Red Hat Announces New Linux Container Projects

• By Rhea Kelly
• 04/15/14

Open source software company Red Hat today announced several new Linux Container projects focused on streamlined application delivery and orchestration across bare metal systems, virtual machines and private and public clouds:

• Project Atomic is a new community project to develop technologies for creating lightweight Linux Container hosts, based on next-generation capabilities in the Linux ecosystem. The tools that result from Project Atomic will allow creation of a new variant of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, called Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host — which Red Hat plans to debut with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.
• GearD is a new OpenShift Origin community project to enable rapid application development, continuous integration, delivery and deployment of application code to containerized application environments.
• High-Touch Beta Program is an expansion of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 high-touch beta program, to include Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host and Docker container technologies that will enable select customers to evaluate these new container technologies in enterprise environments.

Linux Containers and Docker are open source application packaging and delivery technologies that combine lightweight application isolation with the flexibility of an image-based deployment method. According to Red Hat, benefits can include:

• Application portability, allowing for the deployment of the application container across a variety of container hosts;
• Minimal footprint, which reduces the overhead of deploying new application containers;
• Simplified maintenance, reducing the effort and risk of patching applications and their dependencies; and
• Lowered development costs, as enterprises need only develop, test and certify applications against a single container runtime.

Open source container technologies also enable an application-optimized infrastructure for the open hybrid cloud. By separating infrastructure services from the application, containerized applications can move freely between not only different clouds, but also physical and virtual environments.

Project Atomic
According to a statement from Red Hat, Project Atomic aims to provide technologies to create lightweight host operating systems for containerized applications that can be applied to Fedora, CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The "Atomic" container host provides the essential functionality for running application containers like Docker, while maintaining a small footprint and allowing for atomic updates.

Project Atomic will provide the upstream community for Fedora and CentOS Atomic hosts, along with a new Red Hat Enterprise Linux offering: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host.

Features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host include:

• Systemd, a process manager for managing the administration of containers;
• Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux), which offers military-grade security and isolation to a container environment; and
• Compatibility with the forthcoming Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 as well as Red Hat's certified Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Container ecosystems.

GearD
The GearD project aims to create new developer and application services in OpenShift Origin, the open source project that forms the community for Red Hat's suite of OpenShift PaaS offerings. GearD was created to provide:

• Integration between application containers and deployment technologies like Git, enabling developers to quickly go from application source code to containerized application stacks deployed onto production systems;
• The ability to connect and orchestrate multiple application containers spanning multiple container hosts, enabling developers to deploy complex, composite applications while making efficient use of infrastructure resources;
• Flexible and dynamic routing of network traffic to the composite applications; and
• Additional services to address the needs of both application developers and IT operations administrators as they deploy and leverage containerized application platforms and DevOps practices.

For more information, visit the Red Hat site.