Red Hat, Alibaba Cloud join forces to bring increased flexibility with open source

By Digital News Asia October 13, 2017

Alibaba Cloud joins Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider programme
Extends the reach of Red Hat’s offerings across the top public clouds globally

Red Hat, Alibaba Cloud join forces to bring increased flexibility with open source

RED Hat, Inc, a provider of open source solutions, and Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, on Oct 12 announced that they will join forces to bring the power and flexibility of Red Hat’s open source solutions to Alibaba Cloud’s customers around the globe.

Alibaba Cloud is now part of the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider programme, joining a group of technology industry leaders who offer Red Hat-tested and validated solutions that extend the functionality of Red Hat's broad portfolio of open source cloud solutions.

The partnership extends the reach of Red Hat’s offerings across the top public clouds globally, providing a scalable destination for cloud computing and reiterating Red Hat’s commitment to providing greater choice in the cloud.

In the coming months, Red Hat solutions will be available directly to Alibaba Cloud customers, enabling them to take advantage of the full value of Red Hat’s broad portfolio of open source cloud solutions.

Alibaba Cloud intends to offer Red Hat Enterprise Linux in a pay-as-you-go model in the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace.

Red Hat Technical Business Development and Business Architecture vice president Mike Ferris said, “Our customers not only want greater performance, flexibility, security and portability for their cloud initiatives; they also want the freedom of choice for their heterogeneous infrastructures. They want to be able to deploy their technologies of choice on their scalable infrastructure of choice.

“That is Red Hat’s vision and the focus of the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider programme. By working with Alibaba Cloud, we’re helping to bring more choice and flexibility to customers as they deploy Red Hat’s open source solutions across their cloud environments.”

By joining the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider programme, Alibaba Cloud has signified that it is a destination for Red Hat customers, independent software vendors (ISVs) and partners to enable them to benefit from Red Hat offerings in public clouds.

These will be provided under innovative consumption and service models with the greater confidence that Red Hat product experts have validated the solutions.

Launched in 2009, the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider programme is designed to assemble the solutions cloud providers need to plan, build, manage and offer hosted cloud solutions and Red Hat technologies to customers.

The Certified Cloud Provider designation is awarded to Red Hat partners following validation by Red Hat. Each provider meets testing and certification requirements to demonstrate that they can deliver a safe, scalable, supported and consistent environment for enterprise cloud deployments.

In addition, in the coming months, Red Hat customers will be able to move eligible, unused Red Hat subscriptions from their datacentre to Alibaba Cloud, China’s largest public cloud service provider, using Red Hat Cloud Access.

Red Hat Cloud Access is a "bring-your-own-subscription" benefit available from select Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Providers that enables customers to move eligible Red Hat subscriptions from on-premise to public clouds.

Red Hat Cloud Access also enables customers to maintain a direct relationship with Red Hat - including the ability to receive full support from Red Hat's Global Support Services organisation, enabling customers to maintain a consistent level of service across certified hybrid deployment infrastructures.

Alibaba Cloud Alibaba Cloud Global deputy general manager Yeming Wang said, “As enterprises in China, and throughout the world, look to modernize application environments, a full-lifecycle solution by Red Hat on Alibaba Cloud can provide customers higher flexibility and agility. We look forward to working with Red Hat to help enterprise customers with their journey of scaling workloads to Alibaba Cloud.”