Simplifying Database Cloud Service Access

Many enterprise software applications today are being migrated to—or built from scratch upon—containerized cloud environments. Kubernetes is one of the most widely used container technologies in such environments. One of the most fundamental and universal needs of enterprise applications is connections to databases. Indeed, a Pulse survey conducted earlier this year shows that database workloads are the top workload being deployed to Kubernetes-powered application platforms:

While there are numerous benefits for both developers and operators driving this adoption of cloud and containers--streamlined developer self-service, the ability to operate reliably and securely yet flexibly at massive scale, to name a few--there are also challenges. Standing up databases and providing and managing connections to them is still a complex task, even in a cloud environment. 

One industry trend that is helping mitigate this challenge is the emergence of “database as a service” (DBaaS). In DBaaS offerings, a database provider operates databases as a cloud service, letting application developers specify parameters via a web interface, initiating the specified database to which the application can then connect over the internet. This saves the developer (or IT department) from the time-consuming and error-prone task of installing and configuring the database, and also improves reliability since the automated configuration is less error-prone than the manual scenario.

But there remain many challenges, including discovery of already-configured connections, connection sprawl, access control, and cost optimization. In organizations where many development teams are building and deploying diverse applications across a large container estate, it is inefficient and risky to have each team independently connect applications to different DBaaS offerings. Visibility and manageability become impossible, and there is no centralized view affording opportunities to optimize and control usage, access, security, etc.

Enter Red Hat’s newest cloud service: Red Hat OpenShift Database Access (RHODA). RHODA is a capability in managed OpenShift Kubernetes environments enabling administrators to set up connections to DBaaS offerings from different providers and have such connections “on the shelf” within the OpenShift environment for applications to easily incorporate. Developers end up with an even easier process than setting up the DBaaS connection manually, and administrators gain the centralized view and control needed to manage many connections at scale.

RHODA is an add-on service to OpenShift Dedicated (OSD) and Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA) that provides consistency for how OSD and ROSA administrators and developers discover, consume, monitor, and manage databases in a multi-cloud environment.  

RHODA leverages the Kubernetes construct of operators to bind application clusters to database instances. IT operations can launch a database discovery process based on resource permissions to identify the database instances that can be accessed. Once established, developers can see these new database services from the catalog on their OpenShift developer console represented as a UI tile for each database registered with the system. After selecting a database service instance, the developer can drag and drop a binding connector on the OpenShift developer UI to establish database connectivity to a Kubernetes pod.

RHODA has just been released as Alpha, with initial partner DBaaS offerings MongoDB Atlas for MongoDB and Crunchy Bridge for Postgres. Additional DBaaS offerings will follow.

RHODA is the latest in a series of application and data cloud services Red Hat is delivering on top of managed OpenShift. Red Hat OpenShift API Management (RHOAM) accelerates the development and deployment of API-first microservices-based applications. Red Hat OpenShift Streams for Apache Kafka (RHOSAK) is a managed cloud service that reduces the operational cost and complexity of deploying real-time, streaming data applications across hybrid-cloud environments.  And Red Hat OpenShift Data Science (RHODS) is a cloud service that gives data scientists and developers a powerful AI/ML platform for building intelligent applications. 

We are excited by the vision of Red Hat OpenShift Database Access making it easier than ever for organizations to provide developers with choice and simplicity while enhancing their ability to operate reliably and securely at scale.

If you are a Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated or Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS user and also a user of MongoDB Atlas or Crunchy Bridge, we encourage you to give RHODA a spin. You can access it from the Red Hat hybrid cloud console from this link: red.ht/dbaccess.

Or learn more by viewing a short preview demo:

• IT Ops demo video

• Developer demo video