Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Reviews

Our use case is primarily to do with DataPower. We wanted to configure DataPower and move away from appliances to a software-based solution, which is CP4I. DataPower is an IBM product, and we were using their firmware machine. We wanted to move from hardware or firmware to software, and CP4I is a software-based solution for DataPower, and that works primarily for any Kubernetes, but IBM had both. So we moved to Kubernetes, and on top of that, we had CP4I.

We did the implementation for one organization. It was widely used, and there was a huge customer base. It was primarily in the telecom domain. Those APIs were used, and we were getting a lot of incoming traffic and outgoing traffic through DataPower.

This solution is deployed on our private cloud.

The architecture is the best. The solution is scalable if you are on a container-based solution. I can easily spin a new container or create another image, so that was the benefit. It was scalable, and I could easily ramp up and ramp down the services based on the need.

OpenShift is not very old. They have built an entire layer on top of Kubernetes. Getting the solution quickly and troubleshooting quickly are both areas where I think it needs some work. 

It wasn't very problematic for us because we were getting the solution. They also needed to do some experiments in their own lab, because our use case was a little different, and we were one of the few who were implementing it for the first time with Cloud Pak.

I have been using this solution for about two and a half years.

It wasn't stable while we were testing it, but now it's really stable.

I would rate technical support 4 out of 5. 

The deployment was very easy, which is another benefit. The orchestration and management were also very user-friendly and easy.

We used our own technical team for deployment. The team, including support and everything, was around five to six people. They were working on services also, like creating and deploying the APIs. We had the infrastructure team who were managing the clusters.

It also depends on the size and how many master nodes there are, how many worker nodes you have, and the mechanism you're using for logging. I was using Prometheus and Grafana. It all depends on how huge your architecture, how huge your infrastructure is.

We definitely did the ROI on this new implementation, and we found that in the long run, it was going to save a lot.

We paid for Cloud Pak for integration. It all depends on how many VMs or how many CPUs you are using. They do the licensing based on that.

It was not very cheap, but it was affordable for the organization. They had the enterprise ELA, which means they had the enterprise licensing agreement with IBM. So it worked for them, and it wasn't very expensive.

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10.

The solution being used for application containization.

I like the Flexibility of the solution. 

Metrics monitoring feature needs improvement.

I have been using Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform for five years.

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

Our primary use case for Red Hat OpenShift is to deploy applications. We utilize the platform to manage multiple pods and ensure seamless scaling of our nodes and servers to meet the demands of our high-availability applications.

The platform has significantly improved our organization by enhancing productivity and reducing the time required to deploy applications. It allows for faster deployment and continuous delivery, which has streamlined our development processes.

The most valuable features of Red Hat OpenShift include its integration with Kubernetes and the user interface, which enhances the end-user experience and accelerates the deployment process. These features contribute to increased productivity and efficiency for our developers.

The product could benefit from additional operators and tools integrated with OpenShift. Furthermore, enhancements to the user interface and including more features would be beneficial.

I rate the platform's stability a seven out of ten.

The platform is scalable. 

I have opened some tickets but did not receive the required technical support.

Neutral

The initial setup was complex. I rate the process a two out of ten.

The implementation was done in-house.

I rate the product an eight out of ten. 

I have been using OpenShift Container Platform as a container of network functions for customer's telecom industry. 

One practical example of how OpenShift Container Platform helps us is in deploying security updates quickly, which is superior compared to other solutions like Coverness, Canonical, Kubernetes, Rancher, etc. However, there are areas for improvement in networking, architecture, and cloud aspects of the solution.

I find the security features and use of operators in OpenShift Container Platform highly valuable. The container update capabilities and OpenShift data foundation for storage are also important features.

I believe OpenShift Container Platform can improve in networking, architecture, and cloud areas by reducing deployment time, lowering costs, and streamlining engineer resources. Additionally, I would like to see more Azure I/O functions in the next release.

I have been using OpenShift Container Platform for four years.

The platform is stable and capable, covering various customer needs.

The scalability of OpenShift Container Platform is excellent. It allows for quick scale-outs with new workers, making it very efficient and is used by eighteen engineers for telecom purposes, impacting business significantly.

Technical support from OpenShift is decent but could be improved in some locations.

I find the initial setup of OpenShift Container Platform to be moderately complex. The deployment involves steps like installation, configuration, and deploying common services on-premises. Deployment typically takes around four hours and involves a team of two to four people. I'm not involved in maintenance. 

I'm not familiar with pricing or financial aspects. In terms of effort versus benefit, it's worth it.

My advice for new users is to explore the platform thoroughly as it's complex yet reliable. I would rate their customer service a seven out of ten. Overall, I rate OpenShift Container Platform a nine as it's a good product with room for improvement.

It is used for containers.

It is very lightweight and can be deployed very fast, especially when it comes to containers. It can spin the web and the DB very fast, so we don't need to deploy the server and the VM. Everything is in the container.

There is room for improvement with integration.

I have been using the solution for one year.

The solution is stable.

The solution has good scalability. I rate the scalability of the solution a nine out of ten. There is also room for improvement in the scalability of the solution.

One or two users are using OpenShift in our company, and we hope to increase the usage.

The support is very good. Their response and technical skills are good.

I have used Docker before. We shifted to OpenShift because we were using Docker for self-learning.

The initial setup is complex. The solution is deployed on-premises. However, it can also be deployed on the cloud.

To deploy OpenShift, first, you must get the installer and then prepare a minimum requirement. You will need a key physical server as a load balancer. OpenShift has a lot of roles in its nodes, with worker nodes and master nodes. Since different nodes have their role, the setup is complex. You will need to set up ten or 12 nodes like this. After you have set up all the nodes, you need to do the integration and set up OpenShift.

It takes a month or a year to deploy it.

The deployment can be done in-house. There are two people required for maintenance.

The pricing is expensive for licensing. The customer has to pay for the license.

Before choosing OpenShift, I advise you to know your application landscape very well. Only then will you know if you require OpenShift. If you are unclear about your application environment, layout, and structure, it is potentially not a good idea because you don't understand it.

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

The principal use case of the platform is the transition and migration to the cloud. The second one is the modernization of our integration platforms.

The usability and the developer experience. The platform has a centralized consultant that is easy to use for our development, operations and security teams.

The price needs to be improved in OpenShift Container Platform.

When I choose this, the product is the first factor that we have to make a long analysis to compare the real cost for the other services. However, price is high.

I have been using OpenShift Container Platform for five years. We started with OpenShift Container Platform and now we have OpenShift Container Platform tools. 

I would rate the product’s stability a nine out of ten.

I would rate the tool’s scalability a nine out of ten.

The solution is difficult to set up because of the limitations of the premises. 

Overall, I would rate the product a nine out of ten.

I usually help companies design their environments, find workloads efficiencies, suggest best practices, and provide an overview of the environment, which involves consultation and a focused-oriented approach. I also deploy and develop solutions for companies. I do end-to-end deployment for companies.

OpenShift Container Platform is used by companies moving from their old monolithic environment to a microservices-oriented architecture. If a company wants to do a BAU sort of stuff, they already have OpenShift Container Platform, but they need someone to drive it or work on its day-to-day automation while looking at its integration with Ansible or Puppet.

People choose OpenShift Container Platform because it's an open-source and Red Hat Kubernetes product. Red Hat has made Kubernetes command-line oriented, obscure, and hard to learn. OpenShift is easier to learn for a newbie, especially for someone who has not used CLI. The support structure of OpenShift is pretty good and absolutely terrific. The bug fixes and patching capabilities, along with the whole ecosystem of OpenShift Container Platform, are very mature from a technical standpoint or from an enterprise standpoint. If you are a big company and invest a lot of money in certain solutions, you need and expect top-notch support and features of very high quality. OpenShift Container Platform is a very good way to get in started in this whole containerization journey for some companies because the underlying product is from Red Hat, which has its own benefits. The aforementioned factors play a role in the decision-making process of most companies.

I have only been working for two years on OpenShift Container Platform, and I have only seen good stuff so far. Hopefully, in the next two years, I will have a bit more hands-on experience to find out some pain points in the product.

There are no perfect tools. Many things can be done better in a product, but I don't know how to make it possible. Once I have done enough with the tool, I should be able to give you a bit more insight into the product's pain points.

The interface could be a bit more useful or better. The product's interface is a bit buggy.

I have been using OpenShift Container Platform for a couple of years. I am a consultant who specializes in Red Hat products. I am a Red Hat-certified engineer.

The tool is scalable enough because it is available across the clouds, like AWS or Azure. You can have the tool deployed on-premises too. I think it's a pretty scalable tool.

The solution's technical support has been pretty good. Red Hat offers the best support to its users.

I am a person who is a bit more infrastructure-focused. JBoss is a middleware software, and I don't really work in that space. I am more into the underlying infrastructure, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Containers and Kubernetes, and that sort of stuff, including OpenShift and OpenStack. I am not really into the application layer.

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

Our customers value the monitoring and logging functionalities which are also our most valuable features. 

Our customers like the service mesh, so we integrated these to improve customer satisfaction.

It is difficult to deploy the OpenShift cluster in a bare-metal environment. For example, when there are errors during the cluster deployment, it is hard to find the error on any documentation. So, from the cluster deployment perspective, there could be improvements.

Also, the machine config and machine config tools need improvement. The machine config tool implements changes related to files over the worker and master nodes in OpenShift. However, sometimes it starts without warning, and it is unclear how the error can be fixed.

In terms of additional features, it will be good to have the support of the CNI or OVN for the Multus CNI. Currently, in OpenShift, the additional networks added by the Multus and the pods do not support the OVN CNI plugin. OVN is supported in OpenShift, but only for the non-Multus interface, which is the primary interface of pods.

We have used OpenShift Container Platform for the past four years. We are using version 4.10, and it is deployed on-premises.

It is a stable solution. We have not had any issues or found any big bugs. However, even though it is stable, we observed that the latest versions of this solution are usually less stable than the previous versions.

Therefore, if I were to rate the stability, I would give it a six out of ten because there are a few minor issues in the latest version.

OpenShift Container Platform is great from a scalability perspective. To my knowledge, there is no limitation when adding many compute nodes in OpenShift. It just requires a lot of hardware since we use on-premises at my company. You will need to increase the capability of master nodes if you want to add worker nodes.

I will rate the scalability a six out of ten.

Technical support from Red Hat is very good. They are proactive and always reply accordingly, depending on the tickets' priority. We never have any issues with the support. I will rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup was very complicated. It took us about a week to deploy a basic three-master and a two-worker node cluster. I was also not aware of the OpenShift documentation at the time.

From an administrative perspective, it is difficult for new people to understand. A few coworkers from different backgrounds who moved to use OpenShift found it challenging. However, it was not as difficult for me because I am familiar with OpenShift.

I rate the implementation experience a five out of ten.

I don't know the exact licensing costs as I never purchase licenses for my organization.

I rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Regarding advice, it depends on the use case and what kind of platform a company wants. For example, if they want something on Kubernetes with at least basic amenities, like logging and monitoring and similar things out of the box, then OpenShift is good for them. But, if they want to modify the Kubernetes how they want, it is not a good solution because it is not flexible. OpenShift Container Platform gives you a lot of features out of the box, but you cannot modify it. So, if they want to use Kubernetes how they want, then the open-source Vanilla Kubernetes is better for them than OpenShift.