Red Hat unveils roadmap for CoreOS integration with Red Hat OpenShift

Red Hat has announced the first steps for integrating CoreOS Tectonic, Quay, and Container Linux with Red Hat’s robust container and Kubernetes-based solutions portfolio. Container application platforms like Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform already provide CIOs with a powerful, open standards-based solution to fuel digital transformation efforts, helping enterprises more quickly adopt emerging technologies like Linux containers and Kubernetes without sacrificing existing applications or IT investments. CoreOS’ technologies advance the comprehensive nature of Red Hat’s container infrastructure offerings, providing a clear roadmap for the digital enterprise while simultaneously making hybrid cloud environments an excellent choice for deploying both modern and traditional applications.

Acquired with CoreOS in January 2018, Tectonic and Container Linux will help drive automation at every layer of the cloud-native stack, backed by Red Hat’s commitment to enterprise-grade stability and support. This automation will extend to Red Hat’s robust independent software vendor (ISV) ecosystem, enabling them to more easily deliver and maintain applications and services on top of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform across hybrid environments with the simplicity of public clouds.

OpenShift automated operations
Tectonic, CoreOS’ enterprise Kubernetes solution, offered a powerful way to manage large Kubernetes footprints through automated “over-the-air” updates. With this feature, systems administrators and IT managers can more easily roll-out upgrades to entire Tectonic clusters and underlying Container Linux hosts all via an automated process. Now, Red Hat plans to integrate this capability with Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, Red Hat’s comprehensive enterprise-grade Kubernetes distribution, as automated operations.

With automated operations, IT teams will be able to use the automated upgrades of Tectonic paired with the reliability, support, and extensive application development capabilities of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform. This makes managing Kubernetes deployments at-scale easier, with the vast majority of rote maintenance tasks performed automatically, lessening the need for constant administrator action and providing a “lights out” approach to cluster oversight. Other enterprise needs are retained through the addition of automated operations to Red Hat OpenShift as well, including platform stability and support for existing IT assets.

The Operator Framework
CoreOS also established the concept of “operators” within Kubernetes, application-specific controllers that extend the Kubernetes API to create, configure, and manage instances of complex stateful applications on behalf of a Kubernetes user. This effectively takes the “human knowledge” of managing a Kubernetes application and builds it into software, making typically challenging workloads easier to deploy and maintain on Kubernetes.

Announced at KubeCon Europe 2018, the Operator concept is now encapsulated by the Operator Framework open source project. Building on this initiative, Red Hat today announced that Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform will use this project for the benefit of Red Hat’s ISV ecosystem. This makes it easier for ISVs to bring cloud services, like messaging, big data, analytics, and more, to the hybrid cloud and address a broader set of enterprise deployment models while avoiding cloud lock-in. Red Hat also intends to extend its existing ISV certification program to encompass the automation capabilities provided by the Operator Framework. The result will be a consistent, common experience for these services on Red Hat OpenShift, enabling ISVs to bring their offerings to market more quickly on any cloud infrastructure where Red Hat OpenShift runs.

Bringing Container Linux to Red Hat OpenShift
Container Linux provides several key pieces of the modern, container-native operating system, most notably a fully immutable, container-optimized Linux host that includes automated, “over-the-air” updates, to keep large deployments up to date more easily. Built around a robust existing community, Container Linux plans to  retain its vision of providing a free, fast-moving, and automated container host while also providing content options from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora ecosystem, with a supported variant being provided under the name Red Hat CoreOS. Red Hat CoreOS is expected to integrate concepts, technology, and the user experience of Container Linux. This offering is intended to ultimately supersede Atomic Host and function as Red Hat’s immutable, container-centric operating system.

Red Hat CoreOS is also expected to provide the foundation for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, Red Hat OpenShift Online, and Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated for customers who prefer an immutable infrastructure-based Kubernetes platform with automated updates. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform will also continue to support Red Hat Enterprise Linux, for customers who prefer a traditional lifecycle and packaging as the foundation for their Kubernetes deployments.

Red Hat Quay and OpenShift
Over the past few years, many Red Hat OpenShift customers have used CoreOS Quay as their enterprise registry solution. While OpenShift provides an integrated container registry, customers who require more comprehensive enterprise grade registry capabilities now have the option to get Quay Enterprise and Quay.io from Red Hat. Quay includes automated geographic replication, integrated security scanning with Clair, image time machine for viewing history, performs rollbacks and automated pruning, and more. Quay is now added to the Red Hat portfolio, available both as an enterprise software solution and as a hosted service at Quay.io, and is expected to see future enhancements and continued integration with OpenShift in future releases.