Industry's first certified container ecosystem program combines an
integrated application delivery platform and open standards support to
help drive enterprise adoption of secure containerized applications
based on Docker
RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source
solutions, today announced the launch of the first certified, end-to-end
ecosystem program for Linux containers based on Docker, a key component
of the company's vision for containerized applications unveiled in March
2014. Leveraging Red Hat's vast network of thousands of partners and
independent software vendors (ISVs), this ecosystem program is designed
to enable the design, development and delivery of certified, trusted and
secure application containers to end users through a set of industry
standards, including the Docker container format and the Docker Engine.
Representing the next wave of enterprise application architecture, Linux
containers facilitate the creation of an efficient, composable fabric of
lightweight "microservices" that can be woven into more complex
applications, yet are still flexible enough to adapt to changing IT
needs. Much like traditional applications, containerized applications
still interact with the operating system and require enterprise-class
support, security and the knowledge that a Linux container actually
contains only the intended application code, not harmful or malicious
code.
Red Hat will balance this desire for application flexibility and
innovation with enterprise security and reliability, by taking
application containers to the same state of enterprise readiness and
support as the company did for Linux nearly 13 years ago. Underpinning
this effort is Red Hat Connect for Technology Partners, a new
overarching partner program designed to accelerate a vibrant ecosystem
of technology companies whose solutions run on or integrate with Red Hat
products, starting with containers.
Through Red Hat Connect for Technology Partners, ISV partners can more
effectively engage and collaborate with Red Hat and other like-minded
partners on container-based solutions. Participating partners will gain
access to the Red Hat Container Development Kit (CDK), a
collection of tools and resources that enable developers to easily build
and maintain containerized applications based on Docker for the Red Hat
ecosystem. Red Hat Connect for Technology Partners also provides
partners with access to documentation, knowledge-bases and forums, as
well as certification tools and services that support the container's
lifecycle.
As part of Red Hat's vision for certified, trusted Linux containers,
these certification tools deliver the Red Hat Container Certification,
which verifies that a container's content is from trusted sources and
that both it and the container itself are secure, free of known
vulnerabilities, and will work on Red Hat infrastructure - enabling a
robust end-to-end solution that is fully supported by Red Hat and its
partners. Following in the footsteps of Red Hat's existing certification
program for applications running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Red
Hat Container Certification program delivers a new level of trust,
security and lifecycle management to the enterprise world.
The final element of Red Hat's new container ecosystem program is a
distribution vehicle for these certified application containers,
ultimately in the form of federated, standardized container registries.
Starting with a supported registry from Red Hat - the Red Hat
Container Registry - and with future plans to enable partners and
ISVs to host their own registries for Red Hat certified containers -
enterprises will be able to source application containers from this
certified registry pool, greatly mitigating the risk and security
concerns associated with consuming containers from unknown sources.
While certified, trusted containers delivered through Red Hat's
container ecosystem are a key piece of the company's overall Linux
container vision, Red Hat's vision reaches even further. For enterprise
customers to fully embrace Linux containers, Red Hat believes that open
standards and an integrated application delivery platform are also
critical.
Driving Industry Standards
Red Hat has long supported the key industry standards behind Linux
containers, playing a critical role in creating efficiency for
customers, container portability and increasing technology re-use. A key
underlying goal of this effort is to prevent fragmentation of solutions,
which creates complexity for customers. In collaboration with other
partners, Red Hat has driven the development of technologies such as
SELinux, cgroups, namespaces and systemd, as well as the evolution of
the Linux kernel to integrate with these tools and orchestration
technologies.
Over the past year, Red Hat has extended its standards work into new
areas around Linux containers, including the Docker and Kubernetes
projects. Red Hat also supports and collaborates on the creation of a
standard container format alongside Docker and backs the creation of
metadata, indices and search standards for container registries, as well
as standards for container trust and provenance within the Docker
project. All of these standards help customers be more efficient, drive
technology re-use, and facilitate the ultimate goal of complete
container portability.
Integrated Application Delivery
For the actual delivery of these certified application containers, Red
Hat offers a full continuum of infrastructure platform solutions,
including the newly-launched Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host, Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1, and soon OpenShift 3, currently in beta.
Unlike other vendors in the industry, Red Hat solutions will help to
deliver the portability of enterprise-grade containers across the open
hybrid cloud platform spectrum, from bare metal to private cloud to
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) to the largest public clouds. With these
infrastructure platform solutions, Red Hat also offers the tools and
content needed to build containers, integrate application orchestration
and application life cycle management from development to production,
utilizing built-in policies for security and user access. Beginning with
the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 in June 2014,
these aforementioned products are all integrated with Docker for the
container build and runtime environment.
Supporting Quotes
Paul Cormier, president, Products and Technologies, Red Hat
"Containers represent a massive shift in how enterprises consume
applications, but in doing so the critical aspects of the traditional
application lifecycle, namely security and certification, must be
retained as well. With the industry's first certified, secure,
end-to-end container ecosystem, Red Hat now leads the way in enabling
Linux containers for the enterprise, from conceptualization to
development to delivery, maintaining the key innovations of the
technology without sacrificing the basic enterprise needs of application
security and provenance."
Gary Chen, research manager, Cloud and Virtualization System
Software, IDC
"Containers are an exciting emerging technology, but as enterprises
begin to deploy containers, they will require a full solution stack.
Modern container technology is about much more than just the actual
isolation container, and can include things such as packaging tools,
orchestration systems, and even online services. Red Hat is integrating
containers across their product portfolio, from Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 Atomic Host to OpenShift, as well as creating an ecosystem of partners
and ISVs for certification and deployment option through Red Hat Connect
to give customers a holistic, open, and extensible solution to meet a
variety of enterprise IT needs."
Ken Cheney, vice president, business development, Chef
"Enterprises in all industries are demanding automated solutions for
rapidly delivering applications and infrastructure in heterogeneous
environments, including the recent wave of container technology
adoption. Together, Chef and Red Hat are enabling the automated and
continuous deployment of containers. We're excited to be part of Red
Hat's certified container ecosystem."
Ben Golub, CEO, Docker
"We are excited to see Red Hat create a certification program that will
drive even more ISVs to create Docker container-based services, which
furthers the already incredible content choice for developers. Docker
and Red Hat continue to collaborate closely in the community, to advance
the Docker container format and Engine, and to define open standards in
areas like trust and provenance. We are also exploring ways to federate
Red Hat certified content from Red Hat Container Registry into Docker
Hub and Docker Hub Enterprise to provide users the broadest array of
Dockerized apps to choose from to compose distributed applications."
Willy Tarreau, chief architect, HAProxy
"HAProxy Technologies is very proud that its years of commitment around
the world's most deployed open source load balancer are recognized by a
renowned company like Red Hat which shares the same values. Red Hat has
proven early the benefits of containers technology for both public and
private clouds. In this context, they valued the high flexibility of a
software load balancing solution such as HAProxy, whose performance and
reliability has been demonstrated worldwide for over a decade. Beyond
its involvement in the community version, HAProxy Technologies develops,
maintains and supports an enterprise-grade version called HAPEE whose
additional features make it the de facto standard choice for demanding
applications."
Doug Matthews, vice president, Information Availability, Symantec
"Symantec continues to work alongside Red Hat as enterprises look toward
containerized Linux applications, to provide a robust high availability
framework for Docker infrastructures and individual containers with
SymantecTM Cluster Server powered by Veritas. Complete with
auto discovery for availability configurations that account for
inter-container dependencies, instantaneous fault detection and
recovery, Symantec is working with Red Hat to ensure customers can
confidently adopt Linux containers for their Tier-1 applications"
Additional Resources
Connect with Red Hat
About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat is the world's leading provider of open source software
solutions, using a community-powered approach to reliable and
high-performing cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization
technologies. Red Hat also offers award-winning support, training, and
consulting services. As the connective hub in a global network of
enterprises, partners, and open source communities, Red Hat helps create
relevant, innovative technologies that liberate resources for growth and
prepare customers for the future of IT. Learn more at http://www.redhat.com.
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Red Hat, Inc.
John Terrill, +1-571-421-8132
jterrill@redhat.com
Source: Red Hat, Inc.
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