Red Hat and Microsoft have agreed on a partnership around hybrid cloud, with the aim of putting Red Hat products on Microsoft Azure and for Microsoft to offer Red Hat Enterprise Linux as an option on Azure alongside Windows. In addition, Microsoft and Red Hat will also work together to create solutions for enterprise, ISVs and developers for building, deploying and managing applications on Red Hat software across private and public clouds.

The agreement will see Red Hat and Microsoft partnering on the delivery of hybrid cloud solutions, starting with Red Hat delivering its products on Azure, first with Red Hat Cloud Access on Azure – delivered today - and in the following months, with products offered in a pay-as-you-go model on Azure. 

A key feature for hybrid cloud developers with the new Red Hat Cloud Access on Azure is the ability for organisations to move eligible, unused Red Hat subscriptions from their data centre to Azure and any existing support relationship with Red Hat will also move with them to Azure.

In the coming weeks, Microsoft Azure will become a Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider, allowing organisations to run their Red Hat Enterprise Linux applications and workloads on Microsoft Azure. Red Hat Cloud Access subscribers will also be able to bring their own virtual machine images to run in Microsoft Azure.

Additionally Microsoft Azure users will be able to access Red Hat’s application platform, including Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, Red Hat JBoss Web Server, Red Hat Gluster Storage and OpenShift, Red Hat’s platform-as-a-service offering and in the coming months to provide Red Hat On-Demand with “pay-as-you-go” Red Hat Enterprise Linux images available in the Azure Marketplace, supported by Red Hat.

In a blog post Paul Cormier, President, Products and Technologies, Red Hat said, “Today, it is incredibly likely that where you once found “Red Hat shops” and “Microsoft shops,” you’ll find heterogeneous environments that include solutions from both companies. We heard from customers and partners that they wanted our solutions to work together - with consistent APIs, frameworks, management, and platforms. They not only wanted Red Hat offerings on Microsoft Azure, they wanted to be able to build .NET applications on infrastructure powered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux, including OpenShift, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform.”