Red Hat Inc.’s lineup of development automation tools is set to receive a major boost.

The open-source giant today revealed that it has acquired Codenvy Inc., the startup behind the popular Eclipse Che coding platform. The software, which is available under an Apache 2.0 license, boasts a fast-growing user base that clocks up to an estimated 1 million hours of activity every month.

The reason for the project’s success can be attributed to several key features that are not found in other integrated development environments. Most notably, Che helps automate the task of configuring workspaces. For logistical reasons, developers must often customize their local environments to mimic the operational conditions under which their software is expected to run. Che provides the ability to package the components that are needed for a project into a neat package that can be easily reused across devices.

This capability removes the need to manually set up a workspace for each member of a software team, which is a major time saver. Moreover, the fact that application environments can be generated based on a template practically eliminates the risk of inconsistencies slipping into the configuration files.

Che first caught Red Hat’s attention early last year, an interest that soon evolved into a collaboration with Codenvy to improve the upstream code base. The partnership among other saw the companies join forces with Microsoft to provide more consistent support for programming languages across different development environments.

Today’s acquisition will see Red Hat absorb the Codenvy team along with its flagship offering, a paid cloud-based edition of Che. The service augments the project’s templating mechanism with several management features designed to improve the productivity of software teams. Red Hat plans to incorporate the technology into OpenShift.io, a recently introduced coding platform likewise delivered via the web that already uses Che as its frontend.

The service is designed to help developers build containerized applications using the company’s OpenShift platform-as-a-service offering. It’s at the center of Red Hat’s plans to address the rise of Docker in the enterprise. The firm didn’t say how much it paid for Codenvy, which employs about 40 people, but the strategic significance of the deal was no doubt reflected in the price tag.

Image: Red Hat