The much-awaited Red Hat Summit 2022 kicked off in Boston on May 10. The flagship announcement at the event was Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, the latest major release of the Linux server. Other top announcements at the summit were improvements to OpenShift, updates to the Ansible Automation Platform, strategic collaborations to enhance and market cloud services, and more. Let’s look at the event’s top highlights.
Red Hat’s newest major release of the leading commercial server Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (RHEL), has finally made an appearance. RHEL was unveiledOpens a new window on May 10 during Red Hat Summit 2022, held in Boston.Â
Matthew Hicks, executive vice president, products and technologies, Red Hat, stated, “From vast public clouds and tiny edge devices to simple containerized applications and complex artificial intelligence workloads, modern IT starts with Linux. As the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 extends wherever needed across the open hybrid cloud and beyond, pairing the trusted backbone of enterprise Linux with the innovative catalysts of open source communities. Linux is positioned at the epicenter of rapid technological evolution, and that Linux is Red Hat Enterprise Linux.â€
This latest edition adds a few bells and whistles while sharing similarities with its predecessors. The platform will be broadly available in the “coming weeks,†revealed IBM’s subsidiary.
Smartcard authentication, more extensive SSSD logging, usage of OpenSSL3 by default, and elimination of root access to an RHEL system through SSH will be available to let enterprises do more than simply check the boxes for standards like PCI-DSS compliance. The servers’ kernel updates will be applied without restarting via a system administrator’s web portal. Built-in checks for hardware layer vulnerabilities like Meltdown and Spectre are also included.
See More: Is Linux as Secure as We Think?
The event unfolded new partnership announcements to promote cloud technologies, OpenShift and Ansible Automation Platform updates, and more. Let’s take a closer look at the latest announcements from the Red Hat SummitOpens a new window .
Red Hat’s Top Announcements
New security features and advances in RHEL9
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 will provide the groundwork for runtime integrity verification of the operating system and application files by including digital file signatures in RPM packages. The kernel level’s integrity measurement architecture (IMA) verifies individual files and their provenance. IMA file verification helps security teams discover unintentional and malicious system alterations, giving them more remediation options for dealing with possible vulnerabilities or breaches.
This is Red Hat’s commitment to DevSecOps – making security not something bolted on but a seamless integral part of moving applications from development to production to assist IT teams, both technically and organically.
– Danen Vincent, vice president of product security, Red Hat
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 also includes the following essentialOpens a new window security features:
- By default, root login through SSH is disabled, enhancing security surrounding root privileges. This aids in preventing the discovery of root passwords via brute force attacks and increasing the operating environment’s baseline security postures.
- The inclusion of OpenSSL 3 to support the most recent cryptographic frameworks. This allows IT teams to implement new ciphers for encrypting and safeguarding critical data.
- By removing the cryptographically weak SHA-1 hash algorithm by default for digital signatures, security best practices have been strengthened, resulting in enhanced security hygiene.
Updates to OpenShift
Red Hat didn’t forget OpenShift, its popular container management software, at the annual summit. The announcement included upgrades to its OpenShift containerized software suite, including OpenShift Platform Plus, which provides more uniform capabilities from edge to core to cloud.
Zero-touch provisioning (ZTP) is a feature of Red Hat OpenShift 4.10, which was released in March. This feature aims to make the configuration of edge services more repeatable and automated. Factory procedures for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are also included in ZTP.
According to Red Hat, manufacturers may preload relocatable OpenShift clusters on selected hardware, providing clients with a fully operating, pre-installed cluster for speedier radio access networks (RANs) delivery.
Topologies management with Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management is another OpenShift edge development. As per Red Hat, users can administer single-node OpenShift clusters, remote worker nodes, and three-node compact clusters. About 2,000 single-node OpenShift clusters can be deployed and managed using one Advanced Cluster Management hub.
See More: Nutanix, Red Hat Join Forces in a Hybrid Cloud Quid Pro Quo
Alliance with Kyndryl to promote IT automation for multi-cloud infrastructure
The partnershipOpens a new window aims to help customers adopt open, unique automation technologies and managed services to alter significant corporate processes and IT systems while attaining scalability and security.
Both companies have partnered to deliver fully integrated services and solutions solely based on the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. This corresponds to the automation of critical workloads in public clouds and the corporate data center.
Red Hat’s collaboration with Kyndryl integrates automation with managed services to support customers across infrastructure, networking and cloud operations, alleviating the burden of manual IT operations and making it easier to grow into the future.
– Stefanie Chiras, senior vice president, partner ecosystem success, Red Hat
Due to this alliance, the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform will be the primary solution provider for Kyndryl’s infrastructure services. Additionally, the firms have agreed to establish an Ansible Innovation Center. By automating processes and services from infrastructure to the cloud, the center will assist customers in achieving a hybrid cloud transition.
Ansible Automation Platform for Microsoft Azure
Another news was Red Hat’s confirmation of the Ansible platform’s availability on Microsoft Azure. The technology would assist IT organizations in operating, automating, and expanding in cloud settings with ease. All of this comes with deploying apps from anywhere, with no added hassles or charges.
With offerings like the new Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Azure, operations teams can automate myriad processes that must be executed with and alongside application delivery.
– Omar Khan, general manager, Azure Infrastructure, Microsoft
The Ansible platform helps customers get benefits like reduced costs, integrated invoicing (Microsoft), new Ansible Automation capabilities, and a cloud package.
Khan added, “Our collaboration with Red Hat helps us accelerate our customers’ digital transformation by simplifying the path to cloud adoption. Many of our enterprise customers have a hybrid cloud strategy and are looking for flexibility and consistency to seamlessly deploy, run and scale applications across Azure and hybrid cloud environments. With offerings like the new Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform on Azure, operations teams can automate myriad processes that must be executed with and alongside application delivery.â€
Collaboration with Accenture to boost the hybrid cloud infrastructure
Red Hat and Accenture have worked together for over a decade to help businesses benefit from open hybrid cloud innovation. Their partnership involves assisting firms in strategizing a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud environment and rapid innovation to generate value quickly.
Furthermore, Red Hat and Accenture are now collaboratingOpens a new window on several techniques to assist businesses in making the transition to a hybrid cloud. The following will be the primary focus:
- Transformation of mainframes and open hybrid cloud applications
- Automation
- Edge computing
- Sovereign cloud
Raj Wickramasinghe, hybrid and emerging platform lead, Accenture, said, “Organizations are increasingly turning to hybrid cloud to help overcome complex challenges around core business functions like customer service and supply chain and to drive growth and innovation. Our expanded alliance with Red Hat can further help clients embrace the cloud continuum to enable greater operational efficiency and drive innovation.â€
Speaking on the collaboration with Accenture, Chiras mentioned, “Our long-standing collaboration with Accenture means that customers have access to the open-source solutions they need and expertise they can trust to navigate the complexities of open hybrid cloud and grow their business where it needs to be – in the cloud.â€
Were you expecting more announcements at the Red Hat Summit 2022? Tell us all about it on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We’d love to hear from you!