Red Hat has unveiled OpenShift 4.18, bringing with it a suite of enhancements aimed at deepening the platform’s virtualization support and streamlining the management of both containers and virtual machines. Built on Kubernetes, this update reflects Red Hat’s ongoing effort to offer a unified, cloud-native application environment for traditional, virtualized, and containerized workloads.
One of the standout upgrades in OpenShift 4.18 is the general availability of User-Defined Networks (UDN). Previously a tech preview, UDN introduces support for custom Layer 2 and Layer 3 network segments as well as localnet configurations, significantly expanding OpenShift’s networking capabilities. With new Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) integration, UDN offers enhanced network segmentation, supporting static IP assignment for VMs and reinforcing multi-tenancy—crucial for enterprise environments.
OpenShift 4.18 also makes live storage migration for VMs generally available, allowing administrators to move virtual machine data between storage devices and classes without interrupting running workloads. Additional features include a tree-view UI for logically organizing VMs into folders and the introduction of the OpenShift Virtualization Engine—a streamlined version of OpenShift tailored specifically for VM-based applications. The update also expands bare-metal deployment support to Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud, adding to its existing AWS compatibility.
On the security front, Red Hat has introduced a Secret Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver, enhancing the way secrets are managed and consumed by applications. This feature enables workloads to securely access external secrets managers without storing secrets directly on the cluster. It works in concert with other OpenShift tools like GitOps and Pipelines, reinforcing Red Hat’s commitment to end-to-end security in the hybrid cloud era.