Red Hat OpenShift 4.18 enhances virtual machine support, multicloud capabilities

Red Hat has launched OpenShift 4.18, the latest version of its Kubernetes-based application platform, with new features to improve the management of virtual machines and containers as well as to enhance consistency across cloud-native, VM-based, and traditional applications, InfoWorld reports.

Among the key upgrades in OpenShift 4.18 is that user-defined networks have entered general availability. UDN introduces advanced networking features by allowing custom Layer 2, Layer 3, and local network segments for container pods and VMs through the default OpenShift OVN-Kubernetes networking.

Meanwhile, the addition of Border Gateway Protocol support strengthens segmentation, enabling VM static IP assignment and enhancing multitenancy.

In addition, Red Hat has introduced the OpenShift Virtualization Engine, designed specifically for running VMs, and expanded support for bare-metal OpenShift deployments to the Google Cloud Platform and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, adding to existing support on Amazon Web Services.

New security features include a secret container storage interface driver that allows workloads to access external secrets managers without storing sensitive data on the cluster, reducing security risks. This enhancement benefits solutions such as OpenShift GitOps and OpenShift Pipelines by providing more secure access to external secrets.