Red Hat is targeting the containerised applications market with the launch of Linux 7 Atomic Host, an operating system for running software through Linux containers.
Based on the software vendor’s flagship product Enterprise Linux 7, the release will focus on security and lifecycle concerns, as well as building and maintaining the container infrastructure.
Jim Totton, VP and GM of Platforms Business Unit at Red Hat, said: "Twelve years ago, Red Hat delivered the first iteration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, taking a cutting edge software technology and moulding 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."
Adopters of Atomic Host will be able to utilise a simplified rollback feature to revert to previous system configurations, container images in the Docker application format, and scalable deployment of containers.
The release will also include support for "super privileged" containers, supposedly stronger security, and application portability across hypervisors from Red Hat, VMware and Microsoft, as well as public cloud services from Amazon and Google.
"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 are finally fulfilling their potential and revolutionizing the PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) landscape," said Masahiko Iwata, GM of the Open Source Software Center at Nippon Telegraph and Telephone.
"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."
