Red Has announced a few new enhancements to its Kubernetes-based OpenShift Container Platform, with the firm adding hybrid cloud storage and enhanced security. 

On the hybrid cloud storage front, Red Hat has launched OpenShift Container Storage 4. This offers greater flexibility when it comes to choosing data services across multiple public clouds, without sacrificing a unified Kubernetes-based control plane for applications and storage. 

With a consistent Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) interface, enterprises now have built-in object storage and scalability needed to support portability for data-intensive applications across the hybrid cloud on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, previously unavailable through any container storage vendor in the OpenShift OperatorHub.

Red Hat says the launch of OpenShift Container Storage 4 accelerates application development workflows through: 

• Optimisation with Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, enabling developers to dynamically provision their own storage from within the platform without requiring storage expertise.

• Easier deployment and greater automation through Rook’s storage orchestration capabilities. With the Rook.io Operator, developers have Kubernetes-native, automated support for easier deploying, packaging and expansion of storage on Red Hat OpenShift.

• Faster persistent volume creation, helping developers build, test and release applications faster by reducing build times and improving continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline efficiency.

Ranga Rangachari, vice president and general manager, Storage, Red Hat, noted, “As the container storage market continues to evolve rapidly, Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage 4, brings to bear solutions for the biggest challenges facing customers today. The integration with Rook.io Operator advances us towards the industry vision of fully self-managed, self-healing storage services delivered through Kubernetes.”

Additionally, through the release of OpenShift 4.3, Red Hat has further enhanced the security of its Kubernetes-based platform. 

The new security enhancements include FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) compliant encryption (FIPS 140-2 Level 1) and encryption of the etcd datastore to provide additional protection for secrets at rest. Additional capabilities to support private clusters and private networks provides wider controls to limit platform and application access for cloud-based clusters. 

Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage 4 is generally available today for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.