Open-source software giant Red Hat Inc. is merging its Ceph Storage platform with its OpenStack distribution to create a new hyperconverged infrastructure product that combines compute and storage functions in a single, colocated private cloud environment.

The new offering is called Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Cloud, and it essentially bundles Red Hat OpenStack 13 with Red Hat Ceph Storage 3. It’s set to be released next month.

Red Hat said the idea is to improve the portability of applications between data centers and the network edge. This should be especially useful for customers that have previously been unable to move their apps around because they’re encumbered with inflexible, proprietary systems, the company said.

The Raleigh, North Carolina-based company lists a number of benefits its new offering provides, the main one being unified lifecycle management. Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Cloud helps to create what it calls “standardized private cloud building blocks,” which allow for OpenStack and storage to be managed as a single unit, thus simplifying operations.

A second benefit is greater flexibility as the new product enables companies to run dedicated compute and storage in the data center, together with hyperconverged nodes, or network communication endpoints, running at the network edge. The net result of this is improved data center resource usage, the company said.

Finally, Red Hat said, Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Cloud is beneficial for customers looking to implement network functions virtualization. That concept allows companies to decouple network functions such as network address translation, firewalling, intrusion detection, domain name service and caching from proprietary hardware appliances so they can run in software.

Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Cloud delivers these networking capabilities in the form of open-source projects such as Real-time KVM and OpenDaylight. Those are popular frameworks used to roll out agile and scalable platforms for 5G networks.

“Customers looking to build a common foundation across data center and edge deployments now have the confidence to enable faster rollout of services to their customers,” said Ranga Rangachari, vice president and general manager of storage at Red Hat.

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