Multicluster Engine: Master Kubernetes Lifecycle

The cluster lifecycle component of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management is now generally available in a standalone operator called the multicluster engine, and it’s supported as part of your OpenShift or Red Hat OpenShift Kubernetes Engine subscription. This is a significant game-changer for Red Hat OpenShift customers. Continue reading to find out how Red Hat has evolved to meet the problem of cluster lifecycle management and to find out more about the advantages the multicluster engine operator may provide your business.

The cluster lifecycle management dilemma

Controlling the lifespan of an expanding fleet is one of the biggest difficulties in scaling Kubernetes settings. It’s simple for cluster resources to grow out of control when new environments appear left and right to serve new teams, adhere to new limits or cover new geographies.

Red Hat has made significant investments in automating the OpenShift installation procedure, supporting installer-provisioned infrastructure for an expanding number of providers, and significantly streamlining the process of setting up new self-managed clusters. We’ve also worked with business partners to develop Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) versions of OpenShift over the past few years, such as Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA) and Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO).

But by making the construction of new clusters commoditized, we’ve made it harder for our clients to manage other lifecycle tasks for the clusters they build. Managing credentials, Terraform files, and other automation assets to support cluster start/stop, upgrades, or deletion can get very complicated, especially for customers whose IT landscape spans numerous infrastructure providers across clouds and data centers.

Enter Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes

The IBM team had been working on an open source project called Open Cluster Management that was created to address these specific issues when Red Hat was acquired by IBM in 2019. Those tasked with managing Kubernetes clusters across dynamic and expanding IT ecosystems could greatly benefit from a centralized cluster management solution.

The Open Cluster Management project was relocated to Red Hat and then developed into Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes as a result of the advantages it would provide to users of OpenShift and other Kubernetes distributions. Red Hat Advanced Cluster Administration, now a staple of the Red Hat portfolio, offers not only the aforementioned cluster lifecycle features but also solid governance and GitOps platforms that elevate cross-cluster policy and application management to a whole new level.

Multicluster engine: A happy medium

Since Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management was introduced, our hybrid cloud capabilities have never been more competitive. Building huge OpenShift environments didn’t have to come at the expense of having to struggle to maintain them because we knew we could give powerful cluster management for the lifecycle, policy, and application domains. The fact that many clients wanted a stand-alone cluster lifecycle management solution remained a challenge. These companies are fully dedicated to establishing a cluster lifecycle strategy, but they lack the time or resources to fully make use of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management’s additional features.

Red Hat decided to include the cluster lifecycle feature set into its solution, the multicluster engine, to best serve the needs of its customers. It offers complete lifecycle capabilities for managed OpenShift clusters and partial lifecycle management for other Kubernetes deployments. It is available as a supported operator on OpenShift 4.8.2 and later. Multicluster Engine offers a management perspective that is fully integrated into the OpenShift Web Console, much like the corresponding component of ACM. Here’s a glimpse of how it appears:

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We’re leveling the playing field for all OpenShift customers with the introduction of the multicluster engine. More than ever, we are enabling teams to lean into expanding ecosystems via

• uncontrolled cluster creation and destruction to control resource sprawl
• Managed clusters can be put into hibernation or resumed to reduce infrastructure expenditures.
• Remote upgrades are carried out to guarantee that managed clusters receive the newest features and fixes.

Visit the multicluster engine documentation right away if you’re an OpenShift user looking for a stylish cluster lifecycle management solution.

Dive deeper into the Multicluster Engine to understand how it simplifies the management of multiple Kubernetes clusters. Just visit us here.

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