When will Kubernetes capabilities be available?

Kubernetes capabilities are available as part of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host.

What can Red Hat Enterprise Linux customers use today?

Many Red Hat Enterprise Linux customers can leverage containers technology today and now have support for Docker containers in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. Those customers who also are entitled to Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host also gain access to Kubernetes orchestration and scheduling tools. Kubernetes provides new options for those customers to manage a Docker containerized environment.           

Where will these container orchestration technologies be available?

Container orchestration technologies will be developed upstream in their respective projects, such as Kubernetes, the Docker project, and Apache Mesos. These technologies are critical for Red Hat customers, as they increasingly adopt Linux containers for their cloud application environments. These upstream technologies will most likely be incorporated in Red Hat commercial products down the road, as is the case with much of our upstream work.

Where does Apache Mesos fit?

Apache Mesos is a manages resources in a cluster to simplify the complexity of running applications on a shared pool of servers. Mesos is being closely looked at for the scheduling benefits it brings, with discussion about adding Mesos scheduling as a plugin to Kubernetes.

Were other container orchestration and management tools considered?

Red Hat development teams have investigated and continue to evaluate new tools coming from Docker and the ISV community. Related projects and tools like Docker libswarm, Apache Mesos, Yarn, Fleet and more are driving rapid innovation in this space. Our collaboration with Google does not preclude Red Hat from also collaborating with these other upstream communities and potentially integrating additional tools & capabilities into our commercial products and services. We felt that at this time that initiating a focused collaboration upstream around Kubernetes, and Project Atomic made sense and that Google’s container capabilities and focus made this even more compelling.

Why was Kubernetes selected?

Google launched the Kubernetes project to enable users to easily manage, monitor and control containerized application deployments across a large cluster of container hosts. The project benefits from Google’s vast knowledge of running containers at scale in their own datacenters. Given the strong alignment between the goals of the Kubernetes project and the goals of Project Atomic and Red Hat in general, we felt that collaborating with Google made sense. The early traction we’ve seen in the Kubernetes community combined with Google’s commitment to the project were also key factors.

Why is our work with Google and Kubernetes important?

Red Hat announced support for the Docker container format in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and launched Project Atomic to redefine the operating system for the shift to application-centric IT and provide a new lightweight container host. In most use cases, the requirement to orchestrate and manage containers at scale, across multiple hosts is critical. The Kubernetes project, launched by Google, combined with work we are doing in Project Atomic, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and related products and projects will address this requirement.

What did Red Hat and Google announce on July 10, 2014?

Google recently released a container orchestration open-source project, Kubernetes, which has received significant interest from the open source community and early adopter users. Red Hat announced our involvement in the Kubernetes project and, in addition, that we have enabled early access for select customers to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host on the Google Cloud. There were three key announcements from Google and Red Hat:

1. Google announced via their public blog that there are now several vendors involved in the Kubernetes community, including Red Hat, and that those vendors are working to extend the capabilities of orchestration for containers.
2. Related, Red Hat announced that we are collaborating with Google and the Docker community to drive a new open standard around orchestrating Docker containers at scale, for the management of cloud application deployments (note: This is similar to announcement 1., but focuses on the Red Hat and Google specific elements).
3. Red Hat also announced on the Google Cloud Blog that a technology preview of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host is available hosted on Google Compute Engine for customers in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 special interest groups. This provides early access for select customers and partners to Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host hosted within a public cloud environment.

What is orchestration needed for containerized applications?

While application-centric deployment and application density are two of the hallmarks of Linux containers, enterprises need better ways of managing distributed components across varied infrastructure to maximize their investment of running large-scale container deployments.  Applications composed of different services should still be managed as a single application instance in most cases. 

What is Google Kubernetes?

Google Kubernetes is an orchestration framework for managing clusters of containers, particularly useful for horizontal scaling of application components and interconnecting multiple layers of application stacks. 

What orchestration capabilities are included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host?

Through collaboration with Google in the Kubernetes project, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host  integrates the Kubernetes cluster orchestration framework into its container stack providing a layer over the infrastructure to allow for this type of management. This allows enterprises to build composite applications by orchestrating multiple containers as microservices on a single host instance.

What is Red Hat working with Google on related to containers?

Red Hat and Google are collaborating to tackle the challenge of how to manage application containers at scale, across hundreds or thousands of hosts. In June, Google unveiled the Kubernetes open source project for container management. Red Hat joined the Kubernetes community and has become a core committer to the project to help Red Hat customers to orchestrate containers across multiple hosts, running on-premise, in the Google Cloud or in other public or private clouds.

What is Red Hat’s relationship with Google?

Google is a Red Hat Certified Cloud Provider. The Google Compute Engine (GCE) public cloud offers Red Hat Enterprise Linux on demand and can also host Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions via Cloud Access on GCE.