IBM Corp. subsidiary Red Hat Inc. today announced that Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation – a type of software-defined storage for the modular and portable operating environments called containers — is now included in Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus hybrid cloud platform.

The addition gives developers access to persistent storage that can span clouds and infrastructure, as well as improved data management capabilities.

Persistent storage is important because containers are stateless, meaning that changes made are lost after it the container is stopped. Although this makes them fast and portable, it also prevents many applications that were not written specifically for containers from taking advantage of them.

Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus brings provides a consistent way to secure, protect and manage applications throughout the software lifecycle across Kubernetes clusters, even if they span multiple clouds. The suite includes a hybrid cloud foundation built on the Kubernetes container orchestrator, security, cluster management, a container registry and uniform cluster data management across hybrid and multicloud environments.

The addition of OpenShift Data Foundation, which is immediately available, adds access to common data services that work across an organization’s full container landscape, which helps prevent storage silos from forming, Red Hat said. New features in version 4.9 include multicloud object gateway namespace buckets that offer a more flexible way to address data needs across different cloud locations.

Data can reside in a single location while also being made available to other locations without the need to create copies. Persistent volume encryption enables users to manage and hold encryption keys separate from their cluster and to use their own key management service, which is an important requirement for many financial services firms.

Red Hat customers who have an active Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus subscription receive OpenShift Data Foundation Essentials as part of their existing subscription at no extra cost. An advanced edition of OpenShift Data Foundation adds additional security features, multicluster workload support, disaster recovery and standalone and mixed-use storage support.

Photo: Flickr CC