Red Hat OpenShift Reviews

We use OpenShift as an accelerator for our projects. We provide an environment for containerization. Our company has multiple clients using the infrastructure to build and test their applications.

We've both cloud and on-prem installation of the tool. For the cloud installation, we use the AWS cloud.

The quality of the product is good. There are no performance issues or any tools-related issues. We get excellent performance and application integrity. We use multiple internal applications, and they are integrated with OpenShift. Our end users are happy using the platform, and they are able to test everything using the OpenShift testing environment.

OpenShift provides good security throughout the stack and the software supply chain, and we use it in conjunction with Azure authentication. We haven't had any security breaches or issues with the tool. We don't run any business-critical applications with the product, but it offers good security and prevention. Overall, we're satisfied with it from a security perspective.

The solution is very reliable. We have excellent documentation, and we get good support for open-source products. If we need to learn new features or do new types of implementation, documentation is available. 

In terms of implementation, OpenShift is very user-friendly, which is an advantage. We are using it along with GitLab for implementing CI/CD pipelines. That's a feature that other products also have, but in OpenShift, we find it good.

Upgrades are easy. We could do upgrades with a single click. The GUI is very user-friendly. We are also very comfortable with the CLI.

We want to see better alerting, especially in critical situations requiring immediate intervention. Until we go to the dashboard, it can be challenging to quickly recognize that there's an issue for us to deal with. Therefore, a popup of the event or a tweaked GUI to catch our attention when it's alerting would be a welcome change. Everything else is good. We don't need any additional features. From the operations perspective, as an administrator, there is nothing concerning.

Red Hat has to improve its support. They should provide quicker and better support for issues with lower severity.

We've been using this solution for around two years. 

It's stable. The cluster is pretty stable. With version 3.11, we were having some issues, and it wasn't a pretty stable cluster. We had issues often on the backend nodes, but version 4.x is very good. We have been using it for more than one year. We have had multiple versions such as 4.7, 4.8, and 4.9, and now, we are into 4.10. We upgraded our staging cluster to 4.10, and that upgrade was very smooth. We had some issues, but we were able to fix them.

It's very scalable. We can see the cluster size we need. We can also scale down. So, scalability is good. The MachineSet feature in OpenShift is very good. It's user-friendly, and we can scale up and scale down as per our needs.

We have thousands of projects. So, many users are using this solution. We have around three production clusters and two development clusters. For now, we don't have any plans to expand its usage. Currently, the market is still in a stagnant state, and there is not any plan for expansion. If the number of users increases, we might increase the number of clusters.

The support people who join our calls or take care of the issues are technically strong. There is no doubt about that. They're able to find out the issue, and they give us a quick solution. If there is any bug, they coordinate with their engineering team and provide us a bug fix in the next version or internally to upgrade it. Overall, their technical support is good, but for the lower priority cases, their response is not very satisfactory. If we open a case with severity 3, 4, or 5, we don't see an active response. We get a good response only for severity 2 and 1. I would rate their support an eight out of ten.

Positive

We were using Kubernetes. We switched to OpenShift because we wanted an enterprise-level usage tool. So, we needed a more stable product.

We chose OpenShift mainly because we get good vendor support. In case of any issues, we can easily collaborate with the vendor to get a proper solution. From the operations perspective also, OpenShift is good. That's also the main reason why it's being used here.

For the installation of OpenShift, we used the IPA method of installation in AWS. It's pretty straightforward and easy. It isn't complex, but you have to go through the documentation. You have to read the documentation before implementing it. Overall, the initial setup is good. There isn't any complexity in the installation.

We have a good procedure to implement it. We just followed our internal procedure and the OpenShift document, and we were able to install it.

When we deployed a cluster, it took us about one and a half hours to bring the cluster. It took us around two days to complete the setup. After installing OpenShift, we needed to do some peripheral installations, such as authentication, creation of objects such as resource quota limitations, creation of templates, etc. In a maximum of two days, we were able to bring the cluster back into the required state.

In terms of maintenance, we have five clusters that are being taken care of by four people. My team doesn't only take care of OpenShift. We also take care of GitLab, so that also takes some resources. Overall, four people are taking care of five clusters.

I didn't work on its deployment. For the on-premise installation, my colleagues worked with the vendor to implement it. We got help from the vendor. 

We considered VMware Tanzu. They are still in the pipeline. We are planning to implement VMware Tanzu inside our environment. OpenShift is very good, but we are considering VMware Tanzu because we already have a good VMware environment. We thought of using that VMware environment also for the containerization application. That's the reason for considering VMware Tanzu.

I would recommend OpenShift to others because of its stability and usability. We have been promoting it to multiple clients inside our organization.

We use Red Hat Linux and Ansible. Red Hat Linux and OpenShift have good integration and support. We haven't used Ansible much. We have only used Terraform with OpenShift. Ansible is good. It has good integration with OpenShift, but we haven't used it much. 

Red Hat is good at creating technologies. They consistently improvise their products. There is a massive difference in handling and performance between OpenShift version 3.x and version 4.x. In terms of stability, they have shown enormous improvements. So they're good at improving their products.

OpenShift provides the flexibility and efficiency of cloud-native stacks while enabling us to meet regulatory constraints, but our implementation at this level is basic. We haven't implemented any strict rules or compliance setup.

I would rate it an eight out of ten.

I'm currently engaged in developing containerized microservices applications, managing thirteen modules within an OpenShift environment. These modules collectively handle automated payment processes for various services. My role involves closely monitoring these modules on OpenShift, ensuring optimal resource allocation such as storage and CPU usage. Additionally, I'm tasked with implementing solutions for scenarios of resource overutilization, including autoscaling capabilities to accommodate high traffic periods efficiently. I also focus on scaling down resources during low-traffic periods to optimize cost and performance.

OpenShift has significantly enhanced and streamlined our organization's application development and deployment processes. It offers more than just Kubernetes clusters, providing additional features like the Dashboard, which greatly simplifies tasks for developers. Moreover, OpenShift adds an extra layer of security, ensuring that applications run securely with features like hashing upgrades.

It offers a vast repository of images and tools tailored for deployment and application development. This rich ecosystem makes deployment and performance optimization much easier compared to our previous methods. Additionally, by opting for OpenShift, we gain access to comprehensive support from their expert team.

It streamlines our development and deployment processes through automation. From development to deployment, all processes are automated, providing efficiency and productivity gains. Developers can submit their changes for approval, and once approved, the deployment to production can proceed without requiring manual intervention. This streamlined workflow not only makes the process easier but also enhances productivity across the team.

The integration capabilities of OpenShift with other platforms and services have greatly enhanced our workflow. When you opt for OpenShift, whether through a subscription or by installing it on your servers, you gain access to a comprehensive support system provided by Red Hat. OpenShift features a marketplace with a wide array of operators, facilitating seamless integration and deployment of various services. For instance, popular services like Elasticsearch can be easily integrated into the cluster directly from the user interface and dashboard, making the installation process much simpler and more user-friendly.

The broad support for multiple languages and frameworks in OpenShift has positively impacted the productivity of our development teams. We've observed significant improvements in our tools and team collaboration since adopting this platform. As we continue to enhance our processes, it's evident that most of our development team members are actively engaged and contributing, particularly our dedicated engineers and architects.

When comparing the efficiency of OpenShift Container Orchestration to other solutions we've considered, such as Kubernetes, we find that OpenShift aligns well with our existing architecture and team structure. Our approach resembles the architecture of OpenShift, with a team leader overseeing multiple workers.

One of the most valuable features of OpenShift for our operations is its auto-scaling capability. This feature is crucial for handling high loads or traffic spikes in our applications. With OpenShift, we have the flexibility to scale our applications up or down as needed, providing a significant benefit to our operations.

OpenShift offers robust tools for monitoring application traffic, allowing us to analyze client requests and other business-related metrics. This enables us to effectively manage our applications and make informed decisions to optimize performance.

An enhancement to consider for the future might involve incorporating a comprehensive solution for CI/CD tailored specifically for OpenShift.

I have been working with it for three years.

I would rate its stability abilities eight out of ten.

I would rate its scalability capabilities seven out of ten. More than three thousand users use it daily.

We are experiencing dissatisfaction with the technical support as we often receive delayed responses when raising questions. I would rate it five out of ten.

Neutral

We previously worked with Kubernetes cluster, but we switched to using OpenShift, as advised by our architect. This change is aimed at achieving greater scalability and stability for our product, as we've encountered challenges with our setup at the time.

The initial setup was relatively straightforward.

We manually installed the deployment three months ago, utilizing grid protection systems. I have been handling both development and production environments. In the development phase, I build deployments from scratch, while for production, I collaborate with another vendor. I manage all steps of installation and ensure smooth migration to the production environment.

The cost is quite high. I would rate it eight out of ten.

Overall, I would rate it seven out of ten.

We have deployed OpenShift on-premises on VMware and Azure, but not the managed platform. We manage the deployment ourselves, doing our own customizations.

When we look at traditional web development applications, we'll find that the typical release cycle is one and a half to two months. However, given that customers are now deploying new versions of their applications multiple times a day, OpenShift has improved the way our organization develops, tests, and deploys applications. OpenShift stimulates innovation.

OpenShift provides us with the flexibility and efficiency of cloud-native stacks while enabling us to meet regulatory constraints. No matter where we run our container clouds, as long as we use the right tooling such as Knative, we can run our applications everywhere. Red Hat's nicest feature is that it enables us to develop cloud native applications and put them anywhere. We don't have to run our application on OpenShift. We can also run it in a public cloud like AWS or Azure. We can develop on our primary platform (OpenShift) and build with the right tooling in Knative, using MQ streams, and Kafka, allowing us to connect it everywhere.

OpenShift's automated processes have reduced our development time and increased the quality of our end product. OpenShift has come a long way since its early days. While there were some bumps along the way, the last few years have seen major releases with few, if any, significant bugs. Today, OpenShift is a reliable platform that is easy to use. People act differently when they're listening to the community. If we have a feature request, the vendor works with us to make it happen. I've added multiple requests, especially web UI interfaces, and the team has been very helpful. If we have a feature we require and we work with the vendor, we can have it solved within three months.

Depending on the environment Dev Spaces can reduce project onboarding time. If we have to start over from scratch, Dev Spaces can help us set up our development environments quickly. But if we have a running organization with development teams already in place, it can be more difficult to give them Dev Spaces and have them start developing in that way.

When Dev Spaces are used we can bring up a complete OpenShift cluster in under two and a half hours. We have already automated the process.  We can launch on OpenShift in less than two and a half hours, completely reconfigured. Using Dev Spaces is definitely worth it if we only have to configure it once. We can have a complete working stack for more than 30 or 40 developers up and running in less than four hours. If we have to do it in the traditional way, it will take 1600 hours. That's 40 hours per application. In Dev Spaces, it takes one click to add a new user and we're done because we have a standard environment.

Dev Spaces helps reduce time to market because our developers can test their applications quickly and easily by developing them directly for Kubernetes or OpenShift.

With Dev Spaces a developer can run the test continuously and start the container test, drop the container, and repeat, saving around 75 percent of the time compared to the traditional way of testing.

I'm a rapid accelerator. I have a lot of contacts in the Netherlands, the USA, and England. It doesn't matter where I am, I can get help from my contacts at Red Hat. As a premium partner, we have sessions every other week to share ideas and knowledge. We are constantly updated about the latest changes that are going to happen in the near future. Our relationship with Red Hat is very good.

We work with Ansible, Satellite, and RHEL itself. We have co-workers and developers who are helping us with the entire Red Hat suite. The integration between the Red Hat solutions is very good. Many integrations are moving to OpenShift. If we look at OpenShift Fuse, it's a Middleware product of Red Hat. It's been running on virtual machines for the last few years. But they are moving to OpenShift. Directing services for maintaining user accounts is a critical part of the integration. The software will run on OpenShift, but not on virtual machines. There are still many integration possibilities. Red Hat develops OpenShift on top of Kubernetes, but also maintains its own applications there, Lenox and Middleware. So, Red Hat will keep it integrated.

OpenShift offers more stability than Kubernetes. With OpenShift, we get a complete ecosystem around the developer, which includes extras that aren't available with Kubernetes. If we build in a Kubernetes environment ourselves, we have to do a lot of work to get it on the same level as OpenShift. One of the nicest parts of OpenShift is the UI, which allows developers to log on and start building their applications very quickly. The integrations are essential to OpenShift, including pipelining and service mesh.

By default, OpenShift is very secure. Out of the box, our role access is in place. We can easily connect to our active directory or our open ID providers. The constraints in the platform are also secure by default. OpenShift is one of the most secure solutions out of the box.

OpenShift's security features for writing business-critical applications are okay. In addition to OpenShift, we use advanced security calls to help developers and application teams keep their applications and projects secure. This depends on a lot of factors, such as the type of application. We work to keep our deployments and applications secure on container versions and solutions, as well as within our applications. We help customers set up their baselines. We recommend not running the applications on the root and staying as close to Kubernetes or OpenShift as possible. This is all we need to do in order to be successful with baselines.

OpenShift has made a lot of strides in the last few months including moving the dashboards to an OpenShift UI making it much easier for a developer to track applications and they no longer need an extra portal to show the metrics or log off their applications.

There are many advantages of using multiple Red Hat products together starting with the integration. We have a one-stop shop for support and we can bundle the products for a huge discount.

The operators need a lot of improvement, with better integrations. 

What we see now is a move from traditional DevOps to GitOps. We use Argo CD for that, which provides a little more integration. It would be nice to have the same UI experience in the OpenShift console without having to log in on a third console.

I have been using OpenShift for seven years.

OpenShift is very stable. I have 11 OpenShift clusters up and running for one customer, and the only issue I've had is with VMware. It's not with OpenShift itself, but with the layer underneath OpenShift.

The solution is scalable. If our bid is high, OpenShift will work right out of the box. For example, if my work is at about 80% capacity, OpenShift can automatically scale a new worker. We can scale down our infrastructure also if needed.

The standard technical support is not great and I would give it a six out of ten. However, with the premium subscription, we get 24/7 support. I usually give support eight out of ten when I need help. This still leaves room for improvement, as almost every issue I have is a P1, which is the highest severity.

Positive

I work with all the Kubernetes platforms depending on the project. I might use OpenShift, Rancher, or even Q&E depending on the needs of the project. 

The initial setup is straightforward, if we follow the documentation and we download the OpenShift install, we can have a very small cluster up and running in less than an hour. However, we will have to do all the day two tasks ourselves. If we run an enterprise, we have a lot of complications. We need to have proxies, separate our infrastructure stack into different nodes, and move storage to storage nodes. This adds a lot of extra work.

The IPI will take about 45 minutes. The second part, if completely automated, will take about two and a half hours.

The first thing we need to know is that Kubernetes is free. However, if we need to maintain a Kubernetes environment, we need 10 people to build, maintain and keep Kubernetes secure and bring it to the same level as OpenShift. Then we have to pay evenly as subscriptions for OpenShift. It's important to start small because the solution is scalable. We can build our cluster and look at the bundle option, not the external subscriptions. Talking to the people at Red Hat can save us money.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

Depending on how we deploy OpenStack it can be difficult to work with. If we have deployed OpenStack for a couple of years, we have to choose a different type of automation. If we're fully integrated, we have a lot of requirements to map making it hard to change everything to match the OpenShift standards, so we deploy in a user-based install.

We have written down a lot of knowledge about how to run a container platform. Depending on how many clusters and how many teams we have involved in the cluster, we manage 11 OpenShift clusters with people. That's only possible when we completely automate. If we do everything by hand, we require a lot of people. If we don't automate the complete infrastructure in OpenShift, we require 11 people, one person per cluster. Currently, we run  11 clusters with four people.

If you're starting a company and don't have a lot of knowledge in the industry, I would recommend using OpenShift. It will make your life much easier, as Red Hat is a big supporter of the platform and is willing to help build our infrastructure and applications.

We help some operators implement the container platform. Some of the operators use other software, such as VMware or Whitestack. Our focus is on pushing Red Hat products. We also use OpenShift for containerized applications in IT and networks, including applications like My Mobistar, My Carlos, and Smart Wi-Fi.

The solution primarily benefits our organization by reducing time to market, avoiding vendor lock-in, and facilitating multi-cloud environments. These capabilities allow us to leverage various cloud providers and integrate seamlessly between on-premise and public cloud solutions.

Valuable features include time to market, avoiding vendor lock-in, and the ease of working in a multi-cloud environment. This flexibility allows the use of multiple cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft, Google, and IBM.

The speed of deploying new applications can be improved. Additionally, enhancing the process for changing to DevOps models from Waterfall workflows would be beneficial. There are issues with capacity planning and lifecycle management that need to be addressed, particularly in avoiding problems due to congestion or misunderstanding between software factories and Red Hat experts.

I have been using OpenShift for more than three years.

In general, customers are very happy with the stability of the solution. In Argentina, the main three operators are using OpenShift and find the stability to be quite good.

All customers are very happy with the scalability of OpenShift. The main three operators in Argentina use OpenShift, and they find the stability quite good, contributing to its scalability.

Customer service is effective, particularly with the TAM (Technical Account Manager) service, which includes highly experienced personnel. Operators are very happy with the TAM services.

Positive

The initial setup is moderately complex. While it is not extremely difficult, operators typically require assistance from Red Hat experts.

Operators usually need the help of Red Hat experts during the setup phase.

I don't have detailed knowledge about the setup costs or ROI. However, I know it is cheaper than some other platforms.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

NetApp is our storage provider and we have a product called Astra Control Center. We can back up and restore our containerized applications that are running on OpenShift. We use it to create a disaster recovery site for our business-critical containerized application.

Our second use case is for cloud bursting. When we have fewer resources available on-prem, we can move some of our non-critical applications to the cloud.

Our production environment can be run on AWS or any other cloud where we've deployed OpenShift, while we have our test and development environments on-prem. Once an application is certified, it can be moved from development to the production environment using Astra Control Center.

The CodeReady Workspaces reduce project onboarding time. With my experience, I was able to deploy the OpenShift cluster to make development ready in one day, with all kinds of related post-installation configurations.

And CodeReady Workspaces also reduce time to market. Red Hat OpenShift provides its OperatorHub from which you can find all the certified applications that are readily available on the portal itself. It gives you a cloud catalog-type feature directly on the OpenShift console. Through that, you get a GDP that is already certified, while deploying any kind of application. That means they are made to run with your OpenShift environment. You don't need to do any research to make it work with OpenShift.

OpenShift also provides us with the flexibility of cloud-native stacks while still making it possible to meet regulatory constraints.

The most valuable feature of OpenShift is the security context constraint (SCC). The solution’s security throughout the stack is good. And security context constraints provide port-level security. It's a granular level of control, where you can give privileges to certain users to work on certain applications. That's a great security feature.

The solution also provides a lot of security features on top of a regular Kubernetes cluster, which you can control. For example, in the namespace of OpenShift, there are different kinds of access levels. If you have a development team, you can provide limited access so that a developer can only deploy your application. If you're running any business-critical app, you can restrict the users' access to that app.

Also, Red Hat provides advanced multi-cluster management. You can manage multiple clouds with one solution, and I'm happy with that.

One area for improvement is the documentation. They need to make it a little bit more user-friendly. 

Also, if you compare certain features and the installation process with Rancher,  Rancher is simpler.

I have been using OpenShift for more than two years.

I have found some minor issues related to pod networking in which some of the OpenShift pods were not performing well. To resolve that, I needed to do a reinstallation of the cluster. Apart from that, OpenShift is pretty stable.

The scalability of OpenShift is good, but a competitor like VMware Tanzu can run more pods on the same system or the same hardware. So there's a little room for Red Hat to make it more scalable.

For us, OpenShift is an enterprise-level platform. We have about 10,000 users and we have plans to increase our usage.

The best part is the support from Red Hat. If you face any issues you can get great support.

As a partner, Red Hat is a nine out of 10 for helping us create the platform we need.

Positive

The installation is very good. There are a lot of options with which you can deploy OpenShift and you can deploy it on different environments. You can directly deploy it on a bare metal server, or if you already have a VMware-based infrastructure, you can deploy it there. That automation is very flexible.

The initial setup is straightforward, but for a first-time user, it might be a bit challenging because there are certain prerequisites that you need to follow. But if you follow the installation guide and you're able to do all the prerequisites, it's very straightforward. It takes less than an hour.

I used the Assisted Installer and did the IPI installation for OpenShift. I had all the infrastructure ready and deployed one cluster on bare metal. Then I deployed the OpenShift cluster on AWS.

For deployment and maintenance of OpenShift, a team of 10 should be fine. They can handle the installation and the post-installation operations for your day-to-day tasks.

I did it on my own. 

I have tested VMware Tanzu but we didn't go with it because it comes in different flavors. If you want to use VMware Tanzu, for certain things, you need to buy another VMware product. For example, if you want to have pod services for your environment, you need to buy NSX. That's an extra overhead because you need a separate team that can manage NSX for you.

You need to follow the prerequisites for the environment and then proceed with the installation. There are different ways to do the deployment but you should do it the way that is most comfortable for you.

You can also deploy OpenShift using Ansible. If you want to automate the entire process of your OpenShift installation, including the server, network, and storage, you can opt for Ansible. That way, you will have end-to-end automation for your entire stack as well as OpenShift. That is good flexibility.

The biggest lesson I have learned from using OpenShift is that you can go with bare metal and you don't need to pay extra for the VMware Hypervisor. In terms of installation or manageability, it's simple. You just need to follow some guidelines and you will be good.

We use the solution to run our own software. Our software is different from the banking system, and it's mostly written in Java with a backend, an Angular frontend, MongoDB, and some caches.

I cannot compare what we had before to OpenShift because it was virtual machine provisioning, and we use OpenShift in the context of a read/write of our internal tech. We don't take an existing application and put it in OpenShift. It's part of the read/write process in Spring Boot. Overall, instead of taking two to three days to request a VM install, deploy, patch, and then put an application on it, we are down to approximately 10 minutes when using OpenShift.

OpenShift provides us with the flexibility and efficiency of cloud-native stacks while enabling us to meet regulatory constraints. We have tools, such as OPA, where we can define security requirements for the deployments for the different channels, and these checks are made during the admission of the pod so we are sure that any workload that goes through this gate complies with our requirements automatically. This guarantees that we do not deploy anything that breaches those requirements. The solution provides proactive security versus reactive.

OpenShift is very beneficial in the development time and our end product because it's easy to request new deployments, we can have different versions of the same software deployed by different developers, and they can iterate quickly without stepping on each other's feet. We save a lot of time because it's easy to create and destroy environments where everybody can work on different features without blocking each other.

OpenShift is based on Kubernetes and we try to use all the Kubernetes objects of OpenShift. We don't use features that are specific to OpenShift, except internal certificates for the services. The one feature that is missing from Kubernetes and that is really useful in OpenShift is the lifecycle of the cluster and the ease of installation. We use VMware and VMware integration internally with the OpenShift installer, which is very good. With OpenShift it's easy to spin up or scale out a cluster.

OpenShift's security throughout the stack and the software supply chain is good.

The defaults in OpenShift are favorable and secure. Red Hat usually takes a lot of time to ensure compliance with the CIS benchmark and by default, it's the most secure out-of-the-box solution for security.

OpenShift's security features for running business-critical applications are suitable.

The solution needs to support the new features in Kubernetes more quickly. For example, there are some Kubernetes features that we rely on that are not yet integrated into OpenShift, even though they have been available for six months. Another aspect that needs improvement is the console and the user interaction with the console itself.

I have used the solution for a total of five years and consecutively for the last two years.

OpenShift is really stable and works solidly as long as we do not make obvious mistakes. Any issues that we have encountered are usually caused by human error or application bugs.

Our clusters currently have between 32 and 36 nodes and we have had no scalability issues with OpenShift.

The technical support is not good. We don't have a technical account manager, which would help, but we're not at the scale to justify paying for one. We go through the regular support line, and usually, it takes one day to go back and forth to pass the first levels of support. They always ask standard troubleshooting questions. It's really painful until we reach the very technical people, but once we do, the support is good. What we don't like is the lead time to reach those people.

Neutral

I previously used Kubernetes from Canonical. Everything in OpenShift is more secure out-of-the-box. If we take a Kubernetes installation like the one from Canonical, everything is open, nothing is secure. We require a security person to look at the cluster and create secure settings. On the other hand, we have all the advantages of having Kubernetes because we get all the new features the day they are out, and Canonical is really responsive to having the newest Kubernetes as soon as it's out. 

The integration with VMware is not nonexistent, but not as good as OpenShift, in how we roll out. I have not used Kubernetes in three years but at that time, everything was done by hand. It lacked an integrated installer, unlike OpenShift.

OpenShift has several advantages over Kubernetes, one of which is the installation process. This process is much better integrated with VMware than Kubernetes, but it is not straightforward. We still need to understand what is required, especially the network layout and the addressing because once we make our selections and deploy, some settings cannot be changed. The solution requires careful planning before deployment otherwise the entire deployment may require scrapping and starting over.

The deployment process takes up to one afternoon but it can take weeks to understand our needs and to get the process right. The same decisions are required in deciding the best size for our cluster, or how to separate our environment, which can be difficult. We may want two active clusters for production, one in each data center, or two clusters in each data center. All of these architectural decisions come with time and experience.

When deploying, I recommend having a platform team of four to eight people who can cover all areas. This team should include one or two people from security, one or two people from infrastructure, one or two people from production who know how to handle alerts, and also some people from development. The platform team should consist of between four to eight people and cover all the customers within the company. Having a team of this size will ensure that all areas are covered, and if someone is unavailable, there is still somebody else to provide backup.

The implementation was completed with the help of a consultant.

We invested a lot of money in our current system, but now it would be more cost-effective to do things differently. We have reached the tipping point and in the future, it will be too expensive to maintain our current system. However, I believe that the money we invested was worth it and we got our money's worth.

I think it is a good idea to start looking at alternatives to Red Hat, perhaps a more open-source solution. This way we can save on licensing costs and have more control over our infrastructure. We get to the point where we can afford to pay skilled people to look at our code instead of paying for a license. OpenShift is really good when we need to start, but once we get to a certain scale, it becomes too expensive. It is more cost-effective to go with a cloud-managed Kubernetes if the organization is already on the cloud.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

Red Hat as a partner helps create the platform we need but we pay for the support as part of the licensing, which is super expensive. Once we have the right technical person and solution architects, we have everything required to be successful.

I'm very passionate about Kubernetes and spend a lot of my spare time contributing to the project. It's something that I find very natural, but for regular developers or administrators, it can be quite new. There's a lot of education necessary for people to understand what Kubernetes is and how it will revolutionize their work. One thing I've learned is that we can never document or spend enough time training the end users. End users include administrators and developers.

Our service order management platform was cloud-native. We deployed its microservices on Red Hat OpenShift. When we did that, we were able to increase the capacity of order processing from 100,000 a day to at least 400,000 orders daily. That is the incremental capacity that OpenShift gave us.

The company had a product called device financing, where the company worked as a partner with Google. It allowed customers to take mobile phones on loan or via credit. When we migrated those services to OpenShift in February last year, we were able to sell over 100,000 devices in a single day, which was very good.

We deployed some microservices to handle Airtime Advance and Data Advance. This product from the consumer commercial team needed a throughput of around 2,500. They were able to get that from Red Hat OpenShift.

The self-healing of pods is a valuable feature. This feature goes a long way in helping us ensure our uptime for services, improving the performance of the system.

The solution provides us with the flexibility of cloud-native stacks while enabling us to meet regulatory constraints. Since most of our services were deployed on-premises, this allowed us not to get into data privacy issues for services with personally identifiable information belonging to customers. It is microservice-ready from a cloud-native perspective, which is a benefit.

With the automation that OpenShift gives you, you can automate as much as possible. This goes a long way in reducing time to market and errors due to human intervention. So, if an organization can do a lot of automation, e.g., automating deployments, that can go a very long way in reducing the time to market and the time required to fix issues that arise out of deployment.

The whole area around the hybrid cloud could be improved. I would like to deploy a Red Hat OpenShift cluster on-premise and on the cloud, then have Red Hat do the entire hybrid cloud management.

I was using this solution at my previous company. I left that company in October of last year.

We implemented the project mid-2019. We went live just before the pandemic in 2020.

It is very stable.

From some issues in production where some nodes went down, we just needed to improve in monitoring the Red Hat cluster. Then, we could know when there was degraded performance and repair it before it could cause an impact to the customer.

It is able to scale based on load.

The support is amazing. They stick to the SLA, and even go out of their way to research and assist customers to resolve issues. I would rate the support as nine out of 10.

Red Hat is amazing. With the proper leadership in place and proper partnership, you can do a lot more with Red Hat. There is a very active community where they share codes, information, and ideas.

Positive

Initially, we used to run Vanilla Kubernetes, which is open source. Then, we realized we were short on skill sets. Another organization had done a PoC of Red Hat OpenShift, and it passed. So, our organization was gracious enough to allow us to spend money on Red Hat OpenShift licenses. That was in 2019.

With Vanilla Kubernetes, we were not able to successfully implement service mesh. That comes already preconfigured for you with Red Hat OpenShift. 

In terms of traffic routing and firewall management, it was a nightmare managing that in Vanilla Kubernetes. However, with Red Hat OpenShift, you only add specific IPs in firewalls, as opposed to the nightmare that we used to see with Vanilla Kubernetes.

Red Hat's commitment to open source is one of the reasons that we went with it. We knew that we would get continuous updates. Also, the option of keeping our OpenShift cluster up-to-date with new services was a headache that we passed onto Red Hat. 

Initially, the deployment process was complex. However, with repeated use, it made more sense. Deploying TIBCO BusinessWorks Container Edition and optimizing it on Red Hat OpenShift is complex.

We teamed up with Red Hat's OEM to do the Red Hat OpenShift implementation. So, it was a small team. We just did a waterfall implementation, not agile.

We did see ROI.

The solution's CodeReady Workspaces reduced project onboarding time by over 50% and time to market by 70%.

The organization really wanted to go open source for a very long time to reduce its CapEx and OpEx costs.

We had a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) license for all our servers' operating systems. By having multiple Red Hat products together, you can negotiate costs and leverage on having a sort of enterprise license agreement to reduce the overall outlay or TCO.

The pricing and licensing for OpenShift is okay.

At the time of our evaluation, our options were only OpenShift and Vanilla Kubernetes. Now, there is also VMware Tanzu, which wasn't as mature a product when we did the PoC in 2019.

I am currently implementing VMware Tanzu in my new role at another company. I have not seen any significant differences between Tanzu and OpenShift.

Go for this solution.

Red Hat does a good job of ensuring that their solutions are operable and you can take advantage of the features within a solution.

We also had Red Hat Ansible for automating server provisioning and some operational tasks.

We didn't get any security breaches from Red Hat OpenShift.

I would rate OpenShift as eight out of 10.

We use Red Hat OpenShift for runtime or application migration, transitioning from classic application servers and configuration restore machines.

The solution offers ease with which we can define how to run applications and configure them. It's much more convenient than creating a virtual machine and configuring application servers, making the process faster and simpler.

There are some features regarding English and communication. This refers to external communication points to and from the OpenShift cluster. However, there are limitations due to the cluster's setup.

There are configuration problem, but we managed to find a workaround. Now, we're waiting for Red Hat to address it as a patch. In the meantime, we're using the workaround and are somewhat satisfied. Dealing with just one issue was unexpected, but it did take longer.

The solution is highly scalable. This is a key feature that led us to transition from classic legacy applications to OpenShift because adding more nodes and scaling applications is straightforward. However, it's important to note that applications need to be designed to support this scalability. 

From an external perspective, it's accessible via the OpenShift Internet. Some services require authentication for users, while others are available to non-authenticated users. t can handle anywhere from ten thousand to one hundred thousand users. I rate it a ten out of ten.

We don't have a huge number of ticket.

The initial setup is complex as you need to know the steps. You can design the configuration of the cluster because it comprises various nodes, including infrastructure nodes, control points, and workers. You need to understand how to set up these basic components of the cluster and address persistent volume challenges to ensure they function properly.

The product comes with annual subscription. I rate the solution’s pricing an eight out of ten.

The automation capabilities are straightforward. The tools are designed from the ground up to facilitate automation processes, making it increasingly comfortable to create CI/CD automation processes

One piece of advice is not to be stuck in old ways of thinking because you may need to transition to different types of work. Once you make this shift, you'll find that it's easier than it was in the past.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.