Red Hat is extending its Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform into the cloud space with the release of an OpenStack-based cloud computing service.

The service will combine the OpenStack cloud platform with the RHEL environment, allowing for OpenStack and Red Hat’s Linux build to operate together. In doing so, Red Hat is aiming to give developers and administrators a single platform for hybrid cloud deployments.

Red Hat believes that the combination of RHEL and OpenStack will provide a single server platform that can run on anything from on-premise datacentres to private cloud deployments and a public cloud service, simplifying the process of migrating deployments and porting applications between cloud and on-premise environments.

“The key element of this is from physical systems to purely virtualised machine and now the cloud,” said Red Hat president of products and technologies Paul Cormier.

“It is the ability to have that application consistency across those footprints.”

To help further advance the open cloud platform, Red Hat is launching a service known as Cloud Infrastructure. Designed to help firms move from on-premise datacentres to hybrid and public cloud deployments, the service will combine RHEL Server and OpenStack with the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation and CloudForms management platforms, creating a single service for managing and transitioning datacentres.

“Our goal with is to span the datacentre with these prods and platforms so we can support the same applications with the same consistencey across bare metal to a hybrid cloud and a public cloud,” said Cormier.

Red Hat said that both the cloud services would be reaching general availability to customers and service providers by July.

Additionally, the company unveiled an update for the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation platform. In addition to performance and management enhancements, the update will see the introduction of a third party plug-in platform and the addition of live storage migrations which will allow administrators to move servers without disrupting availability.