Red

Hat,

Inc.

(NYSE:

RHT),

the

world's

leading

provider

of

open

source

solutions,

today

announced

the

general

availability

of

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host, a

n operating system

optimized

for running

the next generation of

applications

with

Linux

containers.

Red Hat

Enterprise Linux 7

Atomic

Host

provides

all of the

components

necessary to easily package

and run

applications written for

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and 7

as containers

.

More than just an addition to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux portfolio, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host showcases the future of the enterprise application, a powerful, flexible application greater than the sum of its parts, and entirely fueled by the power of open innovation. Jim Totton vice president and general manager, Platforms Business Unit, Red Hat

As monolithic stacks give way to applications comprised of microservices, a container-based architecture can help enterprises to more fully realize the benefits of this more nimble, composable approach. Based on the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host enables enterprises to embrace a container-based architecture, reaping the benefits of development and deployment flexibility and simplified maintenance, without sacrificing performance, stability, security, or the value of Red Hat’s vast certified ecosystem.

An application architecture based on Linux containers requires not only the tools to build and run containers, but also an underlying foundation that is secure, reliable, and enterprise-grade, with an established lifecycle designed to meet the ongoing requirements of the enterprise over the long term. These requirements include mitigation of security concerns, ongoing product enhancements, proactive diagnostics, and access to support. Red Hat is committed to offering enterprises a complete and integrated container-based infrastructure solution, combining container-based application packaging with robust, optimized infrastructure that will enable easy movement of Red Hat Enterprise Linux-certified applications across bare metal systems, virtual machines and private and public clouds - all of this with the product and security lifecycle that enterprise customers require. The release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host delivers on Red Hat's intent to make Linux containers a stable and reliable component of enterprise IT across the open hybrid cloud.

The Enterprise-Ready Container Host

Specifically designed to run Linux containers, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host delivers only the operating system components required to run a containerized application, reducing overhead and simplifying maintenance. Because Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host is built from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, it inherits Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7's stability and maturity, as well as its vast ecosystem of certified hardware partners.

Security is always a top enterprise priority, but the security properties of containers – including the ability to maintain security across a container’s lifecycle - have raised additional questions. To address container security and lifecycle concerns, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host offers automated security updates on-demand, bringing enterprise customers the support and lifecycle benefits that come with Red Hat Enterprise Linux in a reduced image size. From Heartbleed and Shellshock to Ghost and beyond, Red Hat customers receive security notifications and product updates as they are available and also have access to security tools that address container reliability and security. This is a benefit Red Hat uniquely brings to container deployments for enterprise customers.

For building and maintaining container infrastructure, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host provides many benefits, including:

Atomic updating and rollback through an image-like update mechanism. An atomic update can be downloaded and deployed in a single step, while the previous version is retained, allowing for easy atomic rollback, if necessary.

Container images in docker format can be deployed and run as application containers.

Certification and support, along with a chain of trust for containers built using platform images provided by Red Hat, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and 7 and certified containers from Red Hat’s independent software vendor (ISV) partners.

Container orchestration at scale through Kubernetes, creating large-scale business applications from discrete services deployed in containers across clusters of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host.

Stronger security by default through SELinux, cgroups and kernel namespaces, isolating each container in a multi-container environment.

Support for super-privileged containers enables host management applications to access the host and other containers in a secure manner. This specialized container provides users with the means to install third party software and the atomic command inherent to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host makes creating and running super privileged containers dramatically easier.

Application portability across the open hybrid cloud by leveraging Red Hat’s vast certified ecosystem, enabling secure, stable container deployments on physical hardware, on certified hypervisors including Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V, and on certified public cloud services like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform.

Virtual Event

At 11 a.m. EDT on March 12, 2015, Red Hat will host "Transform Application Delivery with Containers," a virtual event that further drills into the real world use cases and value of Linux containers. For more information and to register, please visit http://bit.ly/1Aigjde.

Supporting Quotes

Jim Totton, vice president and general manager, Platforms Business Unit, Red Hat

"Twelve years ago, Red Hat delivered the first iteration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, taking a cutting edge software technology and molding it into the backbone that powers the enterprise, from the server to the cloud. Today, with the launch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host, we are doing the same for Linux containers, bridging innovative open technology with the stability and security required by the enterprise. More than just an addition to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux portfolio, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host showcases the future of the enterprise application, a powerful, flexible application greater than the sum of its parts, and entirely fueled by the power of open innovation."

Masahiko Iwata, general manager, NTT Open Source Software Center, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

"With the advent of powerful runtimes like Docker and Kubernetes that simplify the management of containers through their whole lifecycle, Linux containers as a technology is finally fulfilling its potential and revolutionizing the PaaS landscape. We believe that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host completes the picture by providing a hardened container platform that builds on a trusted operating system, this being Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, and integrates the tooling of container-based application and service deployment."