Why choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Google Cloud?

Google Cloud Platform is an adaptable, scalable solution that helps customers on their cloud migration journey deliver innovation faster. Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® is the stable, security-focused operating system that serves as the foundation for business operations in the datacenter, the cloud, and all the way to the edge. Together, they ensure businesses have the flexibility and compute power for a wide range of workloads.

Your business has a persistent need to balance today’s demands with the future direction of your industry. A platform becomes a liability when it fits your current requirements but doesn’t give you the option for significant change in the future. Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud approach helps you prepare for that future wherever your data lives, with the same management tools, the same security, and the same capabilities on premise or in the cloud. Whether you’re moving fully to the cloud, or still plan to maintain your own infrastructure, standardizing on Red Hat Enterprise Linux gives you a firm foundation for your development lifecycle, without locking you into a single vendor or solution.

Cloud challenges

Your organization’s needs are unique, and there are a lot of reasons you may be making a move to the cloud (or considering one): 

• You might want to develop applications in the cloud while you keep your secure data on-premise. 
• You might want an environment that operates in a consistent way, regardless of where it’s deployed, to limit the need for staff retraining. 
• You might need to scale up or down quickly across a multicloud footprint. 
• You might want a platform that enables real-time monitoring and remediation of threats. 
• You might operate in several different markets, each with different compliance requirements.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the world’s most popular Linux distribution because it combines the ingenuity of the open source community with the stability and security of enterprise-level support, allowing you to tackle these challenges and more. Running Red Hat Enterprise Linux in Google Cloud brings additional benefits in the form of Google’s highly available cloud architecture and hardened security.
 

More than just a 2023 Google Cloud partner of the year, Red Hat’s close relationship with Google goes back more than a decade. As a result of that long-lasting partnership, customers using Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Google Cloud get the best of both platforms, gaining access to the expansive Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog, as well as Google’s comprehensive suite of cloud tools, all natively integrated and optimized to work together. 

Security, monitoring, and compliance tools

The security landscape changes daily, with new threats constantly on the horizon. Red Hat Enterprise Linux gives you the tools to stay ahead of malicious actors, and keep your data and environment safe, including:

• Security upgrades and patches with live kernel patching for critical applications – no reboots required.
• Live monitoring with Red Hat Insights, a utility that regularly analyzes your environment, identifies vulnerabilities, and helps you address them before they result in downtime.
• Predefined or custom allowlisting for the trusted programs you rely on in your environment.
• Modernized encryption with customizable settings to meet compliance requirements wherever your data lives.
• Verified security certifications to meet federal information processing standards (FIPS) and Common Criteria Certification.

In addition, security profiles for all new versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Google Cloud are tested extensively to ensure they run in hybrid and multicloud environments.

Brief: Red Hat Enterprise Linux security and compliance 

Portability

Applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux can be moved to and from Google Cloud as needed, giving you the flexibility to respond to changing business needs without the complication of changing platforms. If you have an existing, on-premise Red Hat subscription, you can move it to Google Cloud with the Red Hat Cloud Access program, letting you make the most of your existing investment. 

Flexibility and integration

Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Google Cloud gives you access to the image builder tool, which lets you customize and replicate your ideal deployment environment at scale. You can also take advantage of Red Hat’s library of OCI-compliant container images in its Universal Base Images (UBI) library, or use Red Hat-certified gold images to spin up tested, reliable new instances with greater speed.

Along with native support for open source container tools like Podman, Buildah, and Skopeo,  you can extend Red Hat Enterprise Linux further through the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog, which features hundreds of open source solutions from our certified partners, all deployable across your hybrid cloud. 

Improved performance for SAP workloads

In competitive markets, your ability to respond quickly to new information is critical. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions on Google Cloud, you can take advantage of easier deployments for your SAP applications and databases on SAP-certified cloud instances. This translates to major speed advantages, with users posting 63% faster query completion and 77% faster analytics reports on Google BigQuery¹. SAP workloads on Google Cloud are optimized for Google Compute Engine services, delivering reliability and power to support your enterprise resource planning needs. 

Billing and savings

There are a variety of ways to purchase Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Google Cloud, and several opportunities to reduce your costs. Buy directly from the Google Cloud Marketplace for pay-as-you-go pricing, which allows you to retire your Google Cloud committed spend and take advantage of additional discounts on predictable workloads through Google's Committed Use Discount (CUD) in one-year and three-year terms. For predictable workloads with little variation, purchasing under this program can lead to significant cost savings. Participants in the Red Hat Hybrid Committed Spend program can supplement those savings by drawing against their Red Hat committed spend for Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Google Cloud. A Red Hat sales representative can help you maximize your value. 

Whether you’re migrating from CentOS, or you’re currently using Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we’ve made it easy for you to move to Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Google Cloud. You have flexibility when it comes to the type of images you use and how you pay for them. Select a Red Hat product to learn how to use it on Google Cloud in a way that fits your needs.

Already have Red Hat Enterprise Linux? Keep all the benefits of your Red Hat subscription — including our award-winning support — while operating on Google Cloud with Red Hat Cloud Access. 

Already use Google Cloud? Use your Google committed spend toward the purchase of Red Hat Enterprise Linux to take advantage of the committed use discount program when making the purchase on the Google Cloud Marketplace. 

New to both? Check out all your options to get started with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Google Cloud.

¹IDC Business Value Snapshot, sponsored by Google Cloud. “The Value of BigQuery from Google Cloud for SAP Customers,” July 2021