Item: Red Hat OpenShift
Rating: 6
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Red Hat OpenShift is a Kubernetes distribution that aims to resolve the containerized needs of customers securely. In addition to the package, behind the distro, there is Red Hat with his support team and implementation team. The distro, of course, has license and support costs that could be a huge part of the maintenance infrastructure costs. Do not forget also that Red Hat has made strong design politics with OpenShift that force a vendor lock-in in several parts of the day two operation.

Pros and Cons

Workload management.
Security
Simplicity of deployment with an extensive helm char catalog.

Vendor lock-in.
Maintenance cost.
Short ttl of the releases.

Return on Investment

Negative: The ROI of OpenShift is difficult to reach because of the high cost of license and support. Today there are better alternatives.
Negative: vendor lock-in on infra part, like Istio, that forces other RHEL choices for HyperVisor.
Positive: support, you have RHEL behind it and for a customer could be important.

Application Development and Delivery

OpenShift has provided a solid and well-architected architecture for deploying the workloads. The ifra is solid and reliable, like every other Kubernetes distribution, well installed and configured. If you adopt a well-architected distro, or you are able to install Kubernetes open source by yourself, making it production-ready, the value of open shift will be decreased.

Performance

OpenShift has a solid architecture based on conservative choice, so it works correctly, and its reliability is elevated. The performance of the application is good because workloads could scale like they could do in every other Kubernetes distro, well installed if it runs on sufficient hardware. In case of any issue Red Hat support could be reached to help the customer.

Alternatives Considered

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Sometimes, we were forced to adopt Red Hat OpenShift because it's a well-known distribution and has extensive support offered by Red Hat. This is the main reason behind this selection. When a customer is forced to have a Kubernetes distro on-prem, there are alternatives, but usually, Red Hat is the most famous name on the table.

Key Insights

Do you think Red Hat OpenShift delivers good value for the price?

Are you happy with Red Hat OpenShift's feature set?

Did Red Hat OpenShift live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Red Hat OpenShift go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Red Hat OpenShift again?

Likelihood to Recommend

OpenShift is suited where an on-prem Kubernetes distro is required with solid support from a well-known vendor. OpenShift could become inappropriate when the best in a technology class is needed (because RedHat mostly pushes its technology or version of technology, e.g., ISTIO, which usually has less functionality than the open-source free version) or where the license cost elevated is not sustainable.

Red Hat OpenShift, a solid Kubernetes distro that should be chosen accordingly.

Software Version

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Red Hat OpenShift