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Red Hat Looks to Operationalize OpenShift at Scale

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by Mike Vizard

Red Hat today at the Red Hat Summit online conference announced it is making technology previews available for a control plane for managing Red Hat OpenShift deployments dubbed Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes along with an instance of open source KubeVirt software that makes it possible to deploy legacy virtual machines on top of containers.

In addition, version 4.4 of OpenShift adds a developer-centric view of metrics and monitoring tool for application workloads, monitoring integration for Red Hat Operators and tools for assessing the cost of deploying applications in the cloud versus in an on-premises IT environment.

Brian Gracely, senior director of product strategy for Red Hat, says KubeVirt is becoming increasingly more relevant as a way to reduce the total cost of IT by making it possible to deploy legacy monolithic applications based on virtual machines on the Red Hat OpenShift platform alongside emerging microservices-based applications. By deploying both classes of applications on top of the same distribution of Kubernetes, the need for two separate platforms is eliminated, he notes.

OpenShiftAt the same time, Gracely says Red Hat is moving to reduce the total cost of managing a fleet of Red Hat OpenShift deployments in the cloud and in on-premises IT environments using a common control plane. Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes makes it possible to apply policies to an instance of Red Hat OpenShift consistently regardless of where it is deployed.

Finally, tighter integration between the Operators tools that Red Hat makes available to provision Red Hat OpenShift clusters and the rest of its portfolio will serve to further reduce operational costs, Gracely notes.

Based on version 1.17 of Kubernetes, the latest version of OpenShift is at the core of a hybrid cloud computing strategy designed to make it easier to both develop applications on any platform and them deploy them wherever an organization best sees fit. In addition to not having to worry about becoming locked into any specific platform, the reliance of open source software also means that organizations can swap out elements of the Red Hat stack as they best see fit. The value Red Hat brings to the open source equation is that it makes available curated instances of open source software that enterprises rely on the company to support.

Obviously, it’s still early days as far as adoption of Kubernetes and hybrid cloud computing is concerned. However, in that wake of the economic downturn brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic the need to reduce the total cost of IT by centralizing the management of multiple platforms that can all share a common Kubernetes substrate is about to become more acute. In fact, it’s probable a greater number of organizations will rely on open source software more to reduce commercial licensing costs as an alternative to reducing their IT staff. The biggest challenge in the short term, however, will simply be finding enough IT professionals with the Kubernetes expertise required to ultimately reduce the total cost of enterprise IT.

Mike Vizard

Mike Vizard is a veteran IT journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering the technology industry, having previously served as Editor-in-Chief of both CRN and InfoWorld and as editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise, where he oversaw titles including eWEEK, CIO Insight and Baseline. Over his career he has also edited or contributed to a wide range of enterprise technology publications, including IT Business Edge, Channel Insider, ComputerWorld, TMCNet and Digital Review, and he later led editorial for CTOEdge.com. His reporting and analysis span software development, cloud computing, cybersecurity, IT channel strategy and, more recently, artificial intelligence and DevOps practices. A recognized voice in enterprise IT journalism, Vizard is known for tracking emerging technology trends as they move from early adoption into mainstream enterprise use. He now serves as Chief Content Officer for Techstrong Group, where he oversees editorial strategy across the full network — DevOps.com, Security Boulevard, Cloud Native Now, Digital CxO, Techstrong.ai, TechStrong.IT, Techstrong Semi and PlatformEngineering.com — in addition to writing and hosting content for Techstrong TV and the Techstrong Gang podcast.

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