“Complexity” is a favorite bogeyman for enterprise IT leaders. At one point in time, it meant that a datacenter featured a blend of hardware and software vendors, perhaps being adventurous enough to experiment with the Linux operating system. Complexity was something to be avoided at all costs, as anything outside of the box could lead to catastrophe.

The complexities of today make those examples look about as difficult as velcro shoes. Complexity is now a given - if your operating environment isn’t heterogeneous or embracing a mixture of services, software and hardware, then it’s possible that emerging innovations are not being explored, let alone embraced. Linux containers, microservices and multi-cloud computing all introduce new complexities, but the benefits make the challenge worthwhile.

IT’s four footprints - on-premise, virtual, private cloud and public cloud - remain prominent, but even they have changed; particularly, the public cloud. It’s really a case of many shoes stepping in the same indentation - no public cloud is alike and very few, if any, play nicely when it comes to moving your applications and workloads from one to the other. Different clouds play to different strengths, so it’s no surprise that multi-cloud is gaining traction as an enterprise IT strategy.

Multiple public clouds, hybrid infrastructure, legacy applications paired alongside cloud-native and hunger from end users for better, faster and more services forms a Gordian knot of complexity that seems like too much to overcome. But it can be, with Red Hat leading the way in conquering the complexities of the four footprints and beyond with consistent, open and innovative technologies.

Consistency to deploy on every footprint
Regardless of a given IT footprint, from on-premise physical servers to cloud-native deployments to a heterogeneous mixture of services and system, Red Hat provides the leadership and technologies designed to maintain a consistent foundation across all footprints. Fundamentally, this starts with an expertise in open standards and technology.

Red Hat’s leadership in open source extends back to the earliest days of Linux, when it was nothing more than a hobbyist’s gadget. Now as a building block for the Information Age, Red Hat has continued driving for innovation built on standardized components, from the most basic commoditized pieces of the Linux kernel to technologies emerging from leading-edge communities like the Open Container Initiative and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.

But all of the consistency in open source and all of the innovation can be traced back to the Linux operating system, a critical need that Red Hat has never forgotten. Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform, is designed to deliver consistency across every footprint, acting as the backbone for basic computing deployments and as the keystone for modern application platforms, like Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.

Wherever an enterprise deployment lives, Red Hat can support it. This is highlighted by our newly-announced strategic alliance with Amazon Web Services (AWS), which will enable customers to develop and deploy hybrid applications running on Red Hat technologies (Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, Red Hat JBoss Middleware, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux) on AWS OR in their own datacenters with the ability to consume AWS services regardless of where the apps are deployed, and with joint support. This is a landmark alliance and we are excited about the potential it holds by bringing together the world’s most popular public cloud with the industry’s most comprehensive enterprise Kubernetes-based platform.

Container adoption in production is not just a pipedream at Red Hat - it’s a reality. This week alone, nearly 30 customers are here at Red Hat Summit talking about their production container deployments. OpenShift’s momentum is exciting, and by bringing AWS Services to Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform - wherever it is deployed - we are changing the game in a big, big way.

Consistency to build any application
Every company is a software company. It’s becoming a tired phrase, but it’s bluntly true - as businesses seek to transform digitally, to better make use of emerging technologies to improve business processes and open new revenue streams, software and applications are the way to get there.

Developing the new breed of applications is vital, but enterprises can’t ignore the traditional applications that power their current lines of business. Without a consistent, unified approach to application development, businesses can be forced to silo application development roles, with one team focused on the “new” and one on the “old.” This leads to two completely separate software stacks, adding new complexities to an already complex datacenter environment.

Red Hat is delivering the open, flexible and more secure tools to tackle both cloud-native and traditional application development, all on a consistent, standards based platform. Today, you’ll see us launch new, cloud-based applications and frameworks for building containerized applications that tie together with Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, the most comprehensive enterprise Kubernetes platform available. You’ll also see the launch of the industry’s first Container Health Index, which is designed to make it easier for Red Hat customers and partners to quickly see the security and provenance of a containerized application and to build their own safer, vulnerability-free containers.

All of these tools are backed by a common set of open standards and all function across IT’s four footprints, enabling enterprises to truly build any application for deployment everywhere.

Consistency to manage all of your IT investments everywhere
It’s not just deployment and development that require consistency, however - a heterogeneous datacenter environment poses unique needs when it comes to managing applications, systems and associated technologies. When cloud services are applied, especially from multiple public cloud providers, this management task can become monumental.

Consistency again is key - adding management tool after management tool doesn’t abstract application complexity, it just sweeps it under the rug and replaces it with management complexity. Managing your IT assets across all four footprints and across multi-cloud deployments should be done with a single, unified solution, one that can also automate routine tasks at scale to eliminate human error and free IT teams to deliver innovation.

In the coming days, you will also see us talk about our vision for the automated enterprise, powered by Ansible, which is increasingly becoming the standard for automation. Wherever your assets and applications live and in whatever form they take, Red Hat is providing common, consistent tools to manage and automate your IT across the four footprints.

The consistency to do everything
The consistency that Red Hat provides, from the enterprise-grade backbone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux to the open standards embraced by Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform to the industry-standard automation of Ansible by Red Hat, helps enterprises to focus on their own innovative differentiation: their applications. By adding open innovation to a consistent technology foundation, enterprises are able to deliver the applications and services that make them stand out. More importantly, they can deploy across all four footprints plus multi-cloud without fear of complexity ruling their lives.

Build anything. Deploy everywhere. Do everything. This is the future of computing, and Red Hat is making it possible.


About the author

Paul Cormier is Chairman of Red Hat. He has been with the company since 2001 and previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer. During his tenure, he has driven much of the company’s open hybrid cloud strategy, playing an instrumental role in expanding Red Hat’s portfolio to a full, modern IT stack based on open source innovation.

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