Red Hat Strengthens Hybrid Cloud’s Backbone with Latest Version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 provides consistency for hybrid IT
environments, delivers enhanced security at scale, Windows
interoperability, and storage cost reductions
RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT), the world's leading provider of open source
solutions, today announced the general availability of Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7.5, the latest version of the world’s leading
enterprise Linux platform. Serving as a consistent foundation for hybrid
cloud environments, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 provides enhanced
security and compliance controls, tools to reduce storage costs, and
improved usability, as well as further integration with Microsoft
Windows infrastructure both on-premise and in Microsoft Azure.
As enterprise IT footprints expand to encompass a spectrum of
environments, from bare metal to private and public clouds,
organizations are frequently seeking to pair existing infrastructure and
application investments with emerging digital technologies. Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7.5 can help enterprises address this challenge by
reducing infrastructure complexity and associated costs while easing the
management of hybrid IT environments.
Enhanced hybrid cloud security and compliance
Hybrid IT environments provide significant new capabilities for
enterprises, but can also present unique security challenges, as IT
teams must now tackle security challenges across multiple deployment
footprints. To better meet the varied security needs of hybrid
computing, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 provides enhanced software
security controls to mitigate risk while also complementing, rather than
hindering, IT operations.
A major component of these controls is security automation through the
integration of OpenSCAP with Red
Hat Ansible Automation. This is designed to enable the creation of
Ansible Playbooks directly from OpenSCAP scans which can then be used to
implement remediations more rapidly and consistently across a hybrid IT
environment. Sensitive data can also now be better secured across varied
environments with enhancements to Network-Bound Disk Encryption that
support automatic decryption of data volumes.
Improved storage performance and efficiency
As enterprises seek to extend existing IT investments to both support hybrid
cloud deployments and reduce overhead costs, storage optimization
frequently becomes an important piece of the strategy. Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7.5 can help with the inclusion of virtual data
optimizer (VDO), designed to reduce data storage costs in the cloud and
on-premise by up to 83 percent according to Red Hat internal research.
VDO reduces data redundancy and improves effective storage capacity
through de-duplication and compression of data before it lands on a disk.
Simplified management
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 can help reduce the overall learning curve
for new Linux systems administrators, troubleshooters, and developers by
making complex tasks, like systems management, easier through
enhancements to the cockpit administrator console. Provided as a
simplified web interface, these enhancements are designed to eliminate
many of the complexities involved with managing Linux-based systems,
including network and storage set-ups.
Additionally, new functionality and integration with Windows-based
infrastructure is offered in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, including
improved management and communication with Windows Server
implementations, more secure data transfers with Microsoft Azure, and
performance improvements for complex Microsoft Active Directory
architectures. Overall, this can help to provide a smoother transition
for organizations seeking to bridge the scalability and flexibility of
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 implementations with existing Windows-based
IT investments.
Production-ready Linux containers
As containerized applications and container-based infrastructure
frequently form a foundational component for many digital transformation
strategies, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 emphasizes Red Hat’s leadership
in making container-based technologies production-ready. Container
security has been enhanced, adding proactive security and compliance
configuration at build along with finer-grained security and host layer
access controls.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 also adds full support for Buildah,
an open source utility designed to help developers create and modify Linux
container images without a full container runtime or daemon running
in the background. This enables IT teams to build and deploy
containerized applications more quickly without needing to run a full
container engine, reducing the attack surface and removing the need to
run a container engine on a system not intended to do so in production.
Availability across multiple architectures
To further support customer choice in computing architecture, Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7.5 is simultaneously available across all supported
architectures, including x86, IBM Power, IBM z Systems, and 64-bit Arm.
This release also brings support for single-host KVM virtualization and
Open Container Initiative (OCI)-formatted runtime environment and base
image to IBM z Systems.
General availability
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.5 is now available in the Red Hat Customer
Portal to all customers with an active Red Hat Enterprise Linux
subscription.
Supporting Quote
Denise Dumas, vice president, Platform Engineering, Red Hat
“The future of enterprise IT doesn’t exist solely in the datacenter or
in the public cloud, but rather as a fusion of environments spread
across IT’s four footprints: physical, virtual, private cloud, and
public cloud. Red Hat Enterprise Linux serves as a scalable, flexible,
and robust bridge across these footprints, and the latest version of the
world’s leading enterprise Linux platform provides even more
capabilities, from security at scale to increased storage efficiency, to
drive hybrid cloud forward in the enterprise.”
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 provide reliable and
high-performing cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization
technologies. Red Hat also offers award-winning support, training, and
consulting services. As a 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.