Since we announced our landmark hybrid cloud partnership with Microsoft last November, a lot has happened. Here’s a quick recap of milestones we’ve hit in the last 10+ months:

Today, we’re happy to build on that momentum with the following news:

  • Availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP HANA® on Microsoft Azure - Enterprises seeking to use the public cloud to support their big data initiatives can also use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP HANA and the broader SAP Data and Database Management portfolio, including SAP HANA on Microsoft Azure, using dedicated, bare metal services. Customers can also use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP HANA on Azure virtual machines, using Red Hat Cloud Access to import an image.

Announced in June 2014 as the foundation of an enhanced collaboration between Red Hat and SAP, Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP HANA offers an open, scalable, integrated and highly available platform featuring the industry-leading reliability, quality, and stability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP HANA helps organizations make smarter, faster decisions; accelerate business processes; and enable consistency of operations across the business through standardization on the Red Hat platform, which powers mission-critical systems in more than 90 percent of the global Fortune 500.

  • On-demand availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux in a pay-as-you-go model on Azure Government - As U.S. federal government agencies work to meet the government’s “Cloud First” mandate, the government’s adoption of the cloud has grown. Microsoft reports that its Microsoft Cloud for Government, which includes Azure Government, now has approximately 5.2 million users. As government customers move to the cloud, we have heard from many who want a fully supported version of Linux together with the agility that Azure Government offers them.

With today’s news, federal, state and local, and education customers can use Red Hat Enterprise Linux on-demand in the Azure Marketplace for government customers, extending the reach of the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform in the cloud. As a result, government customers can use Azure Government’s secure region for their cloud workloads, but with the security features they depend on from Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux images are certified by Red Hat and have undergone extensive testing and verification as part of our Certified Cloud and Service Provider program, of which Microsoft is a premier member. This means that customers can receive the security features and reliability that they expect from Red Hat’s flagship Linux platform delivered with the scale and flexibility of the Azure Government public cloud. For our integrated software vendor (ISV) partners, they can now build and deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux-certified applications for Azure Government, enabling more robust choice for their customers, backed by an enterprise-grade, supported open source platform.

  • Availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Azure Germany - On Sept. 21, Microsoft launched Microsoft Cloud Germany. Microsoft Cloud Germany offers a separate instance of Microsoft Azure delivered from German datacenters via a German data trustee to maintain data sovereignty, and comply with the country’s laws and regulations, and various international standards.

Today, Red Hat Cloud Access is available for Azure Germany, bringing the benefits of our hybrid cloud collaboration to German customers and partners. With Red Hat Cloud Access, customers can easily move subscriptions from their datacenter to a Red Hat Certified Public Cloud and Service Provider, in this case, Microsoft and Azure Germany. Customers can keep the benefits of their Red Hat subscriptions and their direct relationships with Red Hat, including access to product experts and our award-winning Red Hat Global Support Services team. Red Hat solutions available for Azure Germany via Red Hat Cloud Access include Red Hat Enterprise Linux (including Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP applications and Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP HANA), Red Hat JBoss Middleware, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, and Red Hat Gluster Storage.

  • Availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Edition on Azure Stack Technology Preview 2 - As Microsoft announced today, they are making Azure Stack available through a new technology preview, which enables customers to use Azure in their datacenter or in a managed service provider’s environment. Red Hat customers can now use their developer products on Azure Stack for testing. Full production support is expected to be announced at a later date.

This week, we’re at Microsoft Ignite, where we’ll be talking about these announcements and the hybrid cloud momentum we’ve experienced over the course of the last 10+ months working with Microsoft. Come by to see us at booth #539 if you are at the conference.


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Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies.

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