Red Hat recently made version 4.12 of its Kubernetes-based orchestration platform Red Hat OpenShift generally available. Among other things, the hybrid cloud has gained enhanced security functionality in this platform, as well as further support for Arm-based processors.
OpenShift has been an important part of Red Hat’s hybrid cloud strategy for several years and remains so. Meanwhile, the hybrid orchestration and delivery platform for cloud-based applications already provides parent company IBM with revenue of about at least $1 billion. In addition, the platform is an increasingly important part of partnerships that Red Hat enters into with other parties.
Features v4.12
Version 4.12 brings with it a lot of new functionality. Among other things, a number of new operators have been added to improve the security and compliance of the platform. The Security Profiles Operator allows users to more easily distribute and use security profiles. Examples include Seccomp or SELinux in a Kubernetes cluster. The operator automatically takes care of creating these specific profiles, which previously had to be handled manually. The operator also helps manage profiles on nodes and namespaces, allowing administrators to create security profiles with the necessary privileges to container processes.
The enhanced Compliance Operator now allows OpenShift administrators to run compliance scans and provide solutions to problems found. With PriorityClass, they thereby gain better control over compute and memory resources and can set which nodes should be scanned first for better results. In doing so, they ensure that each cluster remains compliant.
Other new operators in Red Hat OpenShift 4.12 include the Ingress Node Firewall Operator and the Network Observability Operator. The first operator allows users to create firewall rules at the node level. The second provides visibility into what is happening on the network. This allows administrators to better understand how the network works and identify potential bottlenecks. It also provides operator assistance in resolving connectivity issues, according to Red Hat.
Arm support
Another notable addition is that Red Hat OpenShift 4.12 includes support for Arm-based instances in Microsoft Azure. It also provides an agent-based installer for unconnected deployments of the application orchestration and delivery platform in edge locations, among other things. This deals more specifically with airgapped servers, bare metal servers and/or servers running on VMware vSphere and other agnostic platforms. Furthermore, lifecycle support for x86-64 servers has also been extended from 12 to 24 months.
Red Hat OpenShift 4.12 is available immediately.