Microsoft Open Source Blog 
To compete in today’s business climate, IT departments are being asked to help their teams increase innovation while reducing costs, create environments to scale up and down flexibly, and give their organizations the tools necessary to meet increasingly global customer needs. To help accomplish these outcomes, many are moving their workloads to the cloud, while trying to figure out how to do so with minimum hassle or downtime. Moving Red Hat Enterprise Linux workloads (RHEL) to Microsoft Azure offers a unique combination of benefits — here are the top three to keep in mind.
Multi-layered security for the hybrid enterprise
It seems like every other week, we’re hearing of new security breaches that rattle networks and keep IT managers awake at night. To help keep their organizations secure, many IT professionals choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux for its military-grade security promise. Red Hat on Azure combines the security of Red Hat with the security of Azure, offering compliance coverage and more certifications than any other cloud provider, with security and privacy built in. Red Hat on Azure also offers:
- Encrypting communications and operations processes, using industry-standard transport protocols between user devices and Microsoft datacenters, and a wide range of encryption capabilities for data at rest.
- Network infrastructure to securely connect virtual machines to one another and to connect on-premises datacenters with Azure VMs, blocking unauthorized traffic to and within Microsoft datacenters using a variety of technologies.
- Threat management that is second-to-none, offering Microsoft antimalware for cloud services and virtual machines, as well as intrusion protection, denial-of-service (DDoS) attack prevention, and regular penetration testing, plus data analytics and machine learning tools to mitigate threats.
If you’re interested in learning more about the security features of Microsoft Azure, visit our Trust Center.
Easily manage your infrastructure
When it comes to managing infrastructure, IT departments need to develop solutions that fit their unique, evolving needs. They also need to ensure their teams can get started quickly with their existing investments and skills. Azure offers unique flexibility for your team in managing architecture, payment structure, and portability. As a true hybrid solution, structure your workloads in a way that increases efficiencies and productivity, keeping some on-premises and scaling others to the cloud. Whether you use a Linux or mixed Linux and Windows environment, you can manage your platforms with skills you are already familiar with. For example, you can use the CLI (command line interface) to manage your infrastructure in Azure just like you already do in your current Red Hat environment. Regarding payment models, choose from PAYG (pay as you go) or BYOS (bring your own subscription) options. And because Azure is a Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider, moving your Red Hat subscriptions to Azure is simple.
Integrated support for truly open source deployments
Few experiences frustrate IT managers more than working with multiple vendors during urgent support issues, and trying to get them all on the same page to solve problems. When you deploy Red Hat workloads on Azure, you can avoid this frustration because Red Hat customers get fully integrated support with co-located Red Hat and Microsoft engineers and support teams.
Red Hat and Microsoft designed an integrated Ticket Exchange Program that creates a joint workflow and initiates coordinated support by our teams of engineers across 18 regions to offer timely and effective resolution. This integrated support experience is integrated into the Azure Portal, with an ISO 27001-compliant back channel.
“One of the most impactful aspects of this partnership is the integrated support, including co-located resources,” says Richard Hum, studio head at Throwback Entertainment. He noted that his team was “surprised that Red Hat open source and Azure support resided in the same office.”
At the same time, RHEL on Azure is a truly open source environment—you get comprehensive support with interoperability across a variety of leading open source tools, frameworks, and services. Azure Marketplace is a one-stop resource that helps your team develop leading-edge products that advance your business and satisfy customers.
Want to learn more about the Red Hat solution offerings on Azure? Check out the Red Hat Solutions on Azure on-demand webinar.