Red Hat OpenShift Certification extends support for Kubernetes-native technologies with Helm

Red Hat is pleased to introduce an expanded Red Hat OpenShift Certification to further support applications on Kubernetes and container orchestration across hybrid cloud footprints. With this certification, Red Hat partners can enable and certify their software solutions on OpenShift through either Operators or Helm charts. 

Red Hat OpenShift is the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform; and with this enhanced certification, partners can more easily tap into Kubernetes-native technologies to manage and scale software deployments. Red Hat OpenShift Certification allows partners using Helm to access Red Hat certification tools and services to verify the functionality of their software on OpenShift.  

Expanding the OpenShift partner ecosystem

Over the last few years we have seen steady growth in the number of workloads from software partners running on OpenShift. The certified OpenShift ecosystem now includes over 150 partner solutions that empower customers with the infrastructure and applications they need to build and manage cloud-native solutions, including storage, networking, databases, security, monitoring and logging, developer tools, AI/ML tools and application runtimes.

The OpenShift ecosystem has been built through collaboration between Red Hat and our partners in order to offer customers a broad range of tried and tested solutions. This enables users to deploy applications where and how they want, with backing from Red Hat.

Helm or Operators: how to choose

To date, Red Hat OpenShift certification has focused on Kubernetes Operators, a technology that allows software providers to codify operational knowledge of their products and automate tasks previously handled by cluster administrators. Through Operators, application and infrastructure providers can incorporate Day 2 capabilities like backup, recovery or auto-scaling into Kubernetes applications, taking advantage of the same lifecycle management framework used for OpenShift's own platform services. An SDK is available and provides the scaffolding to develop and maintain the controller logic. Given their advanced application automation capabilities, Operators are a popular choice for enterprise administrators managing Kubernetes clusters at scale. 

We have also seen Helm charts become an increasingly popular approach to package and deploy cloud-native applications. They greatly simplify the deployment and automate tasks such as installation, basic configuration management and simple updates. Helm charts are an effective format for applications that can be installed and maintained without complex upgrade steps or advanced state management. The Helm project has evolved significantly since its inception, and the release of Helm 3 allowed better alignment with the Kubernetes security model, paving the way to its support in OpenShift. Today, Red Hat OpenShift allows developers to work with Helm charts and get control of their lifecycle, in a self-service and intuitive manner.

Given Helm's popularity among developers, it is important to establish interoperability and supportability criteria for Kubernetes applications using this technology, so that customers can incorporate them into OpenShift environments with more confidence. We have captured these requirements and best practices in a verification tool with a developer-friendly process using GitHub, and want to thank partners like F5, HashiCorp, IBM, JFrog and Synopsys for their valuable insight and interest in advancing Helm on OpenShift.

Whether a partner chooses Operators or Helm charts, the Red Hat OpenShift Certification is a self-service path available to partners through Red Hat Partner Connect to integrate and certify solutions and offer users a more consistent application and lifecycle management experience across any hybrid, public or on-premise cloud environment.

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Kubernetes-enabled software offers customers a broad range of applications and infrastructure to meet unique IT needs and support modern workloads. Red Hat OpenShift Certification is based on collaborative support from Red Hat and partners so customers can benefit from a growing ecosystem of certified software solutions, all verified on OpenShift and meeting Red Hat standards for lifecycle management, interoperability and security, through integrated with native Kubernetes automation capabilities. 

Learn more about Red Hat OpenShift Certification and find the option that fits your needs today.