a Red Hat build of Quarkus, a Kubernetes-native Java stack fully supported by Red Hat. Developers now have full access to Quarkus to repurpose mission-critical Java applications on Kubernetes, backed by Red Hat’s enterprise support and expertise.
Further updates to Red Hat OpenShift 4.6 intended to help enterprises address these challenges include: new edge computing features with remote worker nodes, which extend processing power to space-constrained environments. This enables IT organisations to scale remotely while maintaining centralised operations and management.
The truth here is that open hybrid cloud strategies do not rely on a single architecture or cloud provider; instead, these deployments often focus on bringing in the best of all worlds to support enterprise transformation. This could mean using a combination of hardware providers on-premise, leaning on multiple clouds for specific services or any combination thereof.
With this above truth in mind, Red Hat says OpenShift is designed to support IT organisations across the open hybrid cloud, regardless of the technical makeup.
This story broke at the Kubecon North America Virtual conference.