Red Hat: CloudForms 1.1 and new cloud products

Red Hat has presented version 1.1 of its CloudForms management software and announced the availability of three new cloud offerings that are designed to help businesses get started with cloud computing. Red Hat had already announced plans for two of the products back in summer.

CloudForms is self-service and system management software for operating systems and applications that run together on a cloud or on computers within a company's own infrastructure. In the long term� , the software will supersede the Red Hat Network Satellite administration software. CloudForms 1.1 gives system administrators an easier way of performing individual tasks – such as the deployment of operating system security updates – on a large number of systems. Red Hat has also extended the software's LDAP support and integrated a feature that allows administrators to search their systems for specific content. Further new features are described in the release notes.

Among the new cloud offerings is the "Red Hat Cloud with Virtualization Bundle" – a product that combines CloudForms with the recently updated Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV). The bundle is designed to help businesses get started with cloud computing. The "Red Hat Hybrid IaaS Solution" is a bundle that includes software for creating and managing hybrid clouds. In addition to CloudForms and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, this bundle includes Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as a guest operating system. Red Hat says that customers will also have the ability to add on-demand public cloud compute hours with Red-Hat-certified public cloud providers. Another new service offering is the "Open IaaS Architecture Service", which involves installing CloudForms and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization within a company's IT environment to create an IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) private cloud.

(djwm)