ARTH — Task 30 👨🏻💻 : Openshift and its use case.
What is Openshift?
OpenShift is a cloud development Platform as a Service (PaaS) developed by Red Hat. It is an open source development platform, which enables the developers to develop and deploy their applications on cloud infrastructure. It is very helpful in developing cloud-enabled services. This tutorial will help you understand OpenShift and how it can be used in the existing infrastructure. All the examples and code snippets used in this tutorial are tested and working code, which can be simply used in any OpenShift setup by changing the current defined names and variables.
OpenShift is a cloud development Platform as a Service (PaaS) hosted by Red Hat. It’s an open source cloud-based user-friendly platform used to create, test, and run applications, and finally deploy them on cloud.
OpenShift is capable of managing applications written in different languages, such as Node.js, Ruby, Python, Perl, and Java. One of the key features of OpenShift is it is extensible, which helps the users support the application written in other languages.
OpenShift comes with various concepts of virtualization as its abstraction layer. The underlying concept behind OpenShift is based on virtualization.
What is Virtualization?
In general, virtualization can be defined as the creation of a virtual system rather than physical or actual version of anything starting from system, storage, or an operating system. The main goal of virtualization is to make the IT infrastructure more scalable and reliable. The concept of virtualization has been in existence from decades and with the evolution of IT industry today, it can be applied to a wide range of layers starting from System level, Hardware level, to Server level virtualization.
Why use Openshift?
OpenShift provides a common platform for enterprise units to host their applications on cloud without worrying about the underlying operating system. This makes it very easy to use, develop, and deploy applications on cloud. One of the key features is, it provides managed hardware and network resources for all kinds of development and testing. With OpenShift, PaaS developer has the freedom to design their required environment with specification.
Features
There are multiple features supported by OpenShift. Few of them are −
- Multiple Language Support
- Multiple Database Support
- Extensible Cartridge System
- Source Code Version Management
- One-Click Deployment
- Multi Environment Support
- Standardized Developers’ workflow
- Dependency and Build Management
- Automatic Application Scaling
- Responsive Web Console
- Rich Command-line Toolset
- Remote SSH Login to Applications
- Rest API Support
- Self-service On Demand Application Stack
- Built-in Database Services
- Continuous Integration and Release Management
- IDE Integration
- Remote Debugging of Applications
Case-study: Airbus builds DevOps skills with Red Hat Open Innovation Labs.
Airbus designs, manufactures, and delivers industry-leading commercial aircraft, helicopters, military transports, satellites, and launch vehicles, as well as providing data services, navigation, secure communications, urban mobility, and other solutions for customers on a global scale.
Challenge Faced:
Airbus is undergoing a transformation to offer services on any type of platform and provide on-demand access to software-defined infrastructure. The organization chose to create a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), using Red Hat OpenShift and other Red Hat technology but sought to improve in-house skills and internal integration for faster, more efficient development of cloud-native applications.
Path to innovation:
To build a path to faster application delivery with DevOps practices, Airbus participated in a Red Hat Open Innovation Labs engagement. During the 6-week residency, Airbus’s teams worked closely with Red Hat consultants to learn about building cloud-native applications following DevOps practices. The project used Open Practice Library foundational approaches to collaborative, iterative strategy and development to envision, plan, and begin building an initial prototype platform. Weekly review meetings helped participants hone the project roadmap and stay informed of progress.
Business outcomes:
- Built and demonstrated an initial unified PaaS and reusable components for supporting key business capabilities
- Gained hands-on skills and experience for in-house creation of cloud-native applications following DevOps and cloud-native design practices
• Established foundation for significantly faster delivery of new services and ongoing expansion of the platform.
AS Quoted by Saul Davies:
“I highly recommend the Red Hat Open Innovation Labs experience. It has really helped our teams make the change we sought: adopting OpenShift, DevOps, and new ways of working based on lean and open practices.
Saul Davies Head Of Product Portfolio, Intelligence, UK, Airbus
