Open-source cloud solutions are on the rise, and Red Hat is at the forefront of this movement. While other open-source vendors like Fedora are just now getting into the cloud game, Red Hat is continuing to advance and expand its cloud capabilities. One of the most visible examples of this is Red Hat CloudForms.
CloudForms relies on over 60 open source projects in order to create a solid and robust Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution. It supplies capabilities for managing the lifecycle, the ability to configure both private and public clouds using the widest possible array of computing resources. It’s portable across cloud, virtual as well as physical resources, making it a capable solution for most needs.
CloudForms technologies
Here’s a look the primary technologies that power Red Hat CloudForms:
- CloudForms Cloud Engine: This is the component that manages all of your cloud resources. It handles image lifecycles, virtual instances as well as applications. It’s based on the open source Aeolus.
- CloudForms System Engine: This component manages how systems run across their physical, virtual and cloud environments. It includes managing content and image definitions, as well as managing software updates. It’s based on the open source Katello.
- CloudForms Application Engine: This component manages applications via a template base.
- CloudForms Cloud Services: This component gives you the ability to function consistently across various types of cloud environments. It provides the ultimate level in flexibility for services like availability and storage.
Red Hat CloudForms is designed with a robust cloud-based workflow in mind. Rather than displacing your current virtualization management infrastructure, it gives you a layer of abstraction that’s above virtualization. It uses deltacloud technology to communicate with RHEV manager, VMware vCenter and even Amazon EC2.
CloudForms is changing the way that we manage the cloud. Its ability to operate across an increasingly diverse technology base means that it promises to be the IaaS that everyone else wants to be like.
