Why the os is still a strategic choice for modern IT

Introduction: The OS continues to be an essential part of modern IT

Operating systems (OSes) have always been a key component in IT environments.

First developed in the 1950s, OSes have continuously evolved to meet changing demands. Early OSes focused primarily on batch processing and simple task scheduling, executing a single job at a time. However, with the introduction of time-sharing systems in the 1960s, multiple users could interact with a computer simultaneously. Consequently, the following decades saw the emergence of OSes such as UNIX, which introduced modularity and portability to computing environments.

During the 1980s, increased sales and adoption of personal computers introduced OSes to the general public. The invention of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) revolutionized the way users interacted with computers, making computing accessible to a broader audience.

As the demand for server-based computing grew, Linux® emerged as a powerful, scalable OS for enterprise datacenters worldwide. First released in 1991, the Linux kernel offered a free, open source alternative to UNIX that anyone could run, study, share, and modify.

The 2000s delivered virtualization technologies—followed by containers—that led to more efficient hardware resource use and a shift toward cloud computing. As a result, OSes took on new management roles to support flexible application deployments and resource optimization

In more recent years, the influence of OSes extended beyond core datacenters to include edge devices and the Internet of Things (IoT)—providing efficient data processing at the network edge to reduce latency and enhance performance in innovative edge use cases.

Simultaneously, the continued evolution of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) introduced a new era of computational demands. To support these resource-intensive workloads, modern OSes evolved to orchestrate specialized hardware—such as graphics processing units (GPUs)—and the data pipelines required for model training and inference.

And now, as the scale and complexity of AI-powered workloads and operations continues to grow, bringing new risks and threats to navigate alongside the emergence of quantum computing and post-quantum cryptography, the OS has had to continue to evolve.

This e-book provides an overview of why the OS—and specifically the Linux OS—still matters today and how it continues to meet modern IT and business demands.

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Chapter 1: 7 reasons the OS still matters today

As organizations continue to adopt increasingly distributed, cloud-based IT environments, the importance of the OS continues to grow.

73% of organizations already have a hybrid cloud strategy in place¹, and as application innovation continues to necessitate access to valuable cloud resources, the complexity of IT environments continues to rise.

The OS can serve as a unifying foundation across on-site and cloud infrastructure, diverse hardware and software, and both traditional and cloud-native applications. Management control, hybrid cloud flexibility, advanced security practices, and modern development velocity all start with the OS. A unified operating foundation across datacenter and cloud environments can help enhance flexibility and control, improve focus on security, and support AI innovation.

This chapter discusses the ways that the Linux OS can support modern workloads, operational processes, and IT environments to deliver value and foster innovation across an entire organization.

#1: The OS connects hardware, applications, and users

As a fundamental layer, OSes support interactions between hardware and applications and provide essential services and resources.

The OS abstracts underlying hardware components to allow applications to run on diverse infrastructure without modifications for specific systems, while providing OS command-line interfaces (CLIs) and GUIs to give users increased control over the computer and its applications. It also manages resources—including central processing units (CPUs), memory, storage, and networking—to optimize system performance and prevent conflicts between applications.

Security features including user authentication, access controls, and encryption help safeguard data and resources from unauthorized access, while error and exception handling capabilities prevent system crashes. As AI continues to introduce new security risks, while simultaneously accelerating the discovery of new Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs), a security-focused OS provides the foundation needed to isolate threats and rapidly deploy patches.

Modern OSes, such as Linux, usually implement 2 modes—kernel mode and user mode—to determine which privileges are available to which applications, components, and users. Via kernel mode, trusted core software components—such as the OS kernel and some device drivers—can perform privileged operations, directly use hardware resources, and access restricted system memory.

All other software—including user applications, libraries, and tools—run in user mode with limited access to system resources. These applications can only access the user space, isolated memory regions that prevent applications such as unpredictable or compromised AI workloads from interfering with critical OS components.

#2: The OS maintains hardware and software compatibility

OSes manage hardware resources, including storage, networking, and peripherals, to support architectural control and freedom of choice.

Applications and hardware resources communicate via device drivers. OSes manage these drivers, including proper installation, loading, and operation, to increase system stability and compatibility between applications and underlying hardware components. For example, during system initialization, the Linux OS detects newly connected or integrated resources, identifies known devices, and locates and loads the corresponding drivers.

Building an IT foundation on trusted expertise

While Linux can serve as a stable operating foundation for all IT workloads, many different Linux distributions are available, each with different tools, services, and support policies, making the strategic choice of Linux vendor vitally important.

Look for a trusted Linux vendor with:

A production-grade Linux distribution that focuses on customer needs.
Continuing contributions to and leadership within the Linux kernel.
A collaborative community of customers, partners, and experts.
A proven record of commercial support and security maintenance.
A simplified and centralized management interface across environments.

OSes also provide hardware abstraction layers that let applications interact with hardware devices without knowing underlying hardware details. These interfaces optimize application development, and enhance portability across different hardware configurations to give organizations the freedom to choose the right infrastructure without vendor lock-in.

Chipsets, storage, and networking are areas where device drivers and OS management are essential for maintaining architectural control. Many compute-intensive workloads such as AI and ML can benefit from hardware acceleration in chipsets. OSes can make the features and acceleration from GPUs, systems on chips (SoCs), and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) available to these modern workloads, providing the freedom to select the right performance components for unique environment demands.

OSes also provide access to data stored on hard drives in a stable and reliable manner. They manage file organization and storage using optimized methods to minimize data fragmentation, prevent naming conflicts, and enforce consistency across applications, allowing organizations to maintain strict architectural control over how and where critical data is housed.

Finally, OSes orchestrate network-related functions to deliver reliable connectivity and efficient data exchange between systems within a network. Using a network stack, OSes manage the integration of network protocols to provide end-to-end communication over diverse networks, giving IT teams the flexibility and control to design custom, scalable network architectures. OSes configure and manage network devices, including network interface cards (NICs) and wireless adapters, to support and accelerate data transmission between applications. They implement network security measures, including firewalls and encryption protocols, to help protect against unauthorized access and data breaches, while some modern OSes will also offer post-quantum cryptographic encryption to help safeguard against the threats of the future.

3D red sphere, cube, and octahedron connected to a document by curved red arrows

Maximize freedom of choice with a certified partner ecosystem

Testing and certifications keep third-party products working reliably with an OS. Look for a Linux vendor that partners with industry-leading hardware, software, and cloud vendors to deliver more choice, innovation, and stability, and check that a vendor’s partner ecosystem includes the required products and services based on organizational needs.

#3: The OS accelerates developer velocity and innovation

OSes offer access to advanced developer tools and modern development practices to keep organizations confidently and rapidly innovating.

A modern OS is more than just a foundation for running applications—it directly supports developer velocity and continuous innovation. By providing a flexible, high-performance, and security-focused environment, the right OS empowers engineering teams to build, test, and deploy next-generation solutions more quickly and with greater control.

By providing developers with access to the latest programming languages, compilers, runtimes, databases, and curated application streams and software repositories that are frequently updated, the OS helps support teams with all of the tools they need to continue building innovative applications.

OSes can also offer the ability to integrate with an organization’s existing development ecosystem, including integrated development environments (IDEs), continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, and automation frameworks. This gives developers the freedom of choice to keep using the tools they already know or to choose any emerging developer tools that can help them—increasing architectural control, reducing development friction, and accelerating time-to-market.

Many OSes can also offer access to modern development requirements, such as container-native workflows and AI-optimized development environments, including streamlined hardware abstraction for GPUs and neural processing units (NPUs), optimized mathematical libraries, and preconfigured runtimes for popular AI frameworks. This helps organizations continuously innovate with isolated testing environments and rapidly deploy that innovation, knowing they can support all of the unique needs of complex, resource-intensive, modern applications, including AI and ML-powered workloads.

#4: The OS keeps applications optimized in all environments

OSes optimize resource use to provide an agile, high-performing platform that accelerates application delivery and fuels innovation.

A Linux distribution designed for developer innovation

With Red Hat® Enterprise Linux, developers build applications on the same platform where they’ll be tested and deployed, on a stable foundation equipped with the latest development tools and technologies.

Keep exploring how Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps accelerate developer innovation and discover how to get started with a range of no-cost developer subscriptions tailored to developers’ specific needs.

The main reason that we use Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the fact that it is stable and thoroughly tested, so we do not experience a lot of bugs and lockups. This enables our developers to work on a more consistent basis.²

– PeerSpot review

Modern applications require a foundation that supports rapid execution and continuous deployment. Modern OSes include advanced mechanisms that capture and manage runtime anomalies during application execution.

By handling these events in the background, the OS prevents workflow disruptions and frees developers to focus on agility and new feature creation rather than underlying infrastructure limits. And by utilizing file integrity checks, checksums, and digital signatures, the OS tests that only authorized code is executed.

Using advanced process scheduling technologies, OSes optimize CPU and memory use, dynamically balance workloads across resources, and maintain critical system responsiveness. For example, process scheduling algorithms and load balancing help maintain efficient use and distribution of CPU time for compute-heavy workloads.

By actively detecting and routing around hardware anomalies—such as memory faults, storage bottlenecks, or processor spikes—the OS supports maximum throughput for compute-intensive tasks. Working in tandem with error correction code (ECC) and cyclic redundancy checks (CRC), the OS can navigate hardware limitations to keep data pipelines flowing. Advanced data-handling features, such as journaling and checksums, support rapid, accurate data retrieval, allowing workloads to scale efficiently and respond dynamically to user demands.

Linux OSes also include sophisticated memory management capabilities to maintain sufficient memory for complex applications, avoid potential conflicts, and optimize workload performance. Dynamic memory allocation and deallocation provides processes with the exact memory needed for maximum performance, which is critical for managing massive datasets for data-intensive AI workloads. When a process is done using memory, the OS makes it available for other processes to use.

Gaining deep visibility into system performance is also critical for continuous improvement. Modern OSes provide telemetry, logging, and diagnostic tools that capture granular data about system events and resource utilization. Using these tools, IT teams can analyze performance trends, proactively adjust their environments, and optimize resource allocation for specific applications. This data-oriented approach helps organizations refine workloads, accelerate the deployment of new services, and maintain agile infrastructure that is ready to support the next wave of innovation.

Maintain ideal conditions for applications with analytics and automation

Optimizing complex IT environments is essential for maintaining a competitive, agile edge. Look for a Linux distribution that includes advanced management and automation tools to help dynamically tune and streamline an entire IT landscape.

Unified tools that operate consistently across diverse infrastructure footprints provide deep visibility, allowing organizations to identify resource bottlenecks and optimize workloads before they slow down critical applications. Ultimately, tools that align with performance and business outcomes can offer the actionable insights needed to accelerate new deployments, dynamically adapt to shifting demands, and clear the path for rapid innovation.

#5: The OS offers management tools for modern IT environments

Modern OSes provide access to advanced infrastructure management capabilities to increase architectural control and optimize operations.

To help organizations build highly-customized IT environments, modern OSes are redefining how infrastructure can be deployed and governed to deliver complete architectural control. With modern OS management capabilities, organizations can increase control over their operations, consistently enforce compliance, and proactively safeguard infrastructure and applications across all environments.

Some modern OSes provide the ability to deploy and manage the OS as a bootable containerized image, allowing organizations to use the same container tools, CI/CD pipelines, and workflows for the OS as they do for cloud-native applications. This helps increase control while offering the freedom to consistently deploy OS images across any operating environment—eliminating configuration drift, accelerating infrastructure deployment, and maintaining complete control over the operating environment.

To help organizations improve control of their complex, modern, scaled-out infrastructure, some advanced OS distributions now offer access to integrated gen-AI powered management assistance tools. Serving as intelligent system assistants, with predictive analytics, proactive infrastructure analysis, and context-aware recommendations, these AI-powered interfaces are often able to translate natural language queries into actionable steps for resolving vulnerabilities or system issues, optimizing workload performance, and enforcing security and governance policies.

All of this comes together to help teams more confidently manage complex infrastructure across an entire organization.

#6: The OS protects infrastructure, applications, and data

OSes help defend against security threats that compromise confidentiality and availability of IT systems—including new AI and post-quantum security risks.

The Linux kernel includes many security capabilities to help protect infrastructure, applications, and data against both traditional and emerging security threats. For example, Linux OS distributions contain the authentication and authorization tools needed to implement zero trust architectures. Authentication via usernames, passwords, biometrics, or security tokens identifies the individuals or applications that want to access IT systems and assets. Authorization and access control mechanisms such as Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) define the permissions and privileges granted to these users, groups, or applications.

Together, these tools help prevent unauthorized access to sensitive resources and system configurations, which is critical for containing unpredictable AI workloads and mitigating sophisticated, AI-automated attacks.

Other key OS security features include:

Encryption. Built-in encryption technologies can safeguard confidential files and sensitive data both at rest and in transit across networks. For instance, system-wide cryptographic policies can be used to automatically configure and apply predefined cryptographic controls to systems and many applications. Some OSes also support CPU-assisted encryption of virtual machine (VM) workloads for confidential computing.
CVE remediation. An OS can help remediate CVEs through security patch deployment and management or mitigate them through built-in guardrails.
Application allowlisting. This capability helps prevent unauthorized executables and libraries from running, including unapproved tools or binaries that teams may use to run AI models or automation.
Hardware root of trust. Hardware-based root of trust, remote attestation, and measured boot technologies verify system integrity to check that systems have not been modified or tampered with.
Security scanning. Compliance and vulnerability scanning tools such as Open Security Content Automation Protocol (OpenSCAP) can simplify audits and support remediation efforts required to maintain compliance.
System logging. Auditing and logging capabilities can record events and activities within a system. Administrators can then review and analyze these events, identify sources of security breaches, and implement corrective measures, creating an audit trail for monitoring complex AI workload behaviors.
Workload isolation and monitoring. To help defend against security risks, many modern OSes use security-focused containers, specialized hypervisors, and memory protection to sandbox and monitor workloads, including AI and ML.
Post-quantum cryptography. To prepare for the threat of post-quantum computing, many OSes now have quantum-resistant algorithms available so that organizations can begin the process of adopting these new cryptographic standards required to help protect today’s data against future threats.

Build a foundation for zero trust

Zero trust architectures apply security to each asset, rather than managing security exclusively at the network perimeter. While Linux itself includes the core capabilities needed to build zero trust architectures, some distributions add features and tools that simplify zero trust adoption.

Look for a Linux distribution that is offered via a trusted software supply chain and includes system-wide cryptographic controls, hardware root of trust capabilities, built-in compliance scanning, and policy-based identity management tools.

Read this overview to learn more.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux plays a big role in my company's implementation of the zero-trust model, as zero trust is a significant part of our security hardening strategy. Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps us meet those STIG and hardening requirements and track identity management.²
– PeerSpot review

#7: The OS supports container-native workflows for modern applications

Linux OSes support container technologies to help deploy and manage cloud-native and AI-powered applications with control and flexibility.

Containers are technologies that package IT components—including applications, runtimes, complex ML libraries (such as TensorFlow or PyTorch), and dependencies—into lightweight, portable, isolated environments.

Container technologies effectively segment the OS, allowing multiple containers to share a single OS kernel that manages hardware resources and interactions with the physical host system. This approach is essential for modern application development, including both cloud-native applications and AI-powered applications, as it allows data scientists to package complex workloads locally and deploy them into production environments without compatibility issues.

Linux OSes partition kernel resources related to process spaces, file systems, and network access to give each container its own unique set of resources. As with traditional virtualization, this isolates each container to prevent conflicts and interference between containers and allows multiple containers to execute on the same host. To allocate resources appropriately, OSes manage and limit resource use—including CPU, memory, and disk input/output (I/O)—on a per-container basis. For AI applications, this capability is critical. The OS can dynamically assign specific hardware accelerators, such as GPUs or NPUs, to individual containers to optimize resource-heavy training and inferencing tasks.

By managing network interfaces and configurations in container environments, OSes allow containers to communicate with each other and external systems as needed while still maintaining network isolation. This high-performance networking is vital for cloud-native architectures or complex AI workloads. The OS also provides containers with isolated file systems that can access shared data and persistent storage via container storage drivers, allowing AI workloads to efficiently process massive training datasets.

Finally, OSes provide mandatory access controls (MAC) to enforce strict and predefined resource access policies. Containers can only interact with specified system resources to increase isolation and protect against widespread security threats and vulnerabilities. In the age of AI innovation, these strict boundaries are crucial for safeguarding proprietary models, algorithms, and sensitive training data from unauthorized access.

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How to extend an IT environment and skills with containers

Organizations can get started with containers with just a Linux OS by looking for a Linux distribution that includes container tools such as Podman, Skopeo, and Buildah to help develop, build, run, and manage containers on Linux systems. Choosing a Linux vendor that also provides a container orchestration platform will give organizations the option to expand and scale their use of containers over time.

Chapter 2: Take advantage of open source innovation

Open source communities create and maintain many popular OSes, including Linux, which keeps innovation and freedom of choice at the forefront.

Within these communities, developers propose, contribute, and test new OS capabilities and features—maintaining continuous innovation and giving organizations the architectural control they need to build highly-customized IT systems that meet their unique needs. Releases are made available either through free community distributions or paid enterprise distributions.

Enterprise (or commercial) distributions are often offered via subscriptions and provide additional features, services, and support tailored to business needs, while preserving the freedom of choice and architectural control modern IT organizations need. For example, enterprise OS subscriptions frequently include 24x7, production-grade technical support to accelerate troubleshooting and reduce downtime. They may also include training and tutorials that help users efficiently administer, optimize, and troubleshoot issues, helping teams maintain complete control over their infrastructure.

To help organizations safely adopt community-led innovations, enterprise vendors generally have security teams that assess, monitor, and respond to emerging threats to increase OS security focus. Some commercial distributions include services that monitor the OS and provide guidance for remediating security issues, noncompliant settings, unpatched systems, and configuration drift. Vendors may also certify their OS to industry security standards to help maintain compliance and protection without limiting flexibility.

Finally, many commercial vendors foster certified partner ecosystems for their OSes to maximize organizations’ freedom of choice as they build out the value of their modern IT environment. These diverse ecosystems may include hardware vendors, software vendors, public cloud providers, and services organizations, offering organizations the flexibility to deploy their ideal architecture on the platforms that best suit their workloads.

Chapter 3: Increase control over system management

OS management tools give organizations the control and flexibility needed to effectively configure, monitor, and optimize complex, modern IT environments.

Performance management. Take control of system performance with insights into resource bottlenecks and directly address any potential issues.
IT automation. Automate ever-increasingly complex tasks to minimize human error and maintain consistent, reliable system configurations.
Security and access management. Improve security posture by assessing, managing, and remediating vulnerabilities to protect critical applications and data. Enforce access controls, govern permissions, and dictate appropriate user privileges based on their specific roles.
Configuration management. Systematically apply updates and upgrades to keep OSes current with the latest patches. Maintain control of consistent configurations across multiple systems to actively prevent configuration drift across IT environments.
Auditing and monitoring. Log and audit system events to support troubleshooting, compliance, and in-depth security analysis and help improve compliance with security and operational standards. Monitor and optimize resources to support efficient resource allocation.
Backup and recovery. Maintain resilience by creating and managing backups, with strict recovery processes in the event of system failures or data loss.

Red Hat Insights analytics panel, stacked servers, and a cloud on a red background

Chapter 4: Modern IT starts with Red Hat Enterprise Linux

The OS plays a critical role in IT infrastructure—especially as modern application innovation creates more complexity.

No matter where an organization is in its IT modernization journey, Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides an efficient, security-focused foundation for continuous innovation across hybrid and multicloud environments.

With the architectural control and freedom of choice needed to align with any specific organizational need, this modern OS helps organizations deploy complex, innovative applications with consistency and efficiency across any IT environment—including bare metal, on-premise datacenters, cloud environments, and at the edge of a network.

Maximize workload performance by optimizing hardware and cloud resources to keep every application—from traditional workloads to resource-intensive AI applications—operating at peak capacity.

Accelerate developer velocity by minimizing performance bottlenecks, optimizing resource use for compute-heavy workloads, and offering developers modern tooling and development approaches—helping them stay focused on writing code, testing features, and deploying innovative applications more quickly than ever before.

Discover how Red Hat Enterprise Linux delivers value across modern IT organizations:

Consistency across footprints. Maintain control and mitigate vendor lock-in with portability across bare metal, datacenters, cloud environments, and all the way to the edge of the network, with robust integration into all major cloud providers.
Trusted software supply chain. Mitigate upstream vulnerabilities with tested, certified open source components.
Diverse certified partner ecosystem. Build optimized infrastructure with freedom of choice and access to a network of supported hardware, software, and cloud providers.
Predictive analytics and remediation tools. Proactively optimize workload performance with Red Hat Lightspeed and resolve potential bottlenecks before they cause downtime or other issues.
Built-in automation and management. Command infrastructure at scale by automating operational tasks—freeing up teams to focus on high-value innovation instead of manual maintenance.
Variants for multiple architectures. Maximize architectural control and match unique workload requirements with optimized OS versions tailored for x86-64, ARM, IBM Power, and IBM Z systems.
Advanced security capabilities. Safeguard critical infrastructure with security features designed to defend against sophisticated, modern threats, including new AI risks.
Performance optimization tools. Optimize workload performance across all IT environments with tools that help maximize efficiency of underlying compute resources.
Container-native workflows. Accelerate innovation with container tools that help developers build and deploy cloud-native and AI-powered applications.
AI-powered assistance. Support IT teams with the gen AI-powered management assistance offered by Red Hat Lightspeed—turning natural language prompts into actionable steps to optimize system performance.

Support for emerging AI innovation. Build innovative, intelligent applications with optimized libraries, frameworks, and hardware use, and future-ready infrastructure that offers the flexibility to deploy complex workloads wherever they make the most sense.
Modern developer tools. Give teams immediate access to the latest programming languages, compilers, and runtimes to accelerate developer velocity and reduce time-to-market.
Image mode. Maintain strict control over OS deployments by managing it as a container with the same container-native workflows as containerized applications.
Post-quantum cryptography. Modernize data security by integrating quantum-resistant algorithms designed for the future of advanced decryption capabilities.
Enhanced fleet management. Increase fleet control with upgraded management capabilities that simplify patch deployment, help enforce security compliance, and unify distributed operations.
Extensions repository. Access a curated and constantly updated stream of the latest software packages, giving developers modern tools without compromising the IT environment.
Extended lifecycle support. Maintain stability and predictability for workloads with Red Hat Enterprise Linux Extended Life Cycle, Premium and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Long-Life Add-On providing long-term maintenance and support.

“2026 State of the Cloud Report.” Flexera, 18 March 2026.
“Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews.” PeerSpot, 2026.

Learn more about Red Hat Enterprise Linux or speak to a Red Hatter about how it supports modern IT operations and application innovation.

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