As open source and cloud computing converge, Red Hat is ramping up the scope of its cloud and DevOps initiatives, including building out its training offerings. If you still think of the company as primarily focused on enterprise Linux, think again. Through partnerships, such as its work with IBM, and acquisitions, such as its intent to purchase Codenvy, the cloud represents a particularly promising frontier for Red Hat. Meanwhile, the company is calling out skills gaps in the DevOps arena.
Betting on the Cloud and Container Future
IBM and Red Hat have been deepening their partnership with IBM — helping enterprises integrate Red Hat OpenStack and Ceph with IBM Private Cloud. At IBM’s recent InterConnect conference in Las Vegas, IBM executives said the partnership means that Red Hat customers will be able to extend their Red Hat-based environments into IBM’s public cloud. That, in turn, enables many of them to run the same management and software tools they have on premises while taking advantage of Red Hat’s open source platforms.
It’s worth noting that Red Hat has integrated its open tools with most of the major public cloud platforms now. Its tools are already offered for AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google’s cloud.
Meanwhile, Red Hat has announced its intent to acquire San Francisco-based startup Codenvy, which will give developers options for building out cloud-based integrated development environments. Codenvy is built on the open source project, Eclipse Che, which offers a cloud-based Integrated Developer Environment (IDE) and development environment. The openshift.io cloud-based container development service from Red Hat already integrates Codenvy’s Eclipse Che implementation.
In essence, Codenvy has DevOps software that can streamline coding and collaboration environments. According to Red Hat: “[Codenvy’s] workspace approach makes working with containers easier for developers. It removes the need to setup local VMs and Docker instances enabling developers to create multi-container development environments without ever typing Cocker commands or editing Kubernetes files. This is one of the biggest pain points we hear from customers and we think that this has huge potential for simplifying the developer experience.”
The Bottom Line for the IT and DevOps Community
Recently, several executives from Red Hat participated in a panel discussion focused on skills gaps found in the IT industry. They emphasized that skills gaps are particularly acute in the areas of Big Data, DevOps, containers, microservices, and cloud computing.
With that in mind, Red Hat is expanding its training offerings. The company is partnered with universities to focus on open source-centric training, including Boston University, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Duke University, and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Students at these institutions get the opportunity to work with open source tools and platforms.
In addition, Red Hat offers a number of training and certification options. The company continues to be very focused on OpenStack and has certification options that are worth considering. The company has announced a cloud management certification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform as part of the Red Hat OpenStack Cloud Infrastructure Partner Network. (The Linux Foundation also offers an OpenStack Administration Fundamentals course.)
Red Hat also offers educational options for microservices, working with middleware and more. It has announced five new training and certification offerings focused on improving open source and DevOps skills, as follows:
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Developing Containerized Applications (course and exam);
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OpenShift Enterprise Administration (course and exam);
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Cloud Automation with Ansible (course and exam);
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Managing Docker Containers with RHEL Atomic Host (course and exam); and
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Configuration Management with Puppet (course and exam).
Ken Goetz, vice president of training at Red Hat, said: “DevOps isn’t a product but rather a culture and process. There are certain technologies and skills someone working in a DevOps environment should have. Our goal with this new RHCA concentration is to offer a way for employers to validate these critical open source skills, and in the process, further enable enterprises to accelerate application delivery.”
“Today, it is almost impossible to name a major player in IT that has not embraced open source,” Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst noted in a LinkedIn post. “Open source was initially adopted for low cost and lack of vendor lock-in, but customers have found that it also results in better innovation and more flexibility. Now it is pervasive, and it is challenging proprietary incumbents across technology categories.”
Are you interested in how organizations are bootstrapping their own open source programs internally? You can learn more in the Fundamentals of Professional Open Source Management training course from The Linux Foundation. Download a sample chapter now!
