Friday Five — November 11, 2016

Red Hat announced that Gartner, Inc. has positioned Red Hat in the "Leaders" quadrant of Gartner's October 2016 Magic Quadrant for Full Life Cycle API Management for Red Hat 3scale API Management Platform.
Red Hat 3scale API Management Platform is a distributed, cloud-based platform designed to provide end-to-end management capabilities for an organization's APIs. Gartner's Magic Quadrants are based on rigorous analysis of a vendor's completeness of vision and ability to execute. According to Gartner, "Full life cycle API management is the functionality organizations need in order to provide the technology platform for digital business, run successful API programs and thrive in the API economy."

A recent IDC on the business value of OpenShift that was commissioned by Red Hat reports that OpenShift supports key IT initiatives such as containerization, microservices and cloud migration strategies. OpenShift customers and helps customers deliver compelling applications across heterogenous IT environments in a timely manner. OpenShift customers report 8 months payback on their initial investment, 66% faster application development cycles, 38% lower IT infrastructure costs, $1.29 million in annual benefits per 100 developers and 531% average ROI over five years. Visit the OpenShift.com newsroom to see this featured report.

Red Hat is accepting nominations for the 2017 Red Hat Innovation Awards until November 16. Organizations can submit nominations in five categories, and winners will be selected based on the uniqueness, complexity, and magnitude of their Red Hat implementations. Submissions will be evaluated by a panel of business and open source technology experts, with one winner will be chosen in each category. From those winners, the 2017 Red Hat Innovator of the Year will be selected by the community through online voting, and will be announced during an awards ceremony at the 2017 Red Hat Summit in Boston.

From a technology standpoint, containers are the catalyzing agent of that DevOps equation. They're the convenient package through which DevOps and IT teams can quickly and consistently pass an application's code, configurations, and dependencies back and forth. "Because containers are an OS technology, you can run them anywhere, be it virtual hosts or a public cloud," says Lars Hermann, General Manager of the Integrated Solutions Business Unit at Red Hat. When it comes to implementing modern application architectures and DevOps principles within an enterprise, containers are the answer to a number of problems. Particularly when the organization is entrenched in legacy technology and traditional development policies, containers are the easily integrated platform underneath that can smooth the transition and make it easy on the IT department. Rich Sharples, Senior Director of Product Management for Middleware at Red Hat, said it's all about delivering quality software at a faster cadence. All companies are looking to put out software faster to compete in their own markets, and that pressure often falls on an overworked IT department. Sharples said containers are a way to produce applications and services that can be changed faster–be it adding a new feature or a critical security fix–while maintaining quality.

EdLogics, a health education-based consumer engagement company and innovator in game-based learning, has built its digital health literacy platform on container and cloud solutions from Red Hat, including Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, Red Hat JBoss Middleware, and Ansible by Red Hat. EdLogics' Education-as-a-Service offering, based on Red Hat technology, is aiming to transform the way consumers learn about health and improve health literacy while simultaneously cutting consumer costs. Studies have indicated that low health literacy–the ability to understand and act on health information–can be tied to patient health outcomes. EdLogics' mission is to address health literacy issues through an interactive, personalized experience that makes learning about health fun and engaging, and empowers individuals to take greater responsibility for managing their health.