Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq "MSFT") and Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT) today announced an expansion of the two companies’ alliance with plans for new initiatives aimed at enabling enterprises to more easily adopt containers. This includes native support for Windows Server containers on Red Hat OpenShift, Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated on Microsoft Azure, and SQL Server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat OpenShift. These additions to the companies’ joint roadmap will focus on simplifying container technologies to help enterprise customers increase the agility and drive digital transformation using hybrid cloud.

Alongside Microsoft, Red Hat is providing a way for organizations to make the technology choices that matter to them, from containerized workloads to public cloud services, without adding complexity. Matthew Hicks vice president, Software Engineering, OpenShift and Management, Red Hat

Continuing their commitment to deliver choice and flexibility to enterprise customers, Microsoft and Red Hat will extend the integrated, co-located Microsoft and Red Hat support to enable these new offerings across platforms. This helps to assure IT organizations that whatever challenges they face on their path to digital transformation, Microsoft and Red Hat will stand by them together.

Windows Server containers on Red Hat OpenShift

Enterprises see the benefit in using containerized applications to run their mission-critical workloads, but most IT organizations are not standardized on a single infrastructure stack. These heterogeneous environments often carry both Windows and Linux platforms, siloing applications and making it difficult for a business to modernize and scale their operations.

Today’s announcement simplifies these challenges, as Windows Server containers will be natively supported on Red Hat OpenShift, a leading enterprise-grade, Kubernetes-based container application platform. Red Hat OpenShift will be the first container application platform built from the open source Kubernetes project to support both Linux and Windows container workloads in a single platform across the multiple environments of the hybrid cloud, breaking down silos and making it easier for enterprises to pursue their cloud-native agenda.

This capability was demonstrated at Red Hat Summit in May 2017, and is expected to be available as a Technology Preview in Spring 2018.

Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated on Microsoft Azure and Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Microsoft Azure Stack

Cloud-native applications and the container platforms that power them are critical components to digital transformation, but managing the infrastructure for these technologies can be complex and time-consuming for already-stretched IT teams. Red Hat and Microsoft will address this by offering Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated on Azure. Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated is a container platform delivered as a cloud service, managed by Red Hat. With today’s announcement, this service is planned for availability on Azure, Microsoft’s enterprise-grade cloud platform with availability announced across 42 regions globally - more than any other public cloud provider. Microsoft and Red Hat engineers are working closely to optimize OpenShift while running on Azure, helping to deliver standardized enterprise performance and matching integrated support.

In addition, Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated on Microsoft Azure allows enterprise IT teams to focus on delivering business value and fostering innovation rather than keeping the lights on and micro-managing resources. Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated on Microsoft Azure is expected to be available in early 2018.

The companies also plan to collaborate on delivering enterprise performance standards and integrated support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux workloads running in Microsoft Azure Stack. Azure Stack is an on-premises extension of Azure that brings cloud computing to on-premises environments, running on certified hardware from Dell, HP, Lenovo and Cisco that enables enterprises to quickly and easily stand up a cloud experience in their datacenter.

SQL Server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat OpenShift

As customers continue leveraging containers to increase agility in a cloud-native world, Red Hat and Microsoft are committed to helping them harness open innovation. Yesterday, Red Hat announced the availability of .NET Core 2.0 as a container in OpenShift, and in the coming months, the two companies plan to bring the power and scale of SQL Server for Linux to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat OpenShift.

As with all Red Hat and Microsoft joint initiatives, SQL Server for Linux on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform will be jointly supported by both Microsoft and Red Hat.

Supporting Quotes

Matthew Hicks, vice president, Software Engineering, OpenShift and Management, Red Hat

"Alongside Microsoft, Red Hat is providing a way for organizations to make technology choices that matter to them, from containerized workloads to public cloud services, without adding complexity. Combined with our integrated support teams, we’re able to offer a pathway to digital transformation that offers the capabilities, flexibility and choice required to power the future of enterprise IT."

John Gossman, Lead Azure Architect, Microsoft Corp.

"Microsoft and Red Hat are aligned in our commitment to bring enterprise customers the hybrid cloud solutions they need to modernize their businesses as they shift to operate in a cloud-native world. Today, we’re extending this commitment as we again join forces to bring fully integrated solutions that simplify container adoption and help customers make the most of their hybrid cloud strategies."