Chapter 4. About OpenShift Kubernetes Engine
Chapter 4. About OpenShift Kubernetes Engine As of 27 April 2020, Red Hat has decided to rename Red Hat OpenShift Container Engine to Red Hat OpenShift Kubernetes Engine to better communicate what value the product offering delivers. Red Hat OpenShift Kubernetes Engine is a product offering from Red Hat that lets you use an enterprise class Kubernetes platform as a production platform for launching containers. You download and install OpenShift Kubernetes Engine the same way as OpenShift Container Platform as they are the same binary distribution, but OpenShift Kubernetes Engine offers a subset of the features that OpenShift Container Platform offers. 4.1. Similarities and differences You can see the similarities and differences between OpenShift Kubernetes Engine and OpenShift Container Platform in the following table: Table 4.1. Product comparison for OpenShift Kubernetes Engine and OpenShift Container Platform OpenShift Kubernetes Engine OpenShift Container Platform Fully Automated Installers Yes Yes Over the Air Smart Upgrades Yes Yes Enterprise Secured Kubernetes Yes Yes Kubectl and oc automated command line Yes Yes Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM) Yes Yes Administrator Web console Yes Yes OpenShift Virtualization Yes Yes User Workload Monitoring Yes Cluster Monitoring Yes Yes Cost Management SaaS Service Yes Yes Platform Logging Yes Developer Web Console Yes Developer Application Catalog Yes Source to Image and Builder Automation (Tekton) Yes OpenShift Service Mesh (Maistra, Kiali, and Jaeger) Yes OpenShift distributed tracing (Jaeger) Yes OpenShift Serverless (Knative) Yes OpenShift Pipelines (Jenkins and Tekton) Yes Embedded Component of IBM Cloud(R) Pak and RHT MW Bundles Yes OpenShift sandboxed containers Yes 4.1.1. Core Kubernetes and container orchestration OpenShift Kubernetes Engine offers full access to an enterprise-ready Kubernetes environment that is easy to install and offers an extensive compatibility test matrix with many of the software elements that you might use in your data center. OpenShift Kubernetes Engine offers the same service level agreements, bug fixes, and common vulnerabilities and errors protection as OpenShift Container Platform. OpenShift Kubernetes Engine includes a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Virtual Datacenter and Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) entitlement that allows you to use an integrated Linux operating system with container runtime from the same technology provider. The OpenShift Kubernetes Engine subscription is compatible with the Red Hat OpenShift support for Windows Containers subscription. 4.1.2. Enterprise-ready configurations OpenShift Kubernetes Engine uses the same security options and default settings as the OpenShift Container Platform. Default security context constraints, pod security policies, best practice network and storage settings, service account configuration, SELinux integration, HAproxy edge routing configuration, and all other standard protections that OpenShift Container Platform offers are available in OpenShift Kubernetes Engine. OpenShift Kubernetes Engine offers full access to the integrated monitoring solution that OpenShift Container Platform uses, which is based on Prometheus and offers deep coverage and alerting for common Kubernetes issues. OpenShift Kubernetes Engine uses the same installation and upgrade automation as OpenShift Container Platform. 4.1.3. Standard infrastructure services With an OpenShift Kubernetes Engine subscription, you receive support for all storage plugins that OpenShift Container Platform supports. In terms of networking, OpenShift Kubernetes Engine offers full and supported access to the Kubernetes Container Network Interface (CNI) and therefore allows you to use any third-party SDN that supports OpenShift Container Platform. It also allows you to use the included Open vSwitch software defined network to its fullest extent. OpenShift Kubernetes Engine allows you to take full advantage of the OVN Kubernetes overlay, Multus, and Multus plugins that are supported on OpenShift Container Platform. OpenShift Kubernetes Engine allows customers to use a Kubernetes Network Policy to create microsegmentation between deployed application services on the cluster. You can also use the Route API objects that are found in OpenShift Container Platform, including its sophisticated integration with the HAproxy edge routing layer as an out of the box Kubernetes Ingress Controller. 4.1.4. Core user experience OpenShift Kubernetes Engine users have full access to Kubernetes Operators, pod deployment strategies, Helm, and OpenShift Container Platform templates. OpenShift Kubernetes Engine users can use both the oc and kubectl command line interfaces. OpenShift Kubernetes Engine also offers an administrator web-based console that shows all aspects of the deployed container services and offers a container-as-a service experience. OpenShift Kubernetes Engine grants access to the Operator Life Cycle Manager that helps you control access to content on the cluster and life cycle operator-enabled services that you use. With an OpenShift Kubernetes Engine subscription, you receive access to the Kubernetes namespace, the OpenShift Project API object, and cluster-level Prometheus monitoring metrics and events. 4.1.5. Maintained and curated content With an OpenShift Kubernetes Engine subscription, you receive access to the OpenShift Container Platform content from the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog and Red Hat Connect ISV marketplace. You can access all maintained and curated content that the OpenShift Container Platform eco-system offers. 4.1.6. OpenShift Data Foundation compatible OpenShift Kubernetes Engine is compatible and supported with your purchase of OpenShift Data Foundation. 4.1.7. Red Hat Middleware compatible OpenShift Kubernetes Engine is compatible and supported with individual Red Hat Middleware product solutions. Red Hat Middleware Bundles that include OpenShift embedded in them only contain OpenShift Container Platform. 4.1.8. OpenShift Serverless OpenShift Kubernetes Engine does not include OpenShift Serverless support. Use OpenShift Container Platform for this support. 4.1.9. Quay Integration compatible OpenShift Kubernetes Engine is compatible and supported with a Red Hat Quay purchase. 4.1.10. OpenShift Virtualization OpenShift Kubernetes Engine includes support for the Red Hat product offerings derived from the kubevirt.io open source project. 4.1.11. Advanced cluster management OpenShift Kubernetes Engine is compatible with your additional purchase of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management (RHACM) for Kubernetes. An OpenShift Kubernetes Engine subscription does not offer a cluster-wide log aggregation solution or support Elasticsearch, Fluentd, or Kibana-based logging solutions. Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh capabilities derived from the open-source istio.io and kiali.io projects that offer OpenTracing observability for containerized services on OpenShift Container Platform are not supported in OpenShift Kubernetes Engine. 4.1.12. Advanced networking The standard networking solutions in OpenShift Container Platform are supported with an OpenShift Kubernetes Engine subscription. The OpenShift Container Platform Kubernetes CNI plugin for automation of multi-tenant network segmentation between OpenShift Container Platform projects is entitled for use with OpenShift Kubernetes Engine. OpenShift Kubernetes Engine offers all the granular control of the source IP addresses that are used by application services on the cluster. Those egress IP address controls are entitled for use with OpenShift Kubernetes Engine. OpenShift Container Platform offers ingress routing to on cluster services that use non-standard ports when no public cloud provider is in use via the VIP pods found in OpenShift Container Platform. That ingress solution is supported in OpenShift Kubernetes Engine. OpenShift Kubernetes Engine users are supported for the Kubernetes ingress control object, which offers integrations with public cloud providers. Red Hat Service Mesh, which is derived from the istio.io open source project, is not supported in OpenShift Kubernetes Engine. Also, the Kourier Ingress Controller found in OpenShift Serverless is not supported on OpenShift Kubernetes Engine. 4.1.13. OpenShift sandboxed containers OpenShift Kubernetes Engine does not include OpenShift sandboxed containers. Use OpenShift Container Platform for this support. 4.1.14. Developer experience With OpenShift Kubernetes Engine, the following capabilities are not supported: The OpenShift Container Platform developer experience utilities and tools, such as Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces. The OpenShift Container Platform pipeline feature that integrates a streamlined, Kubernetes-enabled Jenkins and Tekton experience in the user's project space. The OpenShift Container Platform source-to-image feature, which allows you to easily deploy source code, dockerfiles, or container images across the cluster. Build strategies, builder pods, or Tekton for end user container deployments. The odo developer command line. The developer persona in the OpenShift Container Platform web console. 4.1.15. Feature summary The following table is a summary of the feature availability in OpenShift Kubernetes Engine and OpenShift Container Platform. Where applicable, it includes the name of the Operator that enables a feature. Table 4.2. Features in OpenShift Kubernetes Engine and OpenShift Container Platform Feature OpenShift Kubernetes Engine OpenShift Container Platform Operator name Fully Automated Installers (IPI) Included Included N/A Customizable Installers (UPI) Included Included N/A Disconnected Installation Included Included N/A Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS (RHCOS) entitlement Included Included N/A Existing RHEL manual attach to cluster (BYO) Included Included N/A CRIO Runtime Included Included N/A Over the Air Smart Upgrades and Operating System (RHCOS) Management Included Included N/A Enterprise Secured Kubernetes Included Included N/A Kubectl and oc automated command line Included Included N/A Auth Integrations, RBAC, SCC, Multi-Tenancy Admission Controller Included Included N/A Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM) Included Included N/A Administrator web console Included Included N/A OpenShift Virtualization Included Included OpenShift Virtualization Operator Compliance Operator provided by Red Hat Included Included Compliance Operator File Integrity Operator Included Included File Integrity Operator Gatekeeper Operator Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription Gatekeeper Operator Klusterlet Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription N/A Kube Descheduler Operator provided by Red Hat Included Included Kube Descheduler Operator Local Storage provided by Red Hat Included Included Local Storage Operator Node Feature Discovery provided by Red Hat Included Included Node Feature Discovery Operator Performance Profile controller Included Included N/A PTP Operator provided by Red Hat Included Included PTP Operator Service Telemetry Operator provided by Red Hat Not Included Included Service Telemetry Operator SR-IOV Network Operator Included Included SR-IOV Network Operator Vertical Pod Autoscaler Included Included Vertical Pod Autoscaler Cluster Monitoring (Prometheus) Included Included Cluster Monitoring Device Manager (for example, GPU) Included Included N/A Log Forwarding Included Included Red Hat OpenShift Logging Operator Telemeter and Insights Connected Experience Included Included N/A Feature OpenShift Kubernetes Engine OpenShift Container Platform Operator name OpenShift Cloud Manager SaaS Service Included Included N/A OVS and OVN SDN Included Included N/A MetalLB Included Included MetalLB Operator HAProxy Ingress Controller Included Included N/A Ingress Cluster-wide Firewall Included Included N/A Egress Pod and Namespace Granular Control Included Included N/A Ingress Non-Standard Ports Included Included N/A Multus and Available Multus Plugins Included Included N/A Network Policies Included Included N/A IPv6 Single and Dual Stack Included Included N/A CNI Plugin ISV Compatibility Included Included N/A CSI Plugin ISV Compatibility Included Included N/A RHT and IBM(R) middleware a la carte purchases (not included in OpenShift Container Platform or OpenShift Kubernetes Engine) Included Included N/A ISV or Partner Operator and Container Compatibility (not included in OpenShift Container Platform or OpenShift Kubernetes Engine) Included Included N/A Embedded OperatorHub Included Included N/A Embedded Marketplace Included Included N/A Quay Compatibility (not included) Included Included N/A OpenShift API for Data Protection (OADP) Included Included OADP Operator RHEL Software Collections and RHT SSO Common Service (included) Included Included N/A Embedded Registry Included Included N/A Helm Included Included N/A User Workload Monitoring Not Included Included N/A Cost Management SaaS Service Included Included Cost Management Metrics Operator Platform Logging Not Included Included Red Hat OpenShift Logging Operator OpenShift Elasticsearch Operator provided by Red Hat Not Included Cannot be run standalone N/A Developer Web Console Not Included Included N/A Developer Application Catalog Not Included Included N/A Source to Image and Builder Automation (Tekton) Not Included Included N/A OpenShift Service Mesh Not Included Included OpenShift Service Mesh Operator Feature OpenShift Kubernetes Engine OpenShift Container Platform Operator name Red Hat OpenShift Serverless Not Included Included OpenShift Serverless Operator Web Terminal provided by Red Hat Not Included Included Web Terminal Operator Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines Operator Not Included Included OpenShift Pipelines Operator Embedded Component of IBM Cloud(R) Pak and RHT MW Bundles Not Included Included N/A Red Hat OpenShift GitOps Not Included Included OpenShift GitOps Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces Not Included Included Red Hat OpenShift Dev Spaces Red Hat OpenShift Local Not Included Included N/A Quay Bridge Operator provided by Red Hat Not Included Included Quay Bridge Operator Quay Container Security provided by Red Hat Not Included Included Quay Operator Red Hat OpenShift distributed tracing platform Not Included Included Red Hat OpenShift distributed tracing platform Operator Red Hat OpenShift Kiali Not Included Included Kiali Operator Metering provided by Red Hat (deprecated) Not Included Included N/A Migration Toolkit for Containers Operator Not Included Included Migration Toolkit for Containers Operator Cost management for OpenShift Not included Included N/A JBoss Web Server provided by Red Hat Not included Included JWS Operator Red Hat Build of Quarkus Not included Included N/A Kourier Ingress Controller Not included Included N/A RHT Middleware Bundles Sub Compatibility (not included in OpenShift Container Platform) Not included Included N/A IBM Cloud(R) Pak Sub Compatibility (not included in OpenShift Container Platform) Not included Included N/A OpenShift Do ( odo ) Not included Included N/A Source to Image and Tekton Builders Not included Included N/A OpenShift Serverless FaaS Not included Included N/A IDE Integrations Not included Included N/A {sandboxed-containers-first} Not included Not included {sandboxed-containers-operator} Windows Machine Config Operator Community Windows Machine Config Operator included - no subscription required Red Hat Windows Machine Config Operator included - Requires separate subscription Windows Machine Config Operator Red Hat Quay Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription Quay Operator Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription N/A OpenShift Data Foundation Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription OpenShift Data Foundation Feature OpenShift Kubernetes Engine OpenShift Container Platform Operator name Ansible Automation Platform Resource Operator Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription Ansible Automation Platform Resource Operator Business Automation provided by Red Hat Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription Business Automation Operator Data Grid provided by Red Hat Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription Data Grid Operator Red Hat Integration provided by Red Hat Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription Red Hat Integration Operator Red Hat Integration - 3Scale provided by Red Hat Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription 3scale Red Hat Integration - 3Scale APICast gateway provided by Red Hat Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription 3scale APIcast Red Hat Integration - AMQ Broker Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription AMQ Broker Red Hat Integration - AMQ Broker LTS Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription Red Hat Integration - AMQ Interconnect Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription AMQ Interconnect Red Hat Integration - AMQ Online Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription Red Hat Integration - AMQ Streams Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription AMQ Streams Red Hat Integration - Camel K Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription Camel K Red Hat Integration - Fuse Console Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription Fuse Console Red Hat Integration - Fuse Online Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription Fuse Online Red Hat Integration - Service Registry Operator Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription Service Registry API Designer provided by Red Hat Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription API Designer JBoss EAP provided by Red Hat Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription JBoss EAP Smart Gateway Operator Not Included - Requires separate subscription Not Included - Requires separate subscription Smart Gateway Operator Kubernetes NMState Operator Included Included N/A 4.2. Subscription limitations OpenShift Kubernetes Engine is a subscription offering that provides OpenShift Container Platform with a limited set of supported features at a lower list price. OpenShift Kubernetes Engine and OpenShift Container Platform are the same product and, therefore, all software and features are delivered in both. There is only one download, OpenShift Container Platform. OpenShift Kubernetes Engine uses the OpenShift Container Platform documentation and support services and bug errata for this reason.