Accelerate DevOps and Cloud Native Apps with the Dell Validated Platform for Red Hat OpenShift
Thu, 15 Sep 2022 13:28:43 -0000
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Today we announce the release of the Dell Validated Platform for Red Hat OpenShift. This platform has been jointly validated by Red Hat and Dell, and is an evolution of the design referenced in the white paper “Red Hat OpenShift 4.6 with CSI PowerFlex 1.3.0 Deployment on Dell EMC PowerFlex Family”.
Figure 1: The Dell Validated Platform for Red Hat OpenShift
The world is moving faster and with that comes the struggle to not just maintain, but to streamline processes and accelerate deliverables. We are no longer in the age of semi-annual or quarterly releases, as some industries need multiple releases a day to meet their goals. To accomplish this requires a mix of technology and processes … enter the world of containers. Containerization is not a new technology, but in recent years it has picked up a tremendous amount of steam. It is no longer just a fringe technology reserved for those on the bleeding edge; it has become mainstream and is being used by organizations large and small. However, technology alone will not solve everything. To be successful your processes must change with the technology – this is where DevOps comes in. DevOps is a different approach to Information Technology; it involves a blending of resources usually separated into different teams with different reporting structures and often different goals. It systematically looks to eliminate process bottlenecks and applies automation to help organizations move faster than they ever thought possible. DevOps is not a single process, but a methodology that can be challenging to implement.
Why Red Hat OpenShift?
Red Hat OpenShift is an enterprise-grade container orchestration and management platform based on Kubernetes. While many organizations understand the value of moving to containerization, and are familiar with the name Kubernetes, most don’t have a full grasp of what Kubernetes is and what it isn’t. OpenShift uses their own Kubernetes distribution, and layers on top critical enterprise features like:
- Built-in underlying hardware management and scaling, integrated with Dell iDRAC
- Multi-Cluster deployment, management, and shift-left security enforcement
- Developer Experience – CI/CD, GitOps, Pipelines, Logging, Monitoring, and Observability
- Integrated Networking including ServiceMesh and multi-cluster networking
- Integrated Web Console with distinct Admin and Developer views
- Automated Platform Updates and Upgrades
- Multiple workload options – containers, virtual machines, and serverless
- Operators for extending and managing additional capabilities
All these capabilities mean that you have a full container platform with a rigorously tested and certified toolchain that can accelerate your development, and reduce the costs associated with maintenance and downtime. This is what has made OpenShift the number 1 container platform in the market.
Figure 2: Realizing business value from a hybrid strategy - Source: IDC White Paper, sponsored by Red Hat, "The Business Value of Red Hat OpenShift", doc # US47539121, February 2021.
Meeting the performance needs
Scalable container platforms like Red Hat OpenShift work best when paired with a fast, scalable infrastructure platform, and this is why OpenShift, and Dell PowerFlex are the perfect team. With PowerFlex, organizations can have a single software-defined platform for all their workloads, from bare metal, to virtualized, to containerized. All on a blazing-fast infrastructure that can scale to thousands of nodes. Not to mention the API-driven architecture of PowerFlex fits perfectly in a methodology centered on automation. To help jumpstart customers on their automation journey we have already created robust infrastructure and DevOps automation through our extensive tooling that includes:
- Dell Container Storage Modules (CSM)/Container Storage Interface (CSI) Plugins
- Ansible Modules
- AppSync Integration
Being software-defined means that PowerFlex can deliver linear performance by being able to balance data across all nodes. This ensures that you can spread the work out over the cluster to scale well beyond the limits of the individual hardware components. This also allows PowerFlex to be incredibly resilient, capable of seamlessly recovering from individual component or node failures.
Putting it all together
Introducing the Dell Validated Platform for Red Hat OpenShift, the latest collaboration in the long 22-year partnership between Red Hat and Dell. This platform brings together the power of Red Hat OpenShift with the flexibility and performance of Dell PowerFlex into a single package.
Figure 3: The Dell Validated Platform for Red Hat OpenShift Architecture
This platform uses PowerFlex in a 2-tier architecture to give you optimal performance, and the ability to scale storage and compute independently, up to thousands of nodes. We are also taking advantage of Red Hat capabilities to run PowerFlex Manager and its accompanying services in OpenShift Virtualization to make efficient use of compute nodes and minimize the required hardware footprint.
The combined platform gives you the ability to become more agile and increase productivity through the extensive automation already available, along with the documented APIs to extend that automation or create your own.
This platform has been fully validated by both Dell and Red Hat, so you can run it with confidence. We have also streamlined the ordering process, so the entire platform can be acquired directly from Dell, including the Red Hat software and subscriptions. All of this is implemented using Dell’s ProDeploy services to ensure that the platform is implemented optimally and gets you up and running faster. This means you can start realizing the value of the platform faster, while reducing risk.
If you are interested in getting more information about the Dell Validated Platform for Red Hat OpenShift please contact your Dell representative.
Authors:
Michael Wells, PowerFlex Engineering Technologist
Twitter: @SqlTechMike
LinkedIn
Rhys Oxenham, Director, Customer & Field Engagement