The latest version of Red Hat OpenShift improves security, simplifies virtualization management, and supports the deployment of AI applications in hybrid and sovereign cloud environments.
Red Hat is leveraging Kubecon and Cloudnativecon in Atlanta to make OpenShift 4.20 generally available. The update for the Kubernetes-based platform emphasizes enhanced security, support for AI workloads, and more extensive virtualization features. With this, the company aims to help organizations manage their IT environments more consistently.
Security and Management
In OpenShift 4.20, security has been further enhanced, including initial support for post-quantum cryptography in mTLS traffic between control plane components. This step is intended to better protect communication within the platform against future cryptographic threats.
Additionally, the release offers more operational flexibility and extra security tools for OpenShift Platform Plus customers. For example, Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security 4.9 and improvements to Trusted Artifact Signer and Trusted Profile Analyzer are generally available. Later this year, a zero-trust workload identity manager will also be introduced, which can validate user and machine identities within federated infrastructures.
With the new features, Red Hat focuses on more control and efficiency, such as support for proprietary OpenID Connect environments, a sidecar-less ambient mode in OpenShift Service Mesh to reduce encryption and observation costs, and an External Secrets Operator for cluster-wide secret management.
AI and Virtualization Projects
The update also offers new capabilities to bring AI workloads to production faster. The LeaderWorkerSet (LWS) API simplifies the management of distributed AI tasks, while the use of image volume source accelerates the deployment of new models without container rebuilds. Additionally, developers can manage clusters via tools like Visual Studio Code using Model Context Protocol.
Virtualization functionality has also been further expanded. CPU-load-aware rebalancing and Arm support improve the performance of virtual machines, while extended bare-metal support now also includes Oracle Cloud. With improved storage offloading, the migration path from traditional virtualization environments to OpenShift Virtualization is accelerated.
Red Hat OpenShift 4.20 is available now for existing and new users.