AlmaLinux now has a status on Microsoft’s cloud that it shares with only six other Linux distributions. Here’s what it means.
On Tuesday the AlmaLinux OS Foundation announced that effective immediately its namesake Linux distribution is an Endorsed Distribution on Azure, Microsoft’s public cloud. This is quite a feather in the cap for the distro, since Azure has rewarded only six other distributions with that distinction.
The status is also more than just a feel-good thing. Being an Endorsed Distribution means that Microsoft and AlmaLinux will now collaborate to assure that users of AlmaLinux on Azure will be spinning up images that are the most up-to-date versions of AlmaLinux, by way of Azure’s in-house infrastructure and an ongoing focus by both organizations on maintaining a straightforward process for image maintenance.
Needless to say, as a distro that’s only about three years old, and the only CentOS Linux replacement on the list, the folks at AlmaLinux are pretty pleased about this turn of events.
“On behalf of the entire AlmaLinux OS Foundation board of directors, we are thrilled to see AlmaLinux join the Endorsed Distributions list for Microsoft Azure,” benny Vasquez, chairperson of AlmaLinux OS Foundation said in a statement. “It’s clear that Azure is committed to supporting distributions that are highly adopted and used within their incredible platform. With more than half of all Azure offerings based on Linux, it seems only natural for Azure to continue to expand its list of endorsed distributions – and we’re delighted to play such a role.”
This inclusion definitely puts AlmaLinux in good company. The other distros are Ubuntu, Debian, Flatcar, Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. AlmaLinux is available through Azure’s Marketplace for x64 and Arm64 architectures, including Microsoft’s latest Cobalt 100-based virtual machines and a customized image for high performance computing workloads. Images are also available through Community Gallery and Windows Subsystem for Linux.
“We are pleased to add AlmaLinux as an endorsed, CentOS-compatible Linux distribution in Azure, backed up by a close engineering and support relationship between our respective teams,” Jeremy Winter, Azure platform chief product officer and corporate VP of Azure Cloud Native, said in a statement. “This Azure-AlmaLinux collaboration underscores our ongoing efforts to deepen cooperation with key players in the open source community to address Azure customers’ desire for stable, well-supported solutions.”
Although Microsoft originally launched Azure as a Windows-focused cloud, these days Linux is the most used operating system on the platform.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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