Release: Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 7

On August 5, Red Hat has announced the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 7 (RHELOSP), based on OpenStack “Kilo” release.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 7 is backed by one of the biggest OpenStack ecosystems, with over 350 certified partners.

The main new features, introduced with a focus on enterprise customers, can be resumed as follows:

  • Simplified deployment and management – With the introduction of “OpenStack Director” RHELOSP 7 offers a simplified and automated cloud installation tool with system-wide health checking for a proper deployment. Additionally it eases daily operational management and resource provisioning for cloud operators, including an automated “ready-state” provisioning of bare-metal resources to simplify the deployment and repurposing of hardware resources on an on-demand basis. Based on the community-driven OpenStack management project TripleO, the new director combines multiple technologies to offer a single tool which also establishes a new framework that can be used for live orchestrated OpenStack and director upgrades for version 7 and subsequent releases.
  • Traditional workloads requiring high availability on OpenStack – Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 7 introduces compute host node high availability through integrated, automated monitoring and failover services from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This new capability monitors host nodes and includes the ability to automatically evacuate virtual machines from hosts, restarting workloads on alternate, available hosts.
  • Greater security control – RHELOSP 7 allows customers to maintain a tightened security level over the greater OpenStack cloud, while allowing virtualized network function (VNF) traffic through each virtual machine, as necessary. Version 7 introduces this via the Neutron modular layer 2 (ML2) and Open vSwitch (OVS) port security mechanisms included in the community Kilo release.
  • Network flexibility – Network operators can benefit from several IPv6 enhancements, including the ability to support direct network routing between tenants and the external gateway. In addition, version 7 expands the high availability for Neutron routers and improves the monitoring and reporting of the router to help network operators maintain uptime.
  • Incremental Backup – With added support for NFS and POSIX file system types, this significantly reduces the amount of storage and time required, by backing up only the incremental changes since the last full state backup.