Red Hat, Inc., 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.