Red Hat Connectivity Link

Red Hat® Connectivity Link is a unified, multifunctional Kubernetes-native framework that integrates multiple critical network functions.

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What is Red Hat Connectivity Link?

The move toward hybrid and multicloud environments introduces exponential complexity in managing application connectivity across modern distributed infrastructure. Organizations must navigate the nuances of different cloud providers, leading to fragmented connectivity, security, and policy management.

Red Hat® Connectivity Link is a unified, Kubernetes-native framework that integrates multiple critical network functions into a unified solution. This comprehensive integration streamlines the process for platform engineers, enabling rapid setup, automated and consistent application connectivity management, and clear role separations across teams. Connectivity Link also provides integrated, holistic observability using OpenTelemetry standards, giving teams real-time insights into application traffic and operational health across distributed environments.

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Product details

Modern application connectivity

Use a distributed, Kubernetes-native architecture for resource-efficient traffic and policy management.

AI-native gateway

Integrate generative AI into apps easily with standardized API access, traffic management, and consistent policy enforcement for security-focused deployment at scale.

Multicloud and multicluster connectivity

Scale and remain flexible with consistent connectivity, security, and policy management across diverse cloud and on-premise infrastructures.

DNS integration with high availability

Manage DNS configuration across multiple cloud service providers. Have automated record updating based on workload health status.

How is Red Hat Connectivity Link different?

Red Hat Connectivity Link offers a Kubernetes-native multifunctional solution, unifying AI gateway, API management, multicluster and multicloud connectivity, and global load balancing. Connectivity Link simplifies multicloud management, reducing operational overhead with a cohesive, cost-effective platform.

Red Hat Connectivity Link ensures that metrics, logs, and traces are consumable by third-party observability tools. It creates easy integration and connectivity data with information from other monitoring sources across multicloud environments, providing platform teams with a holistic picture of application connectivity management and operational health.

Integrated capabilities

To enhance the Kubernetes ecosystem, Connectivity Link provides integration capabilities to other Red Hat products such as Red Hat OpenShift® and Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh. Red Hat Connectivity Link focuses on simplified multicluster application connectivity and integrated advanced traffic management and policy enforcement directly into Kubernetes and OpenShift environments. When integrated with Connectivity Link, OpenShift Service Mesh manages traffic routing and security using Envoy and Istio.

Features and benefits

Observability and insights

Gain immediate visibility into API health, traffic flow, and latency across distributed infrastructure, so you can quickly detect and debug connectivity issues.

Kubernetes-native approach

Boost productivity with familiar Kubernetes tools to reduce operational overhead and accelerate service delivery in complex multicloud environments.

Robust security

Unify policy enforcement, minimize risks, control compliance, and create strong data plane service protection to protect cluster landscapes against evolving threats.

Simplify AI adoption

Use a standardized API for AI services, with traffic management, security, and policy enforcement across hybrid clouds. Scale AI applications quickly with built-in governance and observability.

API management reimagined

Benefit from global rate limiting and authentication, and a unified control plane that works across multicloud environments without separate management tools.

Use cases

Multicluster gateway support

With multicluster gateway support, platform engineers can manage cross-cluster connectivity and policies through a single interface. They can configure ingress gateways that can handle high traffic across multiple Kubernetes clusters.

Standardized ingress policy management

As application developers design microservices, they need secure, reliable access from various external systems. With API policy management, they can cohesively enforce policies for authentication, rate limiting, and load distribution.

Data plane service protection

If a company faces threats to their Kubernetes clusters landscapes, a data plane service protection policy can help enforce security policies at the data plane level that adapt to changing threat landscapes while ensuring compliance.

Location-based routing

As enterprises build distributed services, location-based routing helps them leverage advanced domain name system (DNS) strategies to direct traffic based on user location, ensure faster response times, and adhere to local regulations.