Linux on Azure

Updated August 8, 2024•3-minute read
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OverviewWhat is Linux on Azure?Linux on Azure benefitsRed Hat Enterprise Linux on Azure

To encourage innovation and move offerings to market faster, an increasing number of enterprises are using public cloud resources to build their hybrid cloud environments. These environments combine cloud resources with on-premise infrastructure to help increase security, control costs, and more effectively manage resources and resource availability.    

Microsoft Azure is apublic cloud platform with the ability to build, manage, and run applications across clouds, on premise, and at theedge. However, a cloud-based system like Azure requires a reliable, stable, and security-focused operating system (OS)—and many enterprises are choosing to runLinux® on the platform.

What is Linux on Azure?

Linux is a popular OS choice for the cloud due to itsopen source development model. It gives enterprises freedom, flexibility, and consistency. Using Linux, your organization can avoid being locked in to a specific technology environment or vendor, and you can more easily accommodate different infrastructure types and operating models. 

Azure offers a variety of Linux distributions on its cloud marketplace, called Azure Marketplace. You can also provide your own Linux image if the distribution isn’t currently available. 

Larger organizations with critical applications and systems often need enterprise-grade features, capabilities, and support that nonpaid Linux distributions don’t provide. An enterprise Linux solution not only helps your organization move to cloud environments—including Azure—it helps you reduce complexity, scale more smoothly, and operate more cost-efficiently. For example, developers using Azure can choose from a variety of tools to create applications and deploy them on supported Linux virtual machines (VMs).

Take a detailed approach to your hybrid cloud strategy

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The benefits of running Linux on Azure

Moving to a connected hybrid cloud environment can be complex. You must consider many factors: How can you maintain a production-grade environment? After moving a workload to the cloud, how do you maintain oversight and manage it? How do you protect your organization’s data?

By standardizing on Linux, your enterprise can confidently migrate workloads to Azure knowing you’ll retain existing processes and business practices―and your IT staff can apply their same knowledge and skills―between on-premise and cloud environments.

If your organization requires enterprise-grade Linux, standardizing on an enterprise Linux distribution canincrease your return on investment (ROI), reduce unplanned downtime, and also speed up security updates. But be sure to choose your enterprise Linux distribution carefully. It should give Azure users flexibility and scalability, along with:

  • Innovation from the open source community.
  • Consistency across on-premise, cloud, and hybrid infrastructure.
  • The ability to migrate to the cloud with less complexity.
  • Container portability.
  • Continuous patches and updates to improve security, especially for critical applications and systems. 

It’s also important to balance the flexibility and scalability you get from Linux on Azure with the need to maintain security, manageability, and reliability. But an enterprise Linux distribution that’s hardened for security can help you find that balance. 

Why Red Hat and Microsoft Azure work well together

Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Azure

Together, Red Hat® Enterprise Linux and Azure provide a mix of flexibility and consistency. This allows organizations to embrace hybrid cloud and innovation with the same level of security, scalability, manageability, and reliability that Red Hat users have come to expect on premise.

With Red Hat and Microsoft, you can quickly deploy a security-focused, reliable, and flexible hybrid cloud environment that positions your organization for success in fast-changing, competitive markets.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Azure lets you extend your existing datacenter into a connected cloud environment to address a variety of needs and use cases:

  • Rapidly launch and scale applications.
  • Improve reliability, security, and performance with tested and certified interoperability across on-premise and cloud environments.
  • Protect your data, applications, infrastructure, and business with advanced, integrated security features that work across your hybrid environment.
  • Integrate traditional on-premise applications and cloud-native workloads with a consistent, hybrid foundation.
  • Run cloud-native applications on premise to meet latency and connectivity requirements for edge and disconnected solutions.

Red Hat and Microsoft back Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Azure with tightly integrated support. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is available integrated on Azure in standalone deployments, and as versions designed specifically for SAP and SQL Server.

Why choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Azure

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Why choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Azure?

Running Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Microsoft Azure extends your datacenter into a powerful, connected cloud environment.

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Keep reading

Why run Linux on AWS?

For organizations using Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linux shortens time to market, reduces complexity, provides on-demand scalability, and lowers costs.

What is high availability?

High availability determines if a system is meeting its operational performance level, is available almost 100% of the time, and is performant for an established time period.

What is ERP?

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) unifies the massive amounts of data within an organization, and enables information flow between different teams.

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