Overview
Enterprise application deployments have moved to the hybrid cloud, using containers and Kubernetes as operational mechanisms and introducing the need for the entire development pipeline to be built on the same technologies. This transition and approaches like DevOps and configuration as code are evolving developer and IT processes from handoffs to continuous collaboration. These changes exacerbate the complexity of onboarding, collaborating, and securing projects in development for development teams that include a mix of in-house developers, off-shore developers, and consultants.
Solving these issues will unlock the value of hybrid cloud. To do that, IT operations must provide development environments that are consistent with production, deliver source code security, and reduce onboarding overhead for application teams. Red Hat® CodeReady Workspaces helps solve these challenges for all types of developers.
Enabling developer teams for cloud-native development
Developers spend significant time maintaining their development environments, and teams face the challenge of keeping environments consistent across team members and with production. Hybrid cloud environments make this task more difficult because they can introduce additional configuration complexity and require significant system resources to recreate on local machines.
Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces uses Kubernetes and containers to provide any member of the development or IT team with a consistent, security-focused, and zero-configuration development environment. The user experience is as fast and familiar as an integrated development environment (IDE) on a laptop. CodeReady Workspaces encodes development projects as code that is checked into the Git repository and exposed via a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or command-line interface (CLI) command. It creates all the containers needed to run the project, clones the sources where needed, and adds development tools (such as debuggers, language servers, unit test tools, and build tools) as sidecar containers so that the running application container continually mirrors production. Users can employ the included browser-based IDE if they do not have an IDE already set up, or they can opt for a local IDE.
CodeReady Workspaces organizes internal development work by using the orchestration capabilities of Kubernetes. IT operations can use organization standard authentication to manage access, and Kubernetes can create and destroy containerized environments as needed. CodeReady Workspaces helps operations build a hardened pipeline for source code from development through testing and deployment. IT operations staff gain visibility through centralized administration dashboards and monitoring.
CodeReady Workspaces is included in Red Hat OpenShift® and is available in the OpenShift Operator Hub. Once deployed, CodeReady Workspaces provides development teams a faster and more reliable foundation on which to work, and it gives operations centralized control and peace of mind.
Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces features
By modernizing development workflow, CodeReady Workspaces moves teams into cloud-native development while reducing operational complexity that new development patterns have introduced.
| Feature | Details |
| Enterprise support | Red Hat offers award-winning support for your developer workspace tooling.1 |
| In-browser IDE | CodeReady Workspaces includes a powerful in-browser IDE with support for Microsoft Visual Studio Code extensions. Developers need only a machine capable of running a web browser to code, build, test, and run on OpenShift. CodeReady Workspaces also supports a developer’s own desktop IDE of choice. |
| Air-gapped install | For environments that have limited or no access to the public internet, CodeReady Workspaces can be downloaded, scanned, and moved into secure environments. It does not need to access public internet services. |
| Centralized one-click developer workspaces | Workspaces are centrally configured using a devfile that specifies everything developers need to start working: • Resource allocation The devfile is stored and versioned with the code in Git, and workspace configurations are shared via a link. Developers are in their workspace and contributing to the project in seconds. They can open multiple workspaces in new browser tabs to access different projects and environments simultaneously. This approach enables support for legacy applications while permitting development on the latest platforms. |
| OpenShift-native development | Development environments are containerized and running on the OpenShift Kubernetes platform. Developers can run code updates in an OpenShift container without needing to understand all the details of managing a Kubernetes cluster. |
| Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), Active Directory (AD), and OpenAuth support | The entire development workspace and source code access are secured using the same access tools used across the rest of the organization. |
| Administrative dashboard | Administrators supporting developer teams have centralized management tools and dashboards to monitor CodeReady Workspaces and developer workspace performance. |
1 “Awards & Recognition.” Red Hat, 2019. https://access.redhat.com/recognition.