Brian Stevens, CTO, Red Hat

Brian StevensRed Hat has long been considered the leading
enterprise Linux vendor. It’s a position that Red Hat CTO and Vice President
Engineering Brian Stevens is aiming to maintain.


Since its inception, Red Hat has striven to challenge the existing software
ecosystem. First with its namesake Red Hat Linux, which was discontinued in 2004 (and now continued in its Fedora Core distribution), as well as with its Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution which is currently at version 4.


The Linux vendor recently acquired middleware vendor JBoss in a $350 million deal that received mixed reviews from analysts.

Red Hat is now preparing its next major enterprise release, which is expected to be highlighted by its virtualization functionality.


Stevens recently sat down with internetnews.com to talk about what’s
coming from Red Hat and the challenges that it faces.

Q: What’s happening with RHEL 5 development? Is Alpha 1 out now?


RHEL 5 is currently targeted for release by the end of year. We actually took a different model this time.

We’re convinced that there is
a better way to develop software, so what we did is we blew up the notion of
an Alpha and we use Fedora as an alpha. The engineers are goaled on not just
producing enterprise quality software, but driving it through upstream in
terms of the community.


In the early days it was about providing a version of Linux that is
differentiated somehow; instead it’s now about how do we participate in the
upstream projects through Fedora.

FC 5 and FC6 constituted the role of an
alpha and now we’re going right to Beta 1 in a few weeks. By and large the
release driver is virtualization, which ripples everywhere and is much more
than just a hypervisor.


Q: Beyond the Virtualization hypervisor, what are you focusing your
virtualization efforts on in RHEL 5?


We’re trying to provide a really good user experience, so the first thing we
did is do define an API. Xen doesn’t have an API it allows users, IT and
even end users to build application to it.


So we started something called libvirt.org — which is not just a Red Hat thing — which took a cut at an API. Then we started building out on top of that.


We think virtualization is for more than just servers, it’s pretty powerful
for just an end user. On top of libvirt we’re creating we’re building all
the GUI capability to quickly create a VM {virtual machine}, lifecycle
management, resource migration, memory, CPU and monitoring.


Instead of just giving users the tools to manage virtualization, we’re also
building an API that allows other people to innovate.


What we’re doing with para-virt ops
is around a compatibility layer between a guest operating system
and the hypervisor.

Right now there is no well-defined API between the
Linux kernel and the hypervisor itself.


With VMware the API has always been you’ve got to work with a piece of x86
hardware. So our operating system running on VMware didn’t have to develop
to a different API.

We just make it work on Intel and if we get that right then
it should work in theory and we just have to test and certify.


Xen is very different and that’s why it’s disruptive. With
para-virtualizaiton Xen, let’s tell the operating system that we’re
virtualizing it and if we let it know that it can help us.


Now we need to have a model on how we further innovate that API cause there are
going to be new ideas. So now what’s happing is VMware has absolutely seen
the light of day and they want to support a para-virtualized version of their
hypervisor.

Q: How is the JBOSS integration coming?


It’s a hybrid integration model. There is a standalone division reporting
to Matthew Szulik with Marc Fleury [JBoss founder] as a general manager.


We quickly realized from both sides that there are some things that are very
natural to do. Everything we’ve built up in the last five years is about
how we deliver enterprise software to customers, how to leverage our ISVs, our
test grid matrix — everything that happens.


We’ve spent millions of dollars on this process automation, and we can bring
that to JBoss engineers. What we’re finding is that integration is happening
everywhere.

The engineering team at
JBoss has the vision, has mature technology, and that part is just running.
What we’re wrapping around that is delivery; our sales team has already been
integrated.

How can we as a service organization accelerate and add value to
what they are already doing?

Brian StevensQ: What’s your strategy on integrating traditionally non-standard OS items,
such as Real Time, into Red Hat’s products? Why not have standalone versions
specifically for different verticals?


We believe that it’s critical to deliver a unified platform, and that’s what
Enterprise Linux was all about.

When we did a survey, we found that Morgan
Stanley was using 18 different versions of Red Hat Linux, all modified
because the out-of-the-box didn’t give them what they needed.


Enterprise Linux is really a process of how do we actually standardize single
versions of Linux that can be used pervasively?

So the approach we had with
SELinux was not to build a Trusted Solaris knockoff. Our approach was let’s
develop the technology and then as the technology matures lets integrate it
into the unified platform instead of a separate stove-pipe offering.


Same thing is happening with telco. There were a lot of things we could have
done to approach the Nokias and Alcatels earlier, but it would have caused
us to go down a path of forking, in a very dramatic way, what is unified in
Linux capability today.

We chose to wait and invest in the technology. As we
can actually get the technology matured and integrate the telco requirements
into a standard platform, then we approach the market.

In Enterprise Linux 4
the capabilities for telco have arrived.


Real Time is very much around predictability and has very good response time.
I’d argue that you could talk to just about any customer in any vertical and
they’d care about faster response time and predictability.

I don’t think
that Real Time any longer is a class of an OS. In the old days you were
either Real Time or you were not.

Q: In terms of adoption of Red Hat, what are the obstacles you still
face in getting further penetration into the enterprise?

We’ve always been adamant believer that open source is a participatory
process that allows communities of use, collaboration. And the end result is
better software.


We’ve always been adamant that would apply to other areas beyond the Linux
kernel. I think that JBoss is a testament that the process works for what
was traditionally left to higher-value, non-commoditized components.


What we’re looking at is how do we actually create that collaborative
process in other areas and allow communities of use to form.


It’s no longer about the challenge of Linux. I don’t see the obstacle with
Linux other than just continued execution on our part.

Q: What are your biggest technology challenges as CTO?


It’s less around JBoss right now; it’s really around the fact that Red Hat
is investing in much more than just its enterprise roadmap.


Everything from OLPC [one laptop per child] to software-as-a-service-based
architectures.

Looking out and saying how do we continue to provide more value
to customers and I think in many cases that may mean disrupting ourselves
even.


What’s the path for delivering enterprise software? We’ve certainly proved
that there is value there but it’s my opinion that there are still ways that
we can improve that greatly.


I think there are opportunities to talk about the role of services and
service-managed software inside of an enterprise at a level they’ve never
seen before, perhaps even moving away from how we deliver subscriptions
today.


It’s beyond technology. It’s all the way through changing relationships with
partners. Time between releases — it’s still a very archaic 18-month grind.

I think that there are other ways that we can actually develop software more
collaboratively at a faster stride that doesn’t compromise on quality and
acceptance.


Q: What’s the big challenge that is left for Red Hat and Linux
in general to solve?


There is innovation happening all over the world. Our role should be a
catalyst for all of that to happen. The way everybody is doing this is still
very much a vendor-led direction.


We need to look instead at how do we broaden the infrastructure and the
process to allow collaboration and solutions to happen on a path that we
haven’t even foreseen.

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