Red Hat Builds on PaaS With Partner Program

Red Hat Inc, the enterprise Linux company, is offering its partners an expansion of the OpenShift platform as a service (PaaS) partner program, complemented by an overhaul to the OpenShift Enterprise on-premise PaaS offering. The OpenShift Partner Program will now provide  new partner categories as Red Hat seeks to attract both new and existing partners to an expanding portfolio of open source cloud solutions.

Red Hat kicked off the OpenShift program in May of 2011 and today Red hat has seen the demand in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, virtualization and JBoss Middleware as the first step  in the growing demand for open PaaS and smart cloud technology. Likewise, this uptick has driven the development of the newly enhanced OpenShift Enterprise, which now delivers an on-premise cloud-based application platform with evolutionary  support for all cloud situations, including hybrid and public.

To accommodate the past-faced movement of cloud technology and the new flexibility of OpenShift, the OpenShift Partner Program now features:

• Community Partners: Red Hat is calling upon a community of developer partners to join up with OpenShift PaaS efforts. Using configuration “Cartridges” community members can build scripts and templates that allow extensions to the OpenShift platform. This small first step can be a boon to budding ISVs or an ideal attachment for solution providers that are looking to collaborate on building more open source solutions.
• Certified Partners: A step above the community partner rank, these partners will have access to existing OpenShift customers, allowing for a collaborative approach in offering a custom OpenShift solution. Red Hat is looking for partners with the capacity to deliver “a wide range of functionality that is complementary to OpenShift’s own PaaS Functionality” alongside the existing base of developmental frameworks and cloud management tools. Partners building at this level may also run their own solution sets on-premise with OpenShift Enterprise or hosted in the cloud via OpenShift web APIs.
• Powered by OpenShift Partners: Partners reaching this tier will be “actively using OpenShift to power their own software-as-a-service applications and solutions.” Dedicated partners will also gain insight into the OpenShift road map and can continue to build a close relationship with the Red Hat ecosystem and its partner community. Partners at this level are already qualified to dive into the new capabilities of OpenShift Enterprise.

Red Hats efforts are on track with its recent push to promote an open and Linux-based cloud ecosystem. Likewise, the timing for an expansion of PaaS partner technology is well placed, as Gartner pegs the PaaS market to hit nearly $3 billion come 2016.