Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider (CCSP)
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| Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider (CCSP) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider (CCSP) |
| Type | Certification program |
| Owner | Red Hat, Inc. |
| Launched | 2016 |
| Country | United States |
Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider (CCSP) Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider (CCSP) is a commercial certification program administered by Red Hat, Inc. that identifies cloud infrastructure and managed service vendors validated to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat OpenShift in production. The program connects enterprise customers, independent software vendors, and systems integrators with certified cloud partners across regions such as North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.
Overview
The CCSP program is positioned within Red Hat's portfolio alongside Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat OpenShift, and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to certify cloud providers, hosting companies, and managed service vendors. It aligns with industry participants including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and regional providers like OVHcloud, Alibaba Cloud, and Tencent Cloud. The program is relevant to enterprises, original equipment manufacturers such as Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and systems integrators like Accenture, Capgemini, and Infosys that deploy Red Hat technologies.
Certification Criteria and Requirements
Certification requires providers to meet technical, operational, and licensing criteria established by Red Hat engineering teams and partner management groups. Technical validation often references specifications from projects and standards bodies such as Linux Foundation, Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Kubernetes, and OpenStack Foundation; implementations are tested for compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernels, CRI-O, and KubeVirt integrations. Providers must demonstrate compliance with deployment patterns used by enterprises and software vendors like SAP SE, Oracle Corporation, Salesforce, and SAP HANA workloads, and satisfy agreements similar to those used by Red Hat Satellite and Red Hat Insights services. Certification audits may involve participation from regional legal entities such as European Commission procurement teams or national regulators.
Program Benefits and Services
CCSP-certified providers gain access to Red Hat technical resources, commercial entitlements, and co-marketing opportunities with ecosystem members including Red Hat Marketplace, IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services. Benefits include support-level coordination comparable to vendor support models from Red Hat Customer Portal, integration guidance for automation tools like Ansible, and access to knowledge from communities such as Fedora Project and CentOS Stream contributors. Certified providers may offer managed services for enterprise suites from SAP SE, Oracle Corporation, and cloud-native platforms promoted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
Marketplace and Partner Ecosystem
The CCSP network links certified providers to marketplaces and channel partners including Red Hat Marketplace, cloud marketplaces of AWS Marketplace, Azure Marketplace, and Google Cloud Marketplace, and global systems integrators such as Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, and Cognizant. The program fosters partnerships with independent software vendors like MongoDB, Inc., Elastic NV, Cloudera, and SUSE-related channel ecosystems, and collaborates with hardware partners like Lenovo, Cisco Systems, and Intel Corporation for validated reference architectures. Regional partnerships with providers such as NTT Communications, SoftBank, and Deutsche Telekom expand geographic reach.
Compliance, Security, and Technical Standards
Providers must adhere to security practices and compliance frameworks influenced by organizations and regulations such as National Institute of Standards and Technology, International Organization for Standardization, SOC 2, and regional authorities including European Union directives and national agencies. Technical conformance is measured against upstream projects like Kubernetes, OpenStack, and CRI-O, and industry implementations from VMware, Inc., Oracle, and IBM Cloud. Security tooling and monitoring integrations reference technologies from vendors such as Splunk, Palo Alto Networks, Checkpoint Software Technologies, and orchestration patterns tied to Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.
Adoption and Use Cases
Enterprises adopt CCSP-certified services for migrations and hybrid-cloud deployments involving legacy and cloud-native workloads for customers in sectors represented by firms like Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Walmart, Pfizer, and Siemens. Use cases include running SAP HANA analytics, supporting OpenStack private clouds for telecommunications providers like Verizon Communications and AT&T, and hosting container platforms for digital natives such as Netflix and Airbnb-style architectures. Managed offerings from certified providers support compliance-driven workloads for healthcare organizations like Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins University, and research computing collaborations with institutions such as CERN and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
History and Development
The CCSP initiative traces to Red Hat's strategic shift toward cloud-native and hybrid-cloud markets in the mid-2010s alongside partnerships with hyperscalers including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. The program evolved through industry events and collaborations involving KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, Red Hat Summit, and standards dialogues with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and Linux Foundation. Over time, certified lists expanded to include global and regional providers, reflecting trends driven by enterprises, systems integrators like Capgemini and Deloitte, and vendor consortia formed around technologies such as OpenShift and Ansible.