Red Hat Enhances Security and Virtualization Experience with Latest Version of Red Hat OpenShift

Red Hat, Inc., the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the general availability of Red Hat OpenShift 4.18, the latest version of the industry’s leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes. Red Hat OpenShift 4.18 introduces new features and capabilities designed to streamline operations and security across IT environments and deliver greater consistency to all applications, from cloud-native and AI-enabled to virtualized and traditional.

According to the Gartner® press release Top Trends Impacting Infrastructure and Operations for 2025, revirtualization/devirtualization is one of the top trends facing organizations for 2025. As shifts in the virtualization market require organizations to reevaluate their virtualized infrastructure and strategies, for many it is an opportunity to implement technologies that will both deliver on their current IT requirements as well as help them meet the needs of tomorrow. The latest enhancements to Red Hat OpenShift are designed to simplify the management of virtual machines and containers while providing organizations with a common infrastructure to bring their generative AI (gen AI) plans to life.

Enhanced virtualization experience

Red Hat OpenShift 4.18 introduces new virtualization enhancements that improve networking, simplify storage migration, and streamline VM management. These updates reduce operational complexity, enhance flexibility and improve resource efficiency -- making it easier to manage and adapt virtualized environments as needs evolve.

VM-friendly networking provides support for common VM networking use cases with the general availability of user-defined networks, making it easier for users to get their virtualization platform up and running. Also available with OpenShift on AWS and Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS, this allows users to have similar networking capabilities for secondary networks on AWS as they do on-premises, allowing for more hybrid cloud flexibility.

VM storage migration, available as a technology preview, now includes additional enhancements that allow for non-disruptive movement of data between storage devices and storage classes while a VM is running, enabling users to be more agile as storage needs change.

Tree-view navigation, available as a technology preview, enables users to logically group VMs into folders which allows for a more granular grouping. Additionally, with logical grouping, also available as a technology preview, users have a quicker and easier way to navigate between VMs using a single click.

Red Hat OpenShift 4.18 also enhances user-defined networks with Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which improves segmentation and supports advanced use cases like VM static IP assignment, live migration and stronger multi-tenancy.

Extending choice for greater hybrid cloud innovation

Red Hat OpenShift 4.18 expands support to additional public cloud providers, providing users with increased flexibility for how and where they choose to run their workloads. Red Hat OpenShift now supports bare-metal deployments on Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Additionally, for users looking for virtualization in the public cloud, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization is now available on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure as a technology preview.

Simplified operations for security

Red Hat OpenShift 4.18 introduces new security features designed to help drive more resilient operations while decreasing potential risks. Secret store container storage interface (CSI) driver is now generally available and provides users with a vendor-agnostic solution for managing credentials and sensitive information for applications. Workloads on Red Hat OpenShift can access external secrets managers without storing secrets on the cluster, enhancing overall security hygiene and simplifying credential management. This allows for clusters to remain unaware of secrets, thereby further reducing risk. Additionally, Secret Store CSI Driver enhances complementary solutions, such as OpenShift GitOps and OpenShift Pipelines, by enabling them to consume secrets from an external secrets manager in a more secure way.

Availability

Red Hat OpenShift 4.18 is now generally available. More information, including how to upgrade to the latest version, is available here.

Mike Barrett, vice president and general manager, Hybrid Cloud Platforms, Red Hat

Many organizations have reached an inflection point with their virtualized infrastructure, needing to make decisions quickly on their future direction. Red Hat OpenShift meets today’s virtualization needs and offers a simplified pathway to migration, but also enables organizations to keep an eye on the future via application modernization. With Red Hat OpenShift, organizations are able to protect their traditional investments while adopting a platform that enables them to seamlessly transition to an AI future.

Additional Resources

Learn more about Red Hat OpenShift 4.18

Read the blog about Red Hat OpenShift 4.18 What’s new for developers in Red Hat OpenShift 4.18

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. Red Hat helps customers integrate new and existing IT applications, develop cloud-native applications, standardize on our industry-leading operating system, and automate, secure, and manage complex environments. Award-winning support, training, and consulting services make Red Hat a trusted adviser to the Fortune 500. As a strategic partner to cloud providers, system integrators, application vendors, customers, and open source communities, Red Hat can help organizations prepare for the digital future.

IBM Acquires Kubecost, a Kubernetes Cost Monitoring Software Startup

On Tuesday, IBM announced the acquisition of Kubecost, a leading Kubernetes cost monitoring and optimization software startup company. This acquisition is part of IBM's strategy to enhance its FinOps capabilities, which focus on optimizing cloud costs and performance. Kubecost will be integrated into IBM's FinOps Suite, which already includes Cloudability and Turbonomic.

Founded in 2019, by Webb Brown and Ajay Tripathy, Kubecost provides real-time cost visibility and insights for Kubernetes environments, helping organizations manage and reduce their infrastructure spend.

This move follows IBM's acquisition of Apptio in 2023, further strengthening its position in the cloud cost management space.

Usage of Kubernetes is rapidly growing, with 84% of organizations using or evaluating the technology today.

FinOps, an operational framework and cultural practice which maximizes the business value of cloud, provides organizations with a viable and strategic approach to managing this workload complexity.

With this acquisition, IBM is showcasing its commitment to the growth of FinOps, both by setting the pace for innovation, as well as strategically bringing leading technologies together. The addition of Kubecost to IBM’s FinOps solutions deepens our commitment to FinOps teams, DevOps teams, and the open-source community as a whole.

Kubecost is IBM's 8th acquisition this year, till date. Last week, IBM announced acquisition of Accelalpha, a global Oracle services provider, enhancing IBM’s capabilities in Oracle Cloud Applications. Prior to this, the tech giant acquired SiXworks Limited, a UK-based consultancy specializing in digital transformation for the UK defense sector.

Arka Venture Labs Invests in Nirmata to Accelerate Mainstream Adoption of Cloud-native Technologies

Kubernetes management company secures funding from Arka Venture Labs to accelerate regional cloud-native adoption

Nirmata, the Day 2 Kubernetes company, is excited to announce venture investment from Arka Venture Labs, a fund that provides capital and mentorship to global B2B companies. This new investment will allow Nirmata to accelerate regional APAC expansion, across engineering, support, sales and market, securing its position as a leading pure-play Kubernetes management platform.

As enterprise- adoption of cloud-native technologies accelerates, they encounter significant challenges in Day 2 operations due to steep learning curves, infrastructure complexity and rapidly changing business requirements. A significant amount of time and effort is spent on ongoing operations of Kubernetes clusters and applications. This problem is compounded by rapid increase in hybrid and multi-cloud adoption, especially in recent times.  

Nirmata enables enterprises to eliminate this undifferentiated heavy lifting, allowing precious development and operations resources to focus on delivering mission critical applications that delight customers. Recently, Nirmata in partnership with Amazon announced a new product offering, the Nirmata EKS Manager, which eliminates several Day 2 challenges faced by Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service users. Nirmata EKS Manager is available in the AWS marketplace.

“My co-founders and I started Nirmata to democratize cloud-native technologies.”, says Jim Bugwadia who is a founder and the CEO of Nirmata. “As developers across the globe adopt Kubernetes, Nirmata is well positioning to solve the cloud-native application management complexities across multiple Kubernetes clusters and cloud providers, without lock-in and unnecessary abstractions.”

Arka Venture Labs invests in B2B tech companies between India and the US corridor. In addition to providing capital, the group works closely with the companies by providing expert mentorship, networking opportunities, infrastructure support and connections to valley ecosystems.

We liked the strong credentials of the founders and their ability to provide a complete solution to solve the Day 2 Kubernetes problem of some of the Fortune 500 companies with their patented platform. says Radhesh Kanumury, Managing Partner, Arka Venture Labs.

Nirmata was started by Jim Bugwadia, Ritesh Patel and Damien Toledo, a team with more than 50 years of experience building enterprise products that simplify IT operations. The Nirmata team has been helping enterprises deliver and support cloud-native applications for more than six years. 

About the Company

Nirmata is a unified management plane for Kubernetes clusters and workloads built for enterprise DevOps teams. Nirmata enables self-service cluster provisioning, provides visibility, health, metrics, and alerts, ensures compliance via workload policies, and streamlines application deployments across clusters. 

About the Venture
Arka Venture Labs is the first of its kind India-US cross-border accelerator fund that has been launched with three VC firms coming in as Anchor LPs. They are Blume Ventures, Benhamou Global Ventures (BGV), and Emergent Ventures. They are open to B2B startups with a strong growth in the US, backed by strong core technology and economic differentiators.  It started 2 years back and has invested in 9 companies so far

Helm Chart Repositories are Re-Defining Kubernetes Development Environments

Helm chart repositories are redefining the modern Kubernetes programming environment. Kubernetes clustering framework is increasingly garnering more interest amongst modern development teams. Currently, there are over 2,000 active contributors to Kubernetes repositories, making up over 8,000 total commits. Over 60% of modern IT professionals are using two or more container orchestration tools in order to enhance development procedures. Helm chart repositories offer modern development teams several resources to improve the quality, accuracy, and speed of Kubernetes programming.

Helm repositories are essential for local, remote, and virtual chart support. Once integrated into your Kubernetes build, you can immediately take advantage of several programming features to accelerate your overall program results. If you are interested in deploying an advanced, modern solution into your next software program, read on to learn about the top ways a Helm chart repository improves Kubernetes programming.

Enhance Privacy

Helm chart repositories enhance security and privacy across the development of your Kubernetes program. Within a Helm repository installed, your development team can take advantage of several advanced security features.

For example, Helm repository limit users' ability to view resources through specific credentials or cluster-wide authorizations. This ensures that developers only access materials they are qualified to be working with. At the same time, lead developers can utilize remote repositories in order to proxy and cache remote, public Helm charts, and aggregate local and remote resources. Consider Helm chart repositories to improve privacy across Kubernetes programming. 

Deliver High Availability

Helm chart repositories deliver high availability across the duration of your Kubernetes programming lifecycle. Helm repositories are extremely accessible, even for remote development teams. All of your remote resources can be found within a centralized, virtual Helm repository. Here, development teams can access, organize, and aggregate their Helm charts from a single URL. In order to enhance the availability across software development, integrate a Helm repository to improve Kubernetes programming. 

Improve System Access Control

Helm chart repositories improve system access control throughout the course of Kubernetes development. With an integrated Helm repository, you can access multiple role-based access control features within your system. Helm charts allow you to grant privileged operations to administrators. These are essential for development teams looking to build on secure and reliable ecosystems. Privileged operations allow you to create new resources or roles cluster-wide for your software program. At the same time, Helm repositories restrict the ability to create new resources like deployments, pods, or volumes to specific developers.

At the same time, you can enable these access restrictions through cluster-wide codes like roles, custom definitions, and resource quotas. Integrating an automated Helm repository into your Kubernetes program helps you strengthen system access control. 

Scalable For Enterprise Repository Management

Helm chart repositories are scalable for enterprise repository management. Scalable systems largely improve Kubernetes programming for modern development teams. Helm charts storage access cloud solutions in order to maximize efficiency. Cloud-based providers can help you balance a hybrid storage system using both cloud and on-premise locations. At the same time, Helm repositories offer replication options that are able to support any network infrastructure. This enhances the performance of geographically distant sites, as well as protecting against disaster recovery. Development teams utilizing Helm chart repositories can enhance the scalability of their Kubernetes programs for enterprise ready management. 

Deploy Automated Development Solutions  

Programming with Helm chart repositories allows you to deploy automated solutions towards your Kubernetes programming. Artifactories allow you to deploy automated Helm charts to your Kubernetes clusters. Automated solutions help you simplify and optimize needed scripts for your program. With automated software development, these scrips can run more efficient, operate more readable, and be easier to maintain across your system. Through the proper deployment of automated Helm charts, your development team can deliver an optimized, fully-automated software program. Consider integrating Helm charts into your development team in order to take advantage of automated solutions. 

Using a Helm chart repository offers several features for developers to improve programming. Through adding a reliable Helm chart to your Kubernetes programming environment, you can take advantage of several key development features. Helm charts enhance program security and privacy. Using these repositories delivers high availability across the lifecycle of your program.

At the same time, Helm charts repository system access control throughout development and deployment. Helm charts are scalable for enterprise-ready repository management. Furthermore, Helm charts allow you to take advantage of automated Kubernetes programming solutions. Consider the points mentioned above to learn more about the essential ways a Helm chart repository improves Kubernetes programming. 

Helm Chart Repositories are Re-Defining Kubernetes Development Environments

Helm chart repositories are redefining the modern Kubernetes programming environment. Kubernetes clustering framework is increasingly garnering more interest amongst modern development teams. Currently, there are over 2,000 active contributors to Kubernetes repositories, making up over 8,000 total commits. Over 60% of modern IT professionals are using two or more container orchestration tools in order to enhance development procedures. Helm chart repositories offer modern development teams several resources to improve the quality, accuracy, and speed of Kubernetes programming.

Helm repositories are essential for local, remote, and virtual chart support. Once integrated into your Kubernetes build, you can immediately take advantage of several programming features to accelerate your overall program results. If you are interested in deploying an advanced, modern solution into your next software program, read on to learn about the top ways a Helm chart repository improves Kubernetes programming.

Enhance Privacy

Helm chart repositories enhance security and privacy across the development of your Kubernetes program. Within a Helm repository installed, your development team can take advantage of several advanced security features.

For example, Helm repository limit users' ability to view resources through specific credentials or cluster-wide authorizations. This ensures that developers only access materials they are qualified to be working with. At the same time, lead developers can utilize remote repositories in order to proxy and cache remote, public Helm charts, and aggregate local and remote resources. Consider Helm chart repositories to improve privacy across Kubernetes programming. 

Deliver High Availability

Helm chart repositories deliver high availability across the duration of your Kubernetes programming lifecycle. Helm repositories are extremely accessible, even for remote development teams. All of your remote resources can be found within a centralized, virtual Helm repository. Here, development teams can access, organize, and aggregate their Helm charts from a single URL. In order to enhance the availability across software development, integrate a Helm repository to improve Kubernetes programming. 

Improve System Access Control

Helm chart repositories improve system access control throughout the course of Kubernetes development. With an integrated Helm repository, you can access multiple role-based access control features within your system. Helm charts allow you to grant privileged operations to administrators. These are essential for development teams looking to build on secure and reliable ecosystems. Privileged operations allow you to create new resources or roles cluster-wide for your software program. At the same time, Helm repositories restrict the ability to create new resources like deployments, pods, or volumes to specific developers.

At the same time, you can enable these access restrictions through cluster-wide codes like roles, custom definitions, and resource quotas. Integrating an automated Helm repository into your Kubernetes program helps you strengthen system access control. 

Scalable For Enterprise Repository Management

Helm chart repositories are scalable for enterprise repository management. Scalable systems largely improve Kubernetes programming for modern development teams. Helm charts storage access cloud solutions in order to maximize efficiency. Cloud-based providers can help you balance a hybrid storage system using both cloud and on-premise locations. At the same time, Helm repositories offer replication options that are able to support any network infrastructure. This enhances the performance of geographically distant sites, as well as protecting against disaster recovery. Development teams utilizing Helm chart repositories can enhance the scalability of their Kubernetes programs for enterprise ready management. 

Deploy Automated Development Solutions  

Programming with Helm chart repositories allows you to deploy automated solutions towards your Kubernetes programming. Artifactories allow you to deploy automated Helm charts to your Kubernetes clusters. Automated solutions help you simplify and optimize needed scripts for your program. With automated software development, these scrips can run more efficient, operate more readable, and be easier to maintain across your system. Through the proper deployment of automated Helm charts, your development team can deliver an optimized, fully-automated software program. Consider integrating Helm charts into your development team in order to take advantage of automated solutions. 

Using a Helm chart repository offers several features for developers to improve programming. Through adding a reliable Helm chart to your Kubernetes programming environment, you can take advantage of several key development features. Helm charts enhance program security and privacy. Using these repositories delivers high availability across the lifecycle of your program.

At the same time, Helm charts repository system access control throughout development and deployment. Helm charts are scalable for enterprise-ready repository management. Furthermore, Helm charts allow you to take advantage of automated Kubernetes programming solutions. Consider the points mentioned above to learn more about the essential ways a Helm chart repository improves Kubernetes programming.