Before we get into OpenShift, a container orchestration platform by RedHat, let's briefly understand about container's and container's orchestration.
What are Container's?
Containers are like a unit, which containes application code, combined with dependencies and libraries to run in any environment, whether it be on cloud, personal computer or tradational DC. Containers are ligthweight because they doesnt have their own kernel they are dependent on the host kernel. Also containers share the resources like Network, CPU, Memory, and Storage of the host machine.
What is Container Orchestration?
The system that manages the containers from end to end. All of the manual process involved in the process of deploying, scaling, networking, maintaining the count of the containers are automated. Broadly deployed container orchestration platforms are based on open-source versions such as Kubernetes or Docker Swarm. In addition they also support plug&play model where we can use key opensource technologies Prometheus, Istio etc..
What are the available Container Orchestration platforms?
- Kubernetes
- OpenShift
- Hasicorp Nomad
- Docker Swarm
- Rancher
- Mesos
- Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
- Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)
- Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
- Digital Ocean Kubernetes Service
- Linode Kubernetes Engine
Now we have some basic idea about what are containers and containers orchestration. Lets take a look into OpenShift Container Platform.
What is RedHat OpenShift Container Platform?
Red Hat OpenShift is an open-source container orchestration platform for enterprises that run OpenShift on public cloud or on-premises infrastructure. Access to the OpenShift cluster is through web-console and through Command Line Interface using the oc client.
The OpenShift console comes with two views:
Administrator: Allows to monitor container resources and container health, manage users, work with operators, services, etc..
Developer: Allows working with application resource within namespace.
OpenShift also provides CLI(Command Line Interface) that supports a superset of the actions that the kubernetes CLI provides. OpenShift offers consistent security, built-in monitoring, centralized policy management, and compatibility with Kubernetes container workloads. It also supports several programming languages, including Go, Node.js, Ruby, PHP, Python, Java and Perl.
OpenShift vs Kubernetes
Installation: Can Install kubernetes on any linux distribution, including Debian and Ubuntu. Openshift requires Red Hat's proprietary Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS(RHCOS) as the OperatingSystem.
Support: OpenShift has a much smaller support community that is limited primarily to Redhat developers. As this is an enterprise product we will get a dedicated support from RedHat. kubernetes has a large active community of developers.
Image Registry Management: Kubernetes doesnt have an integrated image registry, although it allows you to pull images from private registry. OpenShift on the other hand, has an in-built image registry and pairs with DockerHub.
Releases and Updates: Kubernetes has an average of four releases each year, while OpenShift trails with around three. K8S supports concurrent and simultaneous updates while OpenShift doesn't.
Security: OpenShift doesnt allow container to run as root. Kubernetes doesnt come with bult-in authentication and authorization capabilities.
Networking: OpenShift has it's out-of-the box networking solution called openVswitch, which comes with three native plug-ins, while kubernetes lacks a networking solution but users employ third-party network plugins.
Integrated CI/CD: Kubernetes & OpenShift doesnt provide a complete out of the box CI/CD solution. However you can create an entire CI/CD pipeline by pairing with thrid party tools.
User Experience and Interface: Kubernetes contains a complex web interface that may not be user-friendly. OpenShift web console is more user-friendly.
Templates: Kubernetes offers Helm template that are easy to use and provide a generous amount of flexibility. OpenShift templates are not user-friendly. Helm supports OpenShift as well.
Conclusion
OpenShift Container platform brings development and IT operation to a single platform to build, deploy, and manage across on-perm and hybrid cloud infrastructures. It hepls in delivering the products faster.
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