Executive message

What's on Paul Smith's mind? Find out in our monthly Red Hat® Government executive message.

2012:  April  |  March  |  February  |  January
2011:  December  |  November  |  September  |  August  |  July  |  May  |  April

April

Friends --

I’d like to share some great news: Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 5 with the KVM government_paul_smith.jpghypervisor has been awarded the Common Criteria Certification at Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ (EAL4+). As many of you know, the Common Criteria is an internationally recognized set of standards used to assess the security and assurance of technology products. This security certification is the first of its kind for an open source virtualization solution.

With this new certification, the KVM hypervisor on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and IBM x86-based servers now meet government security standards, allowing open virtualization to be used in homeland security projects, command-and-control operations, and throughout government agencies that previously were limited to proprietary virtualization technologies. This security certification paves the way for governments, financial institutions, and other security-conscious agencies to create secure, open virtualized IT environments and private clouds.

Open virtualization offers government agencies the opportunity to reduce costs and increase choice with the enterprise-grade KVM hypervisor.

This certification highlights the combined power of SELinux and KVM, and we expect it to pave the way for broader adoption of the private cloud-computing infrastructure in government agencies. SELinux addresses common government agency concerns about implementing virtualization, because it provides for virtual resources to run in separate containers and protect each one individually in case of intrusion.

Best,
Paul Smith, GM/VP, Public Sector Operations, Red Hat

March

Friends --

Recently I was asked by Washington Exec to answer a few questions around open source technology, cloud computing, and the benefits for both public and private business sectors. Here's an excerpt from the thought-provoking Q and A:

Q: How do you see the collaboration between industry and government evolving when it comes to open source?

A: We’ve gotten to a point in open source adoption in government where the principles are being widely used as a way to promote enterprise architectures that are vendor neutral and allow more freedom. By embracing open architecture, the government becomes a key collaborator with industry where the best minds can come together to develop and use open source solutions to solve our biggest challenges. The result is best-in-breed solutions that benefit both the public and private sector; for example the Navy developing real-time Linux that is now being used on Wall Street.

  • See the entire interview (and feel free to leave comments in the form following the Q and A to let us know your thoughts and the challenges you've overcome with open source technology)

Best,
Paul Smith, GM/VP, Public Sector Operations, Red Hat

February

Friends --

Each year Red Hat brings together many of the world’s top open source and technology thought leaders to discuss solutions to your technology challenges at Red Hat Summit and JBoss® World. I invite you to join me for this exciting event June 26 – 29 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA.

This 3-day event features keynote addresses, interactive discussions, product demonstrations, and hands-on labs centered on how to deliver optimal results utilizing open source products and technologies. Your agency depends on you to meet today’s IT demands. Learn how Red Hat strengthens your existing architecture at every layer at Red Hat Summit and JBoss World.

Don’t miss General Hugh Shelton, Red Hat's chairman of the board and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who will be delivering the initial keynote at Summit.

Best,
Paul Smith, GM/VP, Public Sector Operations, Red Hat

January

Friends --

I’m sure by now you all have seen the news that Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.0 is now available! With over 1,000 features and enhancements, 50% of our largest customers have already begun deploying or piloting Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization.

A single vendor has dominated server virtualization technology for several years, leading to the attendant issues associated with a single-vendor market: pricing, migration, and integration. Fortunately, our open source virtualization solution is now available that will make implementing virtualized servers easier, more cost-effective, and more compatible with your agency's long-term strategies.

Powered by the open source Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3 offers a superior balance of enterprise virtualization performance and scalability, management, and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

And perhaps most important to you, Red Hat Secure Virtualization (sVirt) is the industry’s most comprehensive security solution for virtualization, with its unique kernel-level architecture and NSA-developed security mechanism that isolates each VM as a protected process.

Seeing is believing, so I invite you to try Red Hat Enterprise 3’s 60-day supported evaluation and tell us what you think on Twitter @RedHatGov.

Best,
Paul Smith, GM/VP, Public Sector Operations, Red Hat

December

Friends --

The Red Hat Government Symposium brought together more than 300 leaders from government and industry to discuss how federal agencies can best implement the Office of Management and Budget’s 25-Point Plan. This year we raised the bar with the most impressive list of keynote speakers yet! A special thanks goes out to all of our government and industry speakers and panelists including:

The keynotes and breakout sessions delivered perspective on how agencies fully utilize open source technologies to open government and achieve the Cloud First policy. Listen to our thought leadership interviews recorded during the event. If you were unable to attend you can:

Thank you to all of our customers for making 2011 such a great year. We have enjoyed working with you on all of your agency needs and requirements. Have a safe and happy holiday season and we look forward to seeing you in the new year!

Best,
Paul Smith, GM/VP, Public Sector Operations, Red Hat

November

Friends --

This past year has been an exciting and productive one for Red Hat—both as a company and within the government user community, so we’re excited to share many of these developments with you at Red Hat’s Government Symposium on Wednesday Nov. 16. Our line-up of speakers include Maj. Gen. Nick Justice; Chris Vein, US deputy CTO, Executive Office of the President, and more.

The Red Hat Government Symposium is always an exciting event for our team, partners, and customers to discuss how open source and cloud computing are transforming IT. This year our conference theme is “Your Roadmap to the 25-Point Plan,” and our hope is that you’ll join us and it will provide you with more ideas on how to help your agency achieve its IT goals in a more cost-effective and efficient way.

Best,
Paul Smith, GM/VP, Public Sector Operations, Red Hat

September

Friends --

This time of year has everyone in Public Sector with their heads down focusing on closing out the year, finalizing a plan for their remaining budget and beginning plans for next year.

IT Departments are continuing to focus on Kundra’s plans around data-center consolidation, “Cloud first” policy, and lowering overall IT expenditures. Developing these plans for any agency, company or IT department can be a daunting challenge. Red Hat can help. At the upcoming Government Symposium you'll hear from leaders like Bajinder Paul, Deputy Associate Administrator, GSA, Major General Nick Justice from RDECOM & APG, U.S. Army, Dr. Peter Levin, Senior Advisor to the Secretary & CTO, Dept. of Veterans Affairs and many others on Cloud Computing best practices, open source in government, and more. Red Hat is also hosting an educational 4-part webinar series titled "From Virtualization to Private Cloud" where you will learn how to develop a cloud strategy that fits your agency's objectives.

Let us know what we can do to help your agency develop a plan to achieve success in this new Fiscal year.

Best,
Paul Smith, GM/VP, Public Sector Operations, Red Hat

August

Friends --

The definition of innovation is:

  1. The introduction of something new.
  2. A new idea, method, or device.

Vivek Kundra brought this to his position as US chief information officer. He clearly saw the value in cloud computing and the advantage it provides the federal government. The idea to be able to adapt quickly to change, economically and in a secure flexible manner, Kundra initiated a shift to a "cloud first' policy.

It's no secret that the open source development model drives innovation, faster. As the leading open source solutions provider in the world, Red Hat brings innovation to the cloud and helps agencies build not only a better cloud, but a more open one. We give you back your freedom of choice. Choice of platform, choice of virtualization, choice of cloud provider.

There is a reason the largest public clouds run on open source. I welcome you to join us at the Red Hat Government Symposium this November to hear more about eliminating vendor lock-in, security in the cloud, and other ways in which open source solutions can help your agency. Hear from industry experts on how to develop your cloud strategy and save your agency time and money.

Best,
Paul Smith, GM/VP, Public Sector Operations, Red Hat

July

Friends --

The only thing hotter than the weather in DC this month is the battle in Congress over the debt ceiling. However this fight resolves, it's obvious that federal agencies are going to join their friends in the state and local governments in their own battle: serving their missions with far, far less than before.

Red Hat has always been about driving costs from an organization. Traditionally, we've provided high-quality alternatives to your expensive, legacy systems. But cutting costs is about far more than software alternatives.

How you manage your software can be just as important as choosing which software to run. You don't want to rebuild servers by hand each time, and you certainly don't want to waste time checking each one for things like FISMA and the DISA STIG. Centralized management, standard builds, and automated configuration tools are crucial to keeping your staff efficient. And once you're ready for a cloud deployment, having these processes in place will let you take full advantage of an on-demand, elastic infrastructure.

So if you haven't considered our management tools, like Red Hat Network Satellite and the JBoss Operations Network, now is a great time. Your staff will thank you for it.

Best,
Paul Smith, GM/VP, Public Sector Operations, Red Hat

May

Friends --

We've recovered from an amazing week at the Red Hat Summit in Boston. It was our largest Summit ever, and it was great to spend time with our friends and partners, meet our engineers face-to-face, and find out what Red Hat's planning for the next year.

Speaking of which, we had some really exciting announcements. Two will be especially interesting to the public sector:

  1. We unveiled CloudForms. The CloudForms System Engine, Application Engine, and Cloud Engine work together to help you build, manage, and automate cloud infrastructures on an open source platform, without vendor lock-in.
     
  2. On the JBoss side of the house, we announced OpenShift, a PaaS tailored specifically for developers. You can use your choice of platforms and languages, and it's dead-simple to use. Even before the keynote was over, we had folks running their applications on it!

Best,
Paul Smith, GM/VP, Public Sector Operations, Red Hat

April

Friends --

Every month, we have more and more happening in the public sector and we couldn't be more excited:

Red Hat Summit and JBoss World

The Red Hat Summit and JBoss World return to Boston on May 3rd! There's no better way to meet the community of partners, developers, and users who make our software so remarkable. Don't forget our Government Breakfast on May 5th!

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 Beta

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 Beta has started, and it includes improvements to virtualization performance, new hardware support, better development and monitoring tools, and much more.

Open Advantage magazine

Red Hat's launched a new magazine! Open Advantage gives us a chance to talk at a higher level about industry trends, strategies, and market dynamics from an open source point of view. Check out the Government section!

opensource.com

If you're more inclined to up-to-date news, check out opensource.com, a Red Hat community effort that discusses the latest news and opinions from the open source community. They have a government channel, too!

Finally, I want to say that on behalf of the Red Hat US Public Sector team, we're as relieved as you are that the budget logjam appears to have broken, our friends in federal offices across the country have avoided a furlough, and our agencies and offices can all go back to the business of performing the people's business. Let's get back to work!

Best,
Paul Smith, GM/VP, Public Sector Operations, Red Hat