Application delivery and platform is a very important component of any DevOps-enabling infrastructure and Red Hat is looking to make their OpenShift Enterprise PaaS platform the go-to for enterprise with the release of version 2.1.

Announced today during the OpenStack Summit conference, Red Hat is making OpenShift Enterprise 2.1 publicly available for developers with a notable suite of enhancements over previous versions.

The enhancements all follow a core of development interests along with a side service of strong DevOps tools. At the core, OpenShift 2.1 upgrades the versions of MySQL, Python, and PHP—with an expected upgrade for MongoDB. It also adds log file consolidation, useful for any DevOps team watching for potential problems. Also OpenShift will have the ability to intelligently span infrastructure and a plugin interface for complex automation that can be used with OpenShift’s watchman daemon.

For a full listing of the enhanced features, see this list:

• Updated MySQL 5.5, Python 3.3*, PHP 5.4, and MongoDB 2.4 cartridges with OpenShift Enterprise entitlement that allows OpenShift to offer proven security and bug fixes including technical support for both the platform and the content it provides.
• New gathering and consolidation method for platform and application logs.  Plus a new way to gather and store key performance attributes from the operating system and application services.
• Ability for applications provided by OpenShift to intelligently span infrastructure across zones within regions, increasing the resiliency of the services provided by OpenShift
• Plugin interface that allows OpenShift to integrate with complex decision automation policies a datacenter might need to follow due to regulatory, ITIL, or change management facilities.
• Introduction of teams as an interface for LDAP group integration with OpenShift user management features
• The release of the watchman daemon that aids in the automation of common remedies to help administrators scale to the PaaS platform in a more efficient manner

OpenShift is currently available for download for customers in North America, UK, and Japan alongside a few other regions in Asia.

Helping developers get to their job and worry less

The advent of the DevOps paradigm has created a cultural expectation that development teams and operations teams mix their skillsets. This is often done by either having the two teams working in tandem or very close, or simply having part of the development team be part of operations (or any other hybrid thereof.) The result is developers often end up spending time away from what they signed on to do, namely develop.

Red Hat already produces powerful platforms such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and application platforms. So the company already has a foundation upon which good DevOps tools can be built and integrated.

By enhancing automation capability, OpenShift Enterprise aims at the core of the operational needs of DevOps; while adding plugin capability and configuration for roles and rules it provides for the core of the developmental needs of DevOps.