Red Hat Doubles Down on its Cloud Focus

Red Hat is known to many people as the only U.S.-based public company that is exclusively focused on open source, and it has proven that its Linux-focused strategy is very profitable. But as I noted in a recent post, the cloud beckons for Red Hat. June was a big month for Red Hat in terms of advancing its cloud computing strategy, which the whole company is aligning around as an engine for future growth. The company unveiled the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform and Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure. It also introduced the Red Hat OpenStack Cloud Infrastructure Partner Network and Red Hat Certified Solution Marketplace.

Now, the company is pulling into high gear with its cloud focus, adding a key new vice president focused on the cloud, and delivering an enhanced, open source software-defined storage solution in version 3.4 of GlusterFS.

Scott Musson was formerly responsible for VMware's global partnerships and has now joined Red Hat as a vice president to manage Red Hat's strategic relationships with HP, IBM, Dell and Cisco.

According to Mark Enzweiler, Vice President of Global Channels and Alliances, Red Hat, in a statement: "Scott and his team will continue to develop and nurture our key strategic alliances as we deliver our award winning solutions to the channel. Scott's proven ability to lead and his far reaching expertise will benefit Red Hat as we work to offer the best resources, tools and assets our partners need to succeed. We welcome Scott to the Red Hat team."

Meanwhile, Red Hat announced that the Gluster Community, a group of organizations interested in open source GlusterFS storage technology, has nearly tripled in size since it launched in June. And Red Hat has delivered version 3.4 of the storage technology, calling it "OpenStack ready." As The VAR Guy notes:

"The storage platform supports all three OpenStack storage modes, and can be administered via OpenStack's Swift, Cinder, and Glance storage interfaces."

It's very clear that Red Hat's OpenStack-centric cloud computing strategy is becoming a point of focus at the company. This is no small matter for Red Hat. The company has done well getting its corporate clients to renew subscriptions for its Linux support offerings, but growth has slowed at the company and cloud computing is all the rage now, with OpenStack rapidly gaining momentum. Look for much more cloud computing news from Red Hat for the remainder of this year.