Top 3 Benefits of OpenShift on IBM Cloud

In an article on IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat, Tech Republic surmises that IBM’s $34 billion purchase of Red Hat has the potential to make IBM the center of the open source universe. 

Undoubtedly, as one of the best container management solutions in the industry, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) will significantly improve how customers keep up with technology transformations. Businesses and developers using these cloud-ready tools will experience a more flexible and capable management solution. 

Senior Vice President of the IBM Hybrid Cloud sector, Arvind Krishna describes the acquisition stating, “With IBM’s recent move to containerize its middleware, [the] landmark partnership between IBM and Red Hat provides customers with more choice and flexibility. Our common vision for hybrid cloud using container architectures allows millions of enterprises – from banks, to airlines, to government organizations – to access leading technology from both companies without having to choose between public and private cloud.”

As an extension of IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service, using the Red Hat OpenShift platform enables enterprises to manage their community Kubernetes and OpenShift clusters all with the same IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service application programming interface (API), command line interface (CLI), and console for a more manageable user experience.

With OpenShift on IBM Cloud offering a solution that even beginners can use, we can expect it to contribute towards growing the digital-first economy around the globe. We look at the top 3 benefits of OpenShift on IBM Cloud:


An Increase in Contributions From DevOps

OpenShift on IBM Cloud has been designed to assist enterprises with the early stages of cloud migration by establishing cloud-agnostic containerized software. It provides developers with a platform allowing them to containerize and deploy large workloads in Kubernetes with a tool ensuring both speed and reliability. 

Businesses all around the world using OpenShift have reported that the platform’s simplicity has given their IT staff some free time. While some may see this as an opportunity to save money and cut down on employees, others have taken it another direction. With this free time, developers are significantly more productive, delivering more applications and major features than ever. This increases a company’s value and over time, can make a serious impact on revenue. IDC estimates that organizations will see benefits at an average of $814,500 per 100 developers per year over the course of five years.


OCP offers users a number of benefits including:

● A convenient centralized dashboard

● Access to IBM Cloud services

● Access to other IBM services such as AI and analytics

● Access to Red Hat open-source tools

● Consistently monitor and log apps

● Identity management

● Flexibility for developers and beginners

● Secure monitoring and logging capabilities

● Worldwide availability in single- and multi-zone options

● Uniform container orchestration across hybrid cloud providers

● Built-in container image tools

● Default strict app security settings 

● Integrated CI/CD with Jenkins



Shorter App Development Lifecycles

When it comes to beating the competition, long development lifecycles can certainly take a company out of the running. Using OpenShift not only helps bring apps to market much faster, but any new features or bugs that need to be fixed can be done without too much trouble. In a world where bad reviews matter, something like this can help keep a business afloat. 


Expansion to New Markets

With more free time on their hands, we can expect to see more enterprises expanding to new markets. This will ultimately contribute to the transformation of the digital economy as we start to see more and more innovation developments designed to fill needs we don’t know we have yet. We can expect not only to see new markets come to life but the expansion of existing markets as well. 

OpenShift has shown to improve the development and management of apps to the degree that developers find themselves with enough free time on their hands to bring new and exciting ideas to the table. There’s no question that the combined efforts used to develop OpenShift on IBM Cloud have the potential to change the world as we know it. 


Next Steps

Stone Door Group is an early adopter of all things Red Hat OpenShift. Our OpenShift Container Platform Accelerator℠ solution takes all the guesswork out of transitioning brownfield applications to OpenShift by executing an industry best practice services migration methodology that delivers tangible and valuable outcomes. 

To talk with the Stone Door Group about your next cloud transformation project, drop us a line at letsdothis@stonedoorgrooup.com.


About the Author

Mike McDonough is Principal Cloud Architect for Stone Door Group, a cloud and DevOps consulting company and team lead for Stone Door Group’s OpenShift practice. To learn more about our cloud and DevOps solutions, drop us a line at letsdothis@stonedoorgroup.com.