10 must-read articles to master modern hybrid cloud security and scale

1. What's new in RHEL 10.1: Offline assistance, convenient AI accelerators, and more

The RHEL team continues to evolve your security-hardened foundation. The latest RHEL 10.1 update is a significant step, especially for those in highly secure or air-gapped environments. We’re excited to announce the developer preview of an offline, locally available RHEL command-line assistant for customers with Red Hat Satellite. This means AI-powered guidance on troubleshooting and installation is now available without external network access, prioritizing your security. Plus, RHEL 10.1 makes embracing AI easier than ever by providing vendor-validated AI accelerator drivers directly in our trusted repositories. You’ll also find soft-reboots for minimal downtime and a host of updated developer toolsets, supporting an environment that is modern, efficient, and ready for what’s next. 

2. Red Hat Insights is now Red Hat Lightspeed: Accelerating AI-powered management

We’re taking the management and analytics capabilities you know and trust to the next level. Red Hat Insights is now Red Hat Lightspeed, a transition that reflects our expanded commitment to intelligent, AI-powered management across RHEL, Red Hat OpenShift, and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. Red Hat Lightspeed builds on the reliable foundation of predictive analytics but enhances it with AI-driven prioritization and faster, AI-assisted analysis to help you anticipate and accelerate issue remediation. The great news is that the powerful capabilities you already rely on remain available through your existing workflows, just smarter, more efficient, and more adaptive to your environment. 

3. Introducing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.7

The latest RHEL 9.7 release brings essential new features, many ported directly from the RHEL 10 development cycle. This update significantly shores up security with the introduction of post-quantum cryptography algorithms for protected key exchange, preparing your infrastructure for future quantum threats. For users in compliance-heavy or air-gapped environments, the new offline RHEL command-line assistant (currently in developer preview for Red Hat Satellite subscribers) delivers AI-powered guidance without sacrificing security. RHEL 9.7 also simplifies management with reproducible builds for container images, providing consistency and reliability, and enhances hybrid cloud security with Trusted Platform Module (TPM) support for RHEL cloud images on all major platforms. It's an update packed with security and developer tool improvements to help you innovate faster and operate simply.

4. Red Hat OpenShift 4.20 accelerates virtualization and enterprise AI innovation

The new Red Hat OpenShift 4.20 release, based on Kubernetes 1.33, is here, and it's heavily focused on boosting AI and virtualization workloads while strengthening security. For enterprise AI, the general availability of LeaderWorkerSet and the introduction of the Gateway API Inference Extension (GIE) simplify scaling complex, distributed AI/ML workloads and enable specialized, smart routing. You can even update large AI models without touching your containers by mounting weights directly from an OCI image volume. On the security front, we're building a strong zero trust foundation with generally available user namespaces to eliminate container privilege escalation risks and the near general availability of Zero Trust Workload Identity Manager. Additionally, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization becomes more intelligent with CPU load-aware rebalancing and faster VM migration, and we've expanded support across Oracle sovereign clouds, underscoring our commitment to a trusted, comprehensive, and consistent application platform.

5. Introducing Red Hat Satellite 6.18: New AI, management, and system health capabilities

Red Hat Satellite 6.18 is now generally available, adding critical new AI and system management tools to streamline Linux administration across hybrid cloud and on-premise environments. Building on the power of Red Hat Lightspeed, this release introduces the developer preview of the offline command-line assistant, enabling local, AI-powered RHEL guidance for secure or air-gapped environments. To enhance system health and planning, the advisor service (for broad RHEL infrastructure assessment) is now generally available, and the vulnerability service is available as a technology preview for on-premise use. Additionally, new capabilities like rolling content views and improved subscription reporting with minimal data collection help simplify content management and compliance.

6. Red Hat Performance and Scale Engineering

The performance of modern, critical workloads, especially in AI and virtualization, is non-negotiable. Red Hat’s Performance and Scale team regularly shares its latest findings to help you push the boundaries of your infrastructure. This month, they discuss why rigorous performance testing is crucial before deploying to a production Kubernetes or Red Hat OpenShift cluster, particularly when running virtual machines (VMs) alongside containers. We also get a look inside their lab at high-scale cluster testing. By intentionally stressing both the control plane (through heavy VM deployment) and the data plane (through VM workload scenarios) to identify bottlenecks, they confirm that Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization is ready for your demanding enterprise needs. 

7. Prepare for a post-quantum future with RHEL 9.7

The era of post-quantum cryptography is here, and RHEL 9.7 is the critical first step in preparing your systems for “Q-Day” (currently estimated at 2030). While post-quantum cryptography requires significant software updates and cannot be backported to earlier versions, RHEL 9.7 provides limited post-quantum cryptography functionality for experimenting and verifying within your existing RHEL 9 environment. This is crucial because a sudden, forced transition could disrupt business operations, and governments are increasingly considering post-quantum cryptography mandates. RHEL 9.7 includes updates for major cryptographic libraries like OpenSSL and NSS, allowing you to begin using post-quantum cryptography for testing applications. Although post-quantum cryptography is not enabled by default, you can opt in to post-quantum cryptography policies for controlled testing and gradual integration, protecting systems from “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks. Get practical experience now to support a smooth transition to the comprehensive post-quantum cryptography implementation in RHEL 10. 

8. Introducing OpenShift Service Mesh 3.2 with Istio’s ambient mode

Red Hat is thrilled to announce the general availability of Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh 3.2, featuring Istio’s game-changing ambient mode. Ambient mode introduces a sidecar-less service mesh architecture that dramatically reduces resource overhead (with memory reductions of over 90% and CPU reductions of over 50% compared to sidecar mode). The core component, the node-level ztunnel proxy, provides high-performance, lightweight zero trust networking with pod-to-pod mTLS encryption and authentication. If you need more advanced capabilities, the optional waypoint proxy adds features like HTTP routing, rich authorization policies, and detailed L7 telemetry. This release simplifies service mesh adoption and offers improved scalability for thousands of workloads. 

9. The new and simplified AI accelerator driver experience on Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Accelerated hardware, like GPUs and custom inference engines, is essential for tomorrow’s AI workloads, but driver management can be a challenge. Red Hat is simplifying this with a new, streamlined AI accelerator driver experience on RHEL. You can now acquire NVIDIA and AMD drivers from Red Hat repositories, built and signed by Red Hat for enhanced security capabilities and trust. This new capability dramatically reduces friction and offers faster time to value by installing the latest drivers with a single rhel-drivers command. This integration supports compatibility, simplifies maintenance, and enables confidential computing for your critical AI initiatives. 

10. Red Hat collaborating with Omnissa to bring Horizon virtual desktops to OpenShift Virtualization

This exciting collaboration with Omnissa (formerly part of VMware’s End-User Computing business) is bringing greater choice and flexibility to virtualization strategies. Organizations relying on VM-based applications can now deploy and manage Omnissa Horizon virtual desktops and published applications directly on OpenShift Virtualization. By consolidating disparate infrastructure into a single Kubernetes-native platform, this move streamlines operations and enables unified policies and automation for both traditional VM workloads and modern cloud-native applications (including AI). Customers can already deploy Horizon manual pools and farms with OpenShift Virtualization today. 

What’s next? 

The recent announcements underscore Red Hat’s commitment to building a trusted, intelligent, and scalable hybrid cloud platform. We’re embedding AI into management, simplifying hardware adoption with a single command, and partnering with industry leaders like Omnissa to break down operational barriers. By prioritizing post-quantum cryptography readiness, performance engineering, and flexible, consistent platforms like Red Hat OpenShift and RHEL, we are dedicated to helping you tackle even the most demanding enterprise workloads.