Red Hat Adds Interconnect and Cybersecurity Services for Kubernetes

Red Hat today added a Red Hat Service Interconnect to its portfolio that is based on an open source Skupper.io project that enables Layer 7 networking between application components running on different platforms.

In addition, Red Hat launched a managed Advanced Cluster Security Cloud Service based on the cloud security platform it gained with the acquisition of StackRox in 2021.

Both offerings, announced at the Red Hat Summit, can be applied to the Red Hat OpenShift distribution of Kubernetes or to a distribution provided by another vendor.

Chris Wright, CTO and senior vice president for global engineering at Red Hat, told conference attendees that Red Hat Service Interconnect provides a curated instance of an interconnect that can be used to securely connect software running on any platform or in any location to a Kubernetes environment.

Skupper.io is designed to securely enable those connections across multiple IT environments running on-premises or in the cloud without requiring special firewall rules, network reconfigurations or elevated security privileges. There are two core components: skupper-router and skupper-proxy-controller. The former is an instance of Apache Qpid, an open source Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) router; the latter is a tool that watches for services annotated with skupper.io/proxy and instantiates, for each of them, a service-*-proxy pod. That pod creates secure tunnels over multiple network protocols to the AMQP router.

Via its instance of Skupper.io, Red Hat is making it simpler for IT teams to embrace application networking as the number of dependencies between microservices running in cloud-native application environments and legacy monolithic applications grows. Historically, interconnecting all those application services would require a significant amount of cybersecurity and networking expertise.

A recent Red Hat survey found more than two-thirds (67%) of respondents reported they have had to delay or slow down application deployments due to security concerns. Collectively, the Advanced Cluster Security Cloud Service coupled with Red Hat Service Interconnect are part of an ongoing Red Hat effort to make it simpler to build, deploy and secure cloud-native applications at scale.

It’s not clear what mix of interconnects, proxy software, ingress controllers and service meshes an organization might wind up needing to securely integrate microservices across a highly distributed computing environment. It’s certain, though, that it is becoming more feasible for developers and the DevOps teams that support them to achieve that goal without needing assistance from dedicated networking and cybersecurity specialists.

There will always be a need for networking and cybersecurity specialists to secure the physical infrastructure and the underlying networks, but as application networking continues to evolve, more responsibility is clearly being shifted left toward application development teams. Given the general shortage of cybersecurity and networking expertise within many organizations, that shift should theoretically make it possible to build and deploy application environments faster without compromising security.

One way or another, the way application environments are integrated and secured is fundamentally changing. The only thing left to determine is the pace at which IT organizations are going to be comfortable making that transition.

Mike Vizard

Mike Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist with over 25 years of experience. He also contributed to IT Business Edge, Channel Insider, Baseline and a variety of other IT titles. Previously, Vizard was the editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise as well as Editor-in-Chief for CRN and InfoWorld.

Mike Vizard has 1615 posts and counting. See all posts by Mike Vizard