Open source technology and cloud have a long and solid relationship. Most of the largest cloud provider companies are built on open source technologies. Now, software firm Red Hat has made this consumable for enterprise users, enabling agencies to take that technology that they’ve been using as public cloud consumers and bring it to their own data centers. This offers end users plenty of benefits as well. Open source platforms improve cloud technology, help to end vendor lock-in and maximize efficiency.
For example, take OpenShift Enterprise, a Platform as a Service (PaaS) product from Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions. Based on OpenShift Origin, the platform plays a major role in solutions from FedRAMP-approved cloud provider BlackMesh and in ARCWRX, an open source PaaS cloud services platform from CSRA, formerly Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC).
OpenShift makes use of three cloud tools to maximize security and drive productivity by enabling developers to focus on their main objective — writing code:
- Gartner’s model of bimodal IT, defined by the market research firm as “the practice of managing two separate, coherent modes of IT delivery, one focused on stability and the other on agility. Mode 1 is traditional and sequential, emphasizing safety and accuracy. Mode 2 is exploratory and nonlinear, emphasizing agility and speed.” That translates to a new way of organizing IT to meet agencies’ needs.
- Linux containers, which are lightweight technical environments in which applications live
- Kubernetes, an open source project developed for container management and orchestration that automates the deployment, scaling, and operation of containers across clusters of hosts.
To better understand how these three tools go hand-in-hand, we talked with Adam Clater, Chief Cloud Architect with the Office of the Chief Technologist of Red Hat’s North America Public Sector organization; John Keese, Director of Government Cloud Services for CSRA (formerly CSC government services) and BlackMesh Co-Founder Jason Ford.
Download this industry perspective to learn how Red Hat’s OpenShift can help government agencies, how companies are putting it to use in their solutions, what to ask yourself and your industry partners before moving to the cloud, and what best practices can help your agency deploy a secure cloud implementation.
