Kubernetes vs OpenShift
What Is the Difference?
It has become a buzzword to develop and deploy apps using containers, as a method of accelerating development. In the last few years, container usage has grown exponentially.
An organization must always have a container management platform, however, since managing containers across the infrastructure can become so complicated. One of the largest container management platforms is Kubernetes, while another is OpenShift. OpenShift is based on Kubernetes, which makes it interesting. Learn more about their similarities and differences below.
What Is Red Hat OpenShift?
Red Hat has developed an open-source software solution called OpenShift for containerization. Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) orchestrated and managed via Kubernetes is their main product, OpenShift Container Platform. It was written in Go and AngularJS and is licensed under the Apache License.
Red Hat OpenShift Origin is a cloud-based platform for building, testing, and deploying applications. The system adds tools to Kubernetes to make application development faster, deployment easier, and scaling easier.
Besides supporting Go, Node.js, Ruby, Python, PHP, Perl, and Java, the platform is extensible so users can add support for other languages. In terms of scalability, the platform allows the scaling of containerized applications either automatically or manually.
OpenShift offers the following features:
· Constant security — patches are applied to the container stack throughout the application lifecycle.
· Monitoring built-in — Prometheus, which is a database and application monitoring system, is included on the platform. Grafana dashboards allow you to see the applications in real-time.
· Centralized policy management — a single console runs across multiple clusters, providing a central location to manage policies.
· Compatibility — OpenShift is certified with the Kubernetes program, so container workloads on OpenShift can be hosted on Kubernetes.
Working with OpenShift has the following benefits:
· A fast application development process — the automation of containers enhances the DevOps process since the platform feeds and streams it. With this accelerated application development, you can get to market faster, allowing you to remain competitive.
· No vendor lock-in — Its open-source platform is vendor-agnostic, meaning users can migrate their containers to a new operating system without having to redo their container orchestration.
· Self-service provisioning — A video game developer could use this feature if developing games compatible with multiple operating systems, for instance. Self-service provisioning — Users can integrate the tools they use most into OpenShift.
What Is Kubernetes?
Known as containerization as a service (CaaS), Kubernetes is an open-source orchestration tool for automating the deployment, scalability, and management of containerized applications to simplify the development process. The following are some features of Kubernetes:
· Processes automation — which server will host the containers, for instance.
· Self-monitoring — the platform constantly checks the health of its servers and containers.
· Scalability — One of its main benefits is that it enables horizontal scaling, so organizations can scale their storage according to their workload requirements.
· Flexible — as an open-source cloud-based tool, it can be run on-premises, in a hybrid or public cloud environment.
· Container balance — is calculated by the platform automatically to determine where a container should be placed.
· Orchestration of storage systems — enables Kubernetes to integrate with most storage systems. For instance, you can integrate it with your AWS Elastic Storage.
Kubernetes has the following benefits:
· Mature architecture — Developed by Google engineers with over a decade of experience.
· Development is ongoing — Kubernetes is constantly adding new features thanks to its large, active community. The user community serves as a support network for collaboration.
· Strong application support — offers a wide range of languages and frameworks. This flexibility makes Kubernetes suitable for many different use cases.
Differences Between OpenShift and Kubernetes
OpenShift and Kubernetes are similar since both applications are built upon Kubernetes. These two platforms differ in several ways, however. Let’s compare the features of OpenShift and Kubernetes:
Base-
Both products are based on Linux, but they run in different environments.
A Kubernetes cluster can run on a wide range of operating systems. A Linux distribution should have an RPM package manager. Hence, Fedora, Ubuntu, or Debian are the best options. AWS, Azure, and GCP are all major IaaS platforms that can deploy Kubernetes.
In addition to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux Atomic Host (RHELAH), OpenShift can also be installed on Fedora and CentOS. The OpenShift Dedicated service allows you to run your own cloud cluster, specifically through Amazon Web Services.
roll out-
Both products are complex to because the
There is a wide variety of ways to deploy Kubernetes clusters on-premises due to the spectrum of platforms Kubernetes runs on. Installers like Rancher Kubernetes Everywhere (RKE) and kops, which can deploy OpenShift on AWS, are commonly used.
OpenShift aims to eliminate the need for additional components after the initial deployment. The installer uses Ansible, so it can install OpenShift with minimal settings.
Web-UI-
Kubernetes and OpenShift differ significantly on the ability to administer the cluster via a web-based user interface.
To access Kubernetes’ dashboard, you need to open a port on your local computer and forward it to the cluster’s admin server through Kube proxy. In addition, you have to manually create a bearer token to access the authentication and authorization pages, as there is no login page. All of these complications result in a web interface that is not useful for regular administrative tasks.
You can even create and modify most resources through OpenShift’s web console, which has a login page and is easily accessible. The cluster cannot be administrated through the web, however, servers and projects can be visualized.
Integrated Image Registry-
In this case, there is a key difference between the two systems.
It is possible to set up your own Docker registry with Kubernetes, but there is no idea of how images are managed.
Red Hat and Docker Hub can be used with OpenShift’s integrated image registry. The software includes an image registry console that allows users to search for images and image streams associated with projects in a cluster.
Jenkins Inside-
Kubernetes doesn’t have this concept, but you can deploy your own Jenkins image. Uploaded images are the resulting artifacts, which are docker images.
Pipeline builds refer to a form of source-to-image build in which an image contains a Jenkins, which monitors ImageStreamsTags. The Jenkins build can be started when an update is needed.
Networking-
In Kubernetes, there is no native networking solution, but third-party plugins can be used to connect to the network.
In addition to its native networking solution, OpenShift offers three different plugins.
Which One Is Better?
Platforms both aim to facilitate the orchestration of containers and application development. By using them, containerized applications can be deployed and managed easily and efficiently. Over 80% of tasks can be performed directly through the OpenShift web console.
Despite having similar cores (OpenShift has Kubernetes built-in), OpenShift makes installation easier with its out-of-the-box features. A Kubernetes cluster is often managed as part of a turnkey solution.
You will choose the system depending on the requirements of your system and how important flexibility and a good web interface are to your development process.
