BOSTON -- RED HAT SUMMIT 2019 -- Red Hat today announced the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, the operating system designed to span the breadth of deployments across enterprise IT. For any workload running on any environment, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 delivers one enterprise Linux experience to meet the unique technology needs of evolving enterprises. From deploying new Linux workloads into production to launching digital transformation strategies, the next-generation enterprise is built on top of the world's most innovative operating system.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 is the operating system redesigned for the hybrid cloud era and built to support the workloads and operations that stretch from enterprise data centers to multiple public clouds.

As data centers grow in scale and scope and workload complexity builds, the skills required to deploy and maintain Linux-based production systems become increasingly critical. With the announcement of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, this intelligence and expertise is now built-in to Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions by default with Red Hat Insights, delivering Red Hat's Linux expertise as-a-service.

Red Hat Insights helps proactively identify and remediate IT issues, from security vulnerabilities to stability problems. It uses predictive analytics based on Red Hat's vast knowledge of open technologies to help administrators avoid problems and unplanned downtime in production environments.

Managing systems dispersed across a variety of on-premise and cloud-based infrastructure can present a significant challenge to IT organizations. Red Hat Smart Management, a layered add-on for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, helps IT teams gain the benefits of hybrid cloud computing while minimizing its inherent management complexities. Combining Red Hat Satellite for on-premise systems management and cloud management services for distributed Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployments, Red Hat Smart Management provides a single capability to manage, patch, configure and provision Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployments across the hybrid cloud.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 introduces Application Streams - fast-moving languages, frameworks and developer tools are updated frequently in this stream without impacting the core resources that have made Red Hat Enterprise Linux the enterprise benchmark.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 is designed to lower the barrier to entry for Linux, enabling greater accessibility for Windows administrators, Linux beginners and new systems administrators without fear of the command line.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 abstracts away many of the deep complexities of granular sysadmin tasks behind the Red Hat Enterprise Linux web console. The console provides an intuitive, consistent graphical interface for managing and monitoring Red Hat Enterprise Linux system, from the health of virtual machines to overall system performance. To further improve ease of use, Red Hat Enterprise Linux supports in-place upgrades, providing a more streamlined, efficient and timely path for users to convert Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 instances to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 systems.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 also includes Red Hat Enterprise Linux System Roles, which automate many of the more complex tasks around managing and configuring Linux in production. Powered by Red Hat Ansible Automation, System Roles are pre-configured Ansible modules that enable ready-made automated workflows for handling common, complex sysadmin tasks. This automation makes it easier for new systems administrators to adopt Linux protocols and helps to eliminate human error as the cause of common configuration issues.

To enhance security, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 supports the OpenSSL 1.1.1 and TLS 1.3 cryptographic standards. This provides access to the strongest, latest standards in cryptographic protection that can be implemented system-wide via a single command, limiting the need for application-specific policies and tuning.

With cloud-native applications and services frequently driving digital transformation, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 delivers full support for the Red Hat container toolkit. Based on open standards, the toolkit provides technologies for creating, running and sharing containerized applications. It helps to streamline container development and eliminates the need for bulky, less secure container daemons.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 forms the foundation for Red Hat's entire hybrid cloud portfolio, starting with Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 and the upcoming Red Hat OpenStack Platform 15 which is now in beta. Also built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 is the forthcoming Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS, a minimal footprint operating system designed to host Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform deployments.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 is also broadly supported as a guest operating system on Red Hat hybrid cloud infrastructure, including Red Hat OpenShift 4, Red Hat OpenStack Platform 15 and Red Hat Virtualization 4.3.

The launch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 also coincides with the general availability of the Red Hat Universal Base Image, a userspace image derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux for building Red Hat certified Linux containers. The Red Hat Universal Base Image is available to all developers with or without a Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription, providing a more secure and reliable foundation for building enterprise-ready containerized applications. Applications built with the Universal Base Image can be run anywhere and will experience the benefits of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux life cycle and support from Red Hat when run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.

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