OpenShift is a cloud-based Kubernetes service by Red Hat. Azure Red Hat OpenShift, a.k.a. Azure OpenShift, is a product jointly developed by Red Hat and Azure to offer a seamless integration of OpenShift on the Azure platform.
In this article, we’ll cover:
Red Hat and Microsoft jointly engineer, operate, and support Azure Red Hat OpenShift. The table below summarizes the key benefits of Azure Red Hat OpenShift over OpenShift as IaaS.
Azure OpenShift Benefits
| Benefit | Description |
|---|---|
| Security | Enterprise-grade operations, security, and compliance. With SLA of 99.95% availability and PCI DSS, ISO 27001, HITRUST, SOC 2 Type II, and FedRAMP certifications. |
| Cloud-native Integrations | Promotes developer productivity with built-in CI/CD pipelines and effortlessly connects applications to hundreds of Azure services such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, Cosmos DB, etc. |
| Quick Startup | Start a highly available cluster quickly and scale your application demand changes. |
| Flexible Instance Types | Choice between standard, memory-optimized, and CPU-optimized application nodes. |
| Convenient Billing | Pay through an already configured Azure subscription. |
| Vertical Integration | A vertically integrated product with a core OS, so any updates or security vulnerabilities are addressed sooner and faster. |
Azure OpenShift 4 has a minimum cluster size of three master nodes and three worker nodes. Both node types use Linux Azure VM pricing. Additionally, worker nodes have OpenShift license costs as well.
With Azure OpenShift, these VM sizes are billed as part of the standard Azure subscription. Both master and worker nodes can use Azure's reduced on-demand and reserved instance pricing.
For a complete list of supported VM sizes, see Azure Red Hat OpenShift pricing
There are two ways to run OpenShift on Azure:
OpenShift Container Platform on virtual machines is deployed through cloud.redhat.com/openshift. With this deployment model, OpenShift must be installed and set up on a VM, and you must bring your own license.
There are no Azure-specific operations, integrations, or billing benefits in this case. With this option, using OpenShift on Azure is the same as running it on your own hardware or another infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform like GCP or AWS.
With this deployment model, you can deploy Azure Red Hat OpenShift through the Azure portal or the Azure CLI. It is fully managed and supported by both Red Hat and Azure. Since this is part of the Azure service stack, the billing integrates into your Azure subscription, including a license.
Now, let’s walk through how you can deploy Azure Red Hat OpenShift using the Azure portal and Azure CLI.
Before we get started, you’ll need to:
Note that the initial quota allowed is ten vCPUs. You’ll need at least 40. Use the normal Azure process to request a large quota by going to the “Usage + quotas” option available under the Azure portal and requesting an additional quota for the instance type you will use to deploy the Azure OpenShift cluster.
You can find a list of supported Quotas and other requirements for Azure OpenShift here.
Next, we’ll prep Azure for installation. We can also do this through the Azure portal, but for this
article, we’ll use the Azure CLI as it makes deployment easier.
az provider register -n Microsoft.RedHatOpenShift –wait
az provider register -n Microsoft.Compute –wait
az provider register -n Microsoft.Storage –wait
az provider register -n Microsoft.Authorization –wait
LOCATION=eastus #location of your cluster
RESOURCEGROUP=arorg #name of the resource group where you want to create your cluster
CLUSTER=cluster #name of your cluster
az group create \
--name $RG\
--location $LOCATION
{
"id": "/subscriptions/<guid>/resourceGroups/aro-rg",
"location": "eastus",
"name": "aro-rg",
"properties": {
"provisioningState": "Succeeded"
},
"type": "Microsoft.Resources/resourceGroups"
}
az network vnet create \
--resource-group $RG \
--name arovnet \
--address-prefixes 20.0.0.0/22
{
"newVNet": {
"addressSpace": {
"addressPrefixes": [
"20.0.0.0/22"
]
},
"dhcpOptions": {
"dnsServers": []
},
"id": "/subscriptions/<guid>/resourceGroups/aro-rg/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/aro-vnet",
"location": "eastus",
"name": "arovnet",
"provisioningState": "Succeeded",
"resourceGroup": "arorg",
"type": "Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks"
}
az network vnet subnet create \
--resource-group $RG\
--vnet-name arovnet \
--name master-subnet \
--address-prefixes 20.0.0.0/23 \
--service-endpoints Microsoft.ContainerRegistry
az network vnet subnet create \
--resource-group $RG \
--vnet-name arovnet \
--name workersubnet \
--address-prefixes 20.0.2.0/23 \
--service-endpoints Microsoft.ContainerRegistry
az network vnet subnet update \
--name mastersubnet \
--resource-group $RG \
--vnet-name arovnet \
--disable-private-link-service-network-policies true
aro create command. You can run this command to see the options available for the aro create command.
aro create –help | more
az network vnet subnet update \
--name mastersubnet \
--resource-group $RG \
--vnet-name arovnet \
--disable-private-link-service-network-policies true
az aro create \
--resource-group $RESOURCEGROUP \
--name $CLUSTER \
--vnet arovnet \
--master-subnet mastersubnet \
--worker-subnet workersubnet
--pull-secret @pull-secret.txt
az aro list-credentials \\
--name $CLUSTER \
--resource-group $RG
az aro show \
--name $CLUSTER \
--resource-group $RG \
--query “consoleProfile.url” -o tsv
Kubernetes Autoscaling doesn’t recommend pod limit values or consider I/O. Densify identifies mis-provisioned containers at a glance and prescribes the optimal configuration.
Densify has partnered with Intel to offer one year of free resource optimization software licensing to qualified companies.
Now you have full cluster access for advanced customization and management. It also gives you complete control over upgrades and life cycle management.
You also get direct access to Azure storage, compute, and auto-scaling options, among others.
Another excellent integration with Azure is being able to configure Azure RedHat OpenShift version 4 with container insight. After deployment, Azure Insights automatically displays the container. It is displayed under “Unmonitored clusters”, as shown in the screenshot below.
Before we proceed, make sure:
export ResourceId=”subscriptions/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/resourceGroup/rg-name/providers/Microsoft.RedHatOpenShift/OpenShiftClusters/clustername”
bash enable-monitoring.sh -- resource-id $ResourceId
That’s it! Now you can monitor your cluster, nodes, controllers, and containers and run detailed reports.
Azure OpenShift is an excellent choice for OpenShift deployment. The joint support and ease of deployment and use make it one of the best OpenShift deployment platforms available. It offers all the in-demand industry certifications for compliance out of the box. Joint support also makes troubleshooting issues far less complicated. Azure also provides comprehensive monitoring through Azure insights with a prebuilt script from Microsoft.
Kubernetes Autoscaling doesn’t recommend pod limit values or consider I/O. Densify identifies mis-provisioned containers at a glance and prescribes the optimal configuration.
Densify has partnered with Intel to offer one year of free resource optimization software licensing to qualified companies.