Red Hat OpenStack tightens OpenShift Kubernetes integration

Red Hat has launched Red Hat OpenStack Platform 16.2, an update to Red Hat’s infrastructure-as-a-service platform that offers tighter integration with the company’s OpenShift Kubernetes container system.

With the new integration, users of both platforms can run VM-based and container-based applications in parallel with improved network capacity, security features, storage, and performance, Red Hat said on October 13. OpenStack 16.2 is available through the Red Hat Customer Portal via a Red Hat subscription.

Specific capabilities in OpenStack 16.2 include:

• Flexibility to run VMs and cloud-native applications in parallel. “Bare metal” performance is offered via integration with OpenShift.
• An extended lifecycle allowing for continuous feature updates without disruption or potential downtime.
• New hardware options including Intel Xeon scalable processors. Users can build hybrid clouds in a manner that suits them, factoring in core architecture to hardware offloading with smartNICs.
• Storage has been made easier by aggregating a variety of vendors and formats.
• For edge connectivity and application availability, availability zone awareness is offered via Open Virtual Networking (OVN). Operators can set up nodes in groups, based on a geographic location, power sources, and potential for downtime.

In other developments from Red Hat on October 13:

• The Red Hat build of the Quarkus Kubernetes-native Java framework adds continuous testing and a new CLI eliminating the need for Gradle and Maven commands. Also, the GUI has been updated, giving visual representations of extensions and documentation, and REST endpoints. New developer services, meanwhile, automatically connect popular databases, message queues, and more to applications as they are developed.
• Red Hat OpenShift 4.9 and Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.4 were unveiled, intended to provide for consistency in hybrid cloud networks. Single-node OpenShift is highlighted for a small Kubernetes cluster. Previous OpenShift topologies have included three-node clusters and remote worker nodes.