The role of applications has changed dramatically. In the past, applications were running businesses, but primarily relegated to the background. They were critical, but more operational in the sense that they kept businesses running, more or less. Today, organizations can use applications as a competitive advantage. In fact, a well-developed, well-timed application can disrupt an entire industry. Just take a look at the hotel, taxi, and movie rental industries respectively.
This can put more pressure on IT leaders. Not only do they have to continue to run their daily business as efficiently as possible, but may also need to liberate resources to help drive innovation. In other words, “do more with less.” As a result, many are looking at ways to increase productivity and some are turning to modern development tools such as DevOps, containers, and microservices. When making strategic decisions such as these, the technology, and infrastructure, should adapt to the needs of the business. Both now, and in the future.
When talking about infrastructure that can evolve as the business evolves, the answer is often the cloud. However, when assessing application development technology that provides flexibility and enables IT leaders to better anticipate needs, it becomes a little more vague. This is where Red Hat and Microsoft can come in.
Microsoft and Red Hat have teamed up to offer Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (JBoss EAP) on Microsoft Azure. JBoss EAP is a modern application server that is designed to provide a modular cloud-ready architecture, powerful management and automation, and developer productivity. It offers support and deployment flexibility for Java EE, whether on-premise, virtual, or hybrid cloud environments. In addition, JBoss EAP is designed to fulfill the demands of modern applications in the areas of process, infrastructure, and architecture by delivering support for DevOps, hybrid cloud, and microservices, respectively.
JBoss EAP is the cornerstone of Red Hat’s focus on and commitment to enterprise application development, and serves as the foundation for Red Hat’s portfolio of cloud-ready middleware products. A portfolio that includes technology business rules (BRMS) and business process management (BPMS) capabilities. Combined with Microsoft’s enterprise-grade cloud computing platform, collectively, these solutions can deliver a diverse, open, lightweight, enterprise capable application development platform.
SCSK Corporation is a Japanese system integrator that designs and implements Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. The company used Red Hat JBoss BRMS to develop its own IoT platform, which it offers on Microsoft Azure, that is designed to filter, store, analyze, and visualize data sent from devices and sensors. Organizations can analyze large volumes of IoT data to help make better business decisions. This requires a more reliable, scalable, and robust platform. When asked if JBoss BRMS was chosen because of its complex event processing (CEP) engine, Naoaki Kato, Engineer in the SCSK Middleware Unit responded: “Yes, but there was one more important factor: the fact that it is a Red Hat product. Red Hat products have a strong track record in the enterprise market, and Red Hat offers great support.”
I had the privilege of discussing the partnership with numerous attendees at Microsoft Ignite 2017 and believe that the partnership has been well received. To wrap with another quote from Naoaki Kato, SCSK: “The Microsoft–Red Hat partnership was really great news for the enterprise market.”
* The use of the word ‘partnership’ does not mean a legal partnership or any other form of legal relationship between Red Hat and Microsoft.
