Red Hat has entered into a new enterprise agreement with the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) to provide centralized access to its hybrid cloud platforms. This collaboration aims to improve efficiency, enable faster innovation, and create a consistent security framework for MOD teams and approved third-party providers.
The MOD seeks to accelerate digital innovation across the UK, focusing on delivering services more quickly and improving resilience in national critical infrastructure. The agreement is designed to standardize the MOD’s digital environment by adopting cloud-native application development and offering a unified user experience. This move addresses challenges related to the complexity of the MOD’s IT systems, cybersecurity threats, and the need for a common platform for both internal teams and external partners, especially as AI capabilities expand.
Defence Digital Foundry—a central digital service provider within the MOD—will lead this effort. It will offer standardized access to Red Hat’s platforms for various departments including the Royal Navy, British Army, Royal Air Force, Space Command, and Cyber & Specialist Operations Command.
Computacenter will assist with onboarding users under this agreement. The technologies covered include Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat OpenShift Platform Plus, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, Red Hat AI, and Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization. Users will also have access to technical support and training from Red Hat Consulting.
Expected benefits of this agreement include greater flexibility in building and deploying applications on-premise or in any cloud environment. The unified platform supports large-scale AI deployment by enabling developers and data scientists to collaborate on projects using different AI models across various infrastructures. Standardizing operations on Red Hat platforms is expected to simplify application management processes while improving cybersecurity measures.
Automation will be expanded through the use of Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. This is intended to streamline manual tasks in IT operations and enhance compliance at scale. Modern application development practices—such as microservices architecture and DevSecOps—will be supported through Red Hat OpenShift’s Kubernetes-powered platform.
Joanna Hodgson, regional manager for UK and Ireland at Red Hat said: “Red Hat is pleased to support the UK Ministry of Defence on its path to faster digital transformation and greater efficiency by helping to make the organisation’s IT landscape more responsive and adaptable. With Red Hat providing a centralised cloud-native platform and approach, all teams across the UK Ministry of Defence can develop and deliver new mission-driven digital services faster with a more consistent security footprint. Red Hat offers flexibility and scalability to deploy any application or any AI model on their choice of hardware, whether on premise, in any cloud or at the edge, helping the UK Ministry of Defence to harness the latest technologies, including AI.”
Mivy James, chief technology officer at UK Ministry of Defence added: “Red Hat is helping Defence Digital Foundry build our unified, modern digital backbone to keep the UK Ministry of Defence agile and innovative. With this enterprise agreement, people up and down the country working for the UK Ministry of Defence can more easily and reliably access tools and collaborate using common Red Hat-based platforms, and we’re able to increase operational efficiency, save resources and optimise costs. Easing access to Red Hat platforms becomes all the more important for the UK Ministry of Defence in the era of AI, where rapid adoption, replicating good practice and the ability to scale are critical to strategic advantage.”
This collaboration between MOD and Red Hat marks an effort toward enhancing digital services using a common hybrid cloud platform that integrates automation tools while supporting virtualization solutions across its operations.
