Red Hat and Google Cloud have navigated open source skies as contributors within some of the same community projects since 2010. That common ground – fuelled by a commitment to containers – has helped to evolve Red Hat’s relationship with Google Cloud into the collaboration we know today.

In addition to its first interactions within Linux-based open source projects, Red Hat was an early supporter of Kubernetes, a Google-initiated open source project and now the de facto standard for container orchestration.

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation took over management of Kubernetes upstream project in 2015. Google and Red Hat remain extensively involved in the community as first and second leading contributors, respectively, and as co-chairs of several special interest groups. 

What had been a casual relationship was made official in 2013 when Google became a Red Hat partner. Today they are a Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider (CCSP), and together they focus on delivering flexible, hybrid cloud solutions that help organisations transform their IT infrastructure and operations to be more modern, agile and digital. 

The Kubernetes community work is made available for the enterprise with Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, one of the industry’s most comprehensive enterprise Kubernetes platforms.

It allows teams to manage their containerised applications with a single consistent platform, making it easier to build and deploy production applications on premises and across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, including Google Cloud.

Other Red Hat collaborations with Google Cloud for hybrid cloud environments include:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Google Cloud Platform, which is designed to provide a consistent foundation for the enterprise hybrid cloud and a reliable, high performance operating environment for applications and cloud infrastructure
• Red Hat Ansible Automation on Google Cloud Platform, which can resolve issues faster and more efficiently, creating more time for bigger issues and making automation an attainable goal; and Red Hat Cloud Access. 

So where do they go from here? The formula for Red Hat and Google Cloud success remains rooted in open source beginnings: a shared vision and commitment to projects and solutions that help solve challenges for customers.