Red Hat Inc. announced Red Hat OpenShift 4.9 and Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.4, both designed to drive consistency of the open hybrid cloud to the furthest reaches of the enterprise network. The new capabilities, which include the general availability of single node OpenShift for the small, full featured enterprise Kubernetes cluster, help organizations scale existing development, deployment and management workflows to meet increased interest in information and services.

According to IDC, 50% of new enterprise IT infrastructure deployed will be at edge sites rather than in corporate datacenters, up from less than 10% in 2021. By 2024, IDC predicts an 800% increase in the number of applications deployed in edge sites. Organizations across industries are using edge computing to deploy latency sensitive applications - not only to deliver the best application experience to users, but also to make faster data-driven decisions to benefit their business.

With increased demand for applications to run in remote locations, organizations need tools that not only enable them to more easily deploy at the edge, but also enable them to manage those applications at scale. The latest updates available in Red Hat OpenShift 4.9 and Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management 2.4 provide organizations with the flexibility and management capabilities needed to deploy workloads wherever it makes sense.

Full Kubernetes capabilities for the small deployment footprint
As organizations move to take advantage of edge computing, the physical nature of edge sites can cause challenges for architects who need to deploy hardware in confined spaces or where network connectivity may be intermittent. With enhancements in Red Hat OpenShift 4.9, the industry's leading enterprise Kubernetes platform can provide users a more consistent experience across all of their sites, regardless of the size of the deployment.

Red Hat OpenShift 4.9 introduces single node OpenShift, the 3rd topology option available for edge sites alongside 3-node clusters and remote worker nodes. Single node OpenShift puts both control and worker capabilities into a single server to help fit into space-constrained environments. Additionally, single node OpenShift provides operational independence for edge sites as there is no dependency on a centralized Kubernetes control plane - making it far easier for edge sites that may experience lapses in connectivity, like remote cell towers or manufacturing facilities.

Manage Red Hat OpenShift everywhere, from bare metal to the edge
Edge deployments can range from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of Kubernetes clusters, and often need to be managed in locations with minimal to no IT personnel. Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management provides a single, consistent view from edge locations to datacenters and cloud environments, allowing organizations to more consistently manage across sites and clusters without requiring the connection between Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management and the edge site to be permanent.

The latest version of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management provides full management capabilities for an organization's entire application landscape, including across single node OpenShift, remote worker nodes and 3-node clusters. This helps to ease the operational strain of managing a scaled out architecture.

Additional edge-focused capabilities include:

• Edge management at scale, provides users the ability to manage close to 2,000 single node Openshift clusters by a single Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management hub (available as a technology preview) along with IPv6 dual stack support for the managed fleet. This helps deliver scalability in low bandwidth, high-latency connections and disconnected sites.
• Hub-side policy templating which reduces the number of policies needed for high scale management scenarios by reading a single policy on the hub and applying it to varied cluster scenarios.
• Zero touch provisioning, available as a technology preview, enables users to use an assisted installer with Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management on-premises, simplifying the starting complexities of high scale cluster deployments.

Simplified, reproducible complete edge stacks

Most edge deployments today are complex to design and implement, and require multiple products to work together. To help simplify the process of building a complete edge stack, Red Hat is introducing Red Hat validated patterns.

Red Hat validated patterns for edge bring together the necessary components to architect an edge stack, helping to reduce complexity and save time. Delivering "edge stacks as code," Red Hat validated patterns defines, builds and validates the software configurations needed for edge deployments. As new software versions are introduced, the templates are re-validated to work as designed, minimizing the risk to customers and enabling them to take advantage of any new capabilities that are introduced. Additionally, the validated patterns are open, enabling contributors to collaborate and suggest improvements.

Availability

Red Hat OpenShift 4.9 is expected to be generally available later this month. Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.4 is expected to be available in November. Both products are available as part of Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus, which helps customers scale across multiple clusters and clouds and provides capabilities to protect the software supply chain, infrastructure and workloads across the entire software lifecycle.