Small footprint, big impact: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta now available

At Red Hat Summit 2014, we announced our plans around application containers, including the upstream Project Atomic and our intent to develop a small footprint, container host based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Today, we are pleased to announce the availability of the first public beta of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host. The beta is available from Red Hat and on Amazon Web Services and Google Compute Platform.

Increasingly, business applications are being constructed, not as a monolithic stack, but rather as a combination of simpler applications (microservices). These microservices provide greater flexibility, as they may be combined in a variety of ways to build applications that suit the particular business need. This type of flexible application architecture benefits greatly from a container-based infrastructure. From Project Atomic and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta to OpenShift, Red Hat has emerged as a leader in our efforts to make container infrastructure consumable by the enterprise.

What can you expect from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta?

Specifically Designed to Run Containers

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta provides a streamlined host platform that is optimized to run application containers. The software components included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta, as well as the default system tunings, have been designed to enhance the performance, scalability and security of containers, giving you the optimal platform on which to deploy and run application containers.

The Confidence of Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta is built from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, enabling Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta to deliver open source innovation built on the stability and maturity of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It also means that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta inherits the hardware certifications of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, giving you a vast choice of certified hardware partners.

Atomic Updating and Rollback

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta features a new update mechanism that operates in an image-like fashion. Based on rpm-ostree, updates are composed into “atomic” trees, which can be downloaded and deployed in a single step. The previous version of the operating system is retained, enabling you to easily rollback to an earlier state. This simplified upgrade and rollback capability reduces the time you spend “keeping the lights on.”

Container Orchestration

Through our collaboration with Google, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta includes Kubernetes, a framework for managing clusters of containers. Kubernetes helps with horizontal scaling of multi-container deployments across a container host, and interconnecting multiple layers of the application stacks. This enables you to orchestrate services running in multiple containers into unified, large-scale business applications.

Secure Host by Default

Security is paramount when it comes to running applications. Containers alone do not contain, but you can more effectively isolate vulnerable containers with a secure host like Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta that implements a secure environment by default. First, applications are only run within containers, not directly on the host, creating a clear security boundary. Each container is then confined using a combination of SELinux in enforcing mode, control groups, and kernel namespaces. These technologies prevent a compromised container from affecting other containers or the host and are the same proven technologies that have been delivering military-grade security to Red Hat customers for more than 10 years.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Container Images and Building Containers

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta provides all of the required tools to build and run container images based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and 7 container images as well as the docker services. This means that applications that run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 can be deployed in a container on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta, opening access to a vast ecosystem of certified applications. Additionally, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta users will have access to the full breadth of their Red Hat subscriptions inside these containers, including the the popular programming language stacks and development tools delivered through Red Hat Software Collections..

Deploy Across the Open Hybrid Cloud

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta extends container portability across the open hybrid cloud by enabling deployment on physical hardware; certified hypervisors, including Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and VMware vSphere; private clouds such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform; and Amazon Web Services and Google Compute Platform public clouds. This ability to “deploy anywhere, deploy everywhere” enables you to choose the best platform for your container infrastructure.

We are excited to be able to offer our vision of an open, scalable, and secure container host and encourage you to try Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host Beta for yourself. Additionally, if you will be attending AWS re:Invent 2014, we encourage you to stop by the Red Hat booth (#206) to learn more about our container-ready technologies.