The most popular Red Hat blog posts from 2017

As we ring in a new year, we can’t help but reflect on all of the great announcements and innovations, insights, tips, and more that we shared on the Red Hat blog in 2017. To celebrate, we’ve compiled last year’s most popular posts below.

Stay tuned to this space in 2018 - we have big plans ahead aimed at bringing you even more great content.

1. Do we really need swap on modern systems?

Red Hat Technical Account Manager Christian Horn struck a chord when he posed this question about swap, which “is used to give processes room, even when the physical RAM of the system is already used up.”

Read the post here.

2. What makes us Red Hat

Whenever an open source project explodes with industry excitement and momentum, we often see a common question emerge. “Who will be the Red Hat of OpenStack?” “Who will be the Red Hat of containers or Kubernetes?” “Who will be the Red Hat of the blockchain era?” (And so on.)

What we’ve learned over the years is that not all open source is created equal. Red Hat’s president of Products and Technologies, Paul Cormier, set out to explain what actually makes Red Hat Red Hat, including:

• our commitment to 100% pure open source (“Half open is half closed, limiting the benefits of a fully open source model. This is not the Red Hat way.”)

• the difference between open source products and projects (“Too often, we see open source companies who don’t understand the difference between projects and products. In fact, many go out of their way to conflate the two.”)

• our belief in collaborating openly with both customers and the open source community (“It’s that collaboration that brings forward new ideas and creative solutions to the most difficult problems. We work with the community to identify solutions and find common ground to avoid fragmentation.”)

Read the post here.

3. Friday's U.S. Executive Order on immigration

Contribution from a vast pool of diverse voices is part of what makes open source innovation unique. In 2017, Red Hat continued to champion policies aimed at fostering a diverse and inclusive technology industry.

Read the post here.

4. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 Beta now available

It’s always a big deal when the next version of the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform becomes available and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4, with new features designed to help organizations bolster security and compliance, better streamline management and automation, and realize an improved systems administration experience, was no exception. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 is now generally available.

Read the post here.

5. Red Hat introduces Arm server support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux

A key focus for Red Hat is to provide software support for multiple architectures powered by a single operating platform - Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and driven by open innovation. In 2017, we added a new architecture to our list of fully supported platforms with Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM.

Read the post here.

6. Java EE moving to an open source foundation

We think that moving Java EE to an open source foundation was a positive development in 2017 and we believe that move has the potential to benefit the entire Enterprise Java community, customers, and end users. This post tells you why we’re optimistic.

Read the post here.

7. Introducing CRI-O 1.0

CRI-O enables you to run containers directly from Kubernetes - without any unnecessary code or tooling. As long as the container is OCI-compliant, CRI-O can run it, cutting out extraneous tooling and allowing containers to do what they do best: fuel your next-generation cloud-native applications. In 2017, we were excited to debut CRI-O 1.0. Learn more about the open source CRI-O project in this post by Red Hatter Joe Brockmeier.

Read the post here.

8. Ansible Project 2.4 now generally available

The upstream Ansible project is one of the world’s most popular open source IT automation technologies, with nearly 3,100 unique contributors, more than 34,000 commits to the upstream Ansible open source project, and a user base that spans industries and the globe. In this post, learn about Ansible Project 2.4, the latest release of the leading, simple, powerful, and agentless open source IT automation framework.

Read the post here.

9. Containers are Linux

As Joe Fernandes, senior director of OpenShift Product Management, reminds us:

It’s easy to get lost in all the hype and forget what containers are really about. Ultimately, containers are a feature of Linux. Containers have been a part of the Linux operating system for more than a decade, and go back even further in UNIX. That’s why, despite the very recent introduction of Windows containers, the majority of containers we see are in fact Linux containers. That also means that if you’re deploying containers, your Linux choices matter a lot.

In this popular post, Joe breaks down what that actually means and why this should matter to you.

Read the post here.

10. Build anything, deploy everywhere and transform business with Red Hat

Red Hat Summit is our biggest event of the year and Paul Cormier’s Red Hat Summit keynote is a perennial highlight. In this post, Paul gave us a look at some of the key insights from his 2017 keynote:

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.

Read the post here.

12. The future is open: Seizing the opportunity with open source

Similarly, Red Hat president and CEO Jim Whitehurst’s keynote is always a must-attend at Red Hat Summit. His 2017 keynote focused on the impact of the individual in open source, and in this post he talked about why that impact matters: “Through the collective action of extraordinary people willing to take risks and try new things, we’re seeing organizations achieve the innovative breakthroughs everyone is always chasing.”

Jim went on to describe what he views as “unprecedented” adoption of technology like containers and automation:

I believe that we might be looking at a sea change in the world of technology where we could soon be experiencing new feature velocity rates in areas like private and public clouds that we have not seen in our lifetimes.

Red Hat also talks frequently about how we’re seeing open source principles applied beyond technology. We even created a documentary series, Open Source Stories, to put a spotlight on some of these unique applications of open innovation. In this post, Jim commented on the potential for open innovation:

Across sectors, innovation happens because of open source. Contribution by contribution, individuals are changing the world, creating disruption, and working to solve problems that have stumped generations. Open innovation is not only present, it also represents our future.

The potential for collaboration is perhaps boundless, and I’m thrilled by the opportunity Red Hat has to be a steward for the open opportunity ahead.

“There’s never been a more exciting time to be in the technology industry,” Whitehurst said. 

We agree and think that excitement extends into 2018. Here’s to a year filled with collaboration, breakthrough innovations the open source way, and transformative customer use cases!

Read the post here.