Red Hat and Alibaba Cloud join forces to bring increased flexibility with open source

Alibaba Cloud joins Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider Program; Companies collaborating to benefit customers moving to the public cloud

RALEIGH, N.C. AND HANGZHOU, CHINA — October 11, 2017 —

Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, and Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA), today announced that they will join forces to bring the power and flexibility of Red Hat’s open source solutions to Alibaba Cloud’s customers around the globe.

Our customers not only want greater performance, flexibility, security, and portability for their cloud initiatives; they also want the freedom of choice for their heterogeneous infrastructures. They want to be able to deploy their technologies of choice on their scalable infrastructure of choice. - MIKE FERRISVICE PRESIDENT, TECHNICAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND BUSINESS ARCHITECTURE, RED HAT

Alibaba Cloud is now part of the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider program, joining a group of technology industry leaders who offer Red Hat-tested and validated solutions that extend the functionality of Red Hat's broad portfolio of open source cloud solutions. The partnership extends the reach of Red Hat’s offerings across the top public clouds globally, providing a scalable destination for cloud computing and reiterating Red Hat’s commitment to providing greater choice in the cloud.

In the coming months, Red Hat solutions will be available directly to Alibaba Cloud customers, enabling them to take advantage of the full value of Red Hat’s broad portfolio of open source cloud solutions. Alibaba Cloud intends to offer Red Hat Enterprise Linux in a pay-as-you-go model in the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace.

By joining the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider program, Alibaba Cloud has signified that it is a destination for Red Hat customers, independent software vendors (ISVs) and partners to enable them to benefit from Red Hat offerings in public clouds. These will be provided under innovative consumption and service models with the greater confidence that Red Hat product experts have validated the solutions. Launched in 2009, the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider Program is designed to assemble the solutions cloud providers need to plan, build, manage and offer hosted cloud solutions and Red Hat technologies to customers. The Certified Cloud Provider designation is awarded to Red Hat partners following validation by Red Hat. Each provider meets testing and certification requirements to demonstrate that they can deliver a safe, scalable, supported and consistent environment for enterprise cloud deployments.

In addition, in the coming months, Red Hat customers will be able to move eligible, unused Red Hat subscriptions from their datacenter to Alibaba Cloud, China’s largest public cloud service provider, using Red Hat Cloud Access. Red Hat Cloud Access is an innovative "bring-your-own-subscription" benefit available from select Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Providers that enables customers to move eligible Red Hat subscriptions from on-premise to public clouds. Red Hat Cloud Access also enables customers to maintain a direct relationship with Red Hat - including the ability to receive full support from Red Hat's award-winning Global Support Services organization, enabling customers to maintain a consistent level of service across certified hybrid deployment infrastructures.

Supporting Quotes

Mike Ferris, vice president, Technical Business Development and Business Architecture, Red Hat

“Our customers not only want greater performance, flexibility, security, and portability for their cloud initiatives; they also want the freedom of choice for their heterogeneous infrastructures. They want to be able to deploy their technologies of choice on their scalable infrastructure of choice. That is Red Hat’s vision and the focus of the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider Program. By working with Alibaba Cloud, we’re helping to bring more choice and flexibility to customers as they deploy Red Hat’s open source solutions across their cloud environments.”

Yeming Wang, deputy general manager of Alibaba Cloud Global, Alibaba Cloud

“As enterprises in China, and throughout the world, look to modernize application environments, a full-lifecycle solution by Red Hat on Alibaba Cloud can provide customers higher flexibility and agility. We look forward to working with Red Hat to help enterprise customers with their journey of scaling workloads to Alibaba Cloud.”