Cloud-Native Development Features KubeCon + CNC EU 2022 Topics 

Red Hat Expands GitOps Portfolio for Building Microservices

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by Mike Vizard

At the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2022 conference today, Red Hat unveiled a preview of pipelines-as-code for Tekton with the latest release of Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines, a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform.

In addition, Red Hat has added Tekton Chains to provide built-in image signing capabilities that can help better secure a software supply chain. DevOps teams can also take advantage of user namespaces in pipelines to isolate tools that require root privileges, and then run them as non-root inside their application build and delivery pipelines.

Steve Speicher, director of product management for developer tooling at Red Hat, said the overall goal is to provide DevOps teams with an opinionated instance of a CI/CD platform optimized for the Kubernetes-based Red Hat OpenShift platform that is also extensible.

As part of that effort, Red Hat has also updated its curated instance of the Argo CD platform to add a diffing customization feature. The update allows DevOps teams to configure how ArgoCD behaves during the diff stage before an application is synchronized with the platform, along with a revamped user interface and other performance improvements.

ApplicationSets, which was previously available as a technology preview, is also now generally available to automate the management of multiple ArgoCD applications across multiple clusters, and is now fully integrated with Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management tools.

Red Hat has also unveiled its next-generation in-browser and local development environments, dubbed Red Hat OpenShift DevSpaces 3—formerly known as Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces—and Red Hat OpenShift Local 2—formerly known as Red Hat CodeReady Containers.

OpenShift Dev Spaces 3 builds on CodeReady Workspaces to replace a DevWorkspace engine based on a REST service with a Kubernetes controller that runs behind the kube-apiserver. Support for a universal application programming interface (API) now also provides native integration with Kubernetes.

OpenShift Local, meanwhile, makes it simpler to build OpenShift clusters. It gives developers the ability to emulate a cloud development environment on their local machine. Other new capabilities include presets that enable developers to select either the default local OpenShift bundle or a Podman tool to set up environments, slimmer binaries resulting from a decoupling of the OpenShift machine bundle from the command-line tool download and a system tray that provides the ability to view and manage the status of a machine, open the OpenShift console, change the configuration or access version information.

Additionally, Shipwright, the open source extensible framework for building container images for Kubernetes, now offers volume support, a greater range of options for customization and the ability for users to build images from the local directory. Knative/Serverless Functions tooling enables developers working in VS Code or IntelliJ to view and deploy serverless applications.

There’s also odo 3.0, a CLI tool for writing and deploying applications on OpenShift and Kubernetes, that provides more guided onboarding, an improved outer loop development experience and a devfile capability that makes it easier to share commands across development teams. Devfile is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) sandbox project now that the Kubernetes-native API is used to define containerized development environments.

In general, Speicher said, the rate at which microservices-based applications are built using containers has increased considerably as organizations build new applications and modernize existing ones. A global survey of 600 IT decision-makers, backend developers and software architects finds more than half (54%) plan to modernize 54% of their custom applications during the next year, with only 20% expecting that effort to require more than two years.

It may still be a while before microservices-based applications outnumber the monolithic applications that currently dominate the IT landscape. However, it’s apparent that, today, most new applications are being constructed using microservices that are destined to run primarily on Kubernetes clusters.

Mike Vizard

Mike Vizard is a veteran IT journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering the technology industry, having previously served as Editor-in-Chief of both CRN and InfoWorld and as editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise, where he oversaw titles including eWEEK, CIO Insight and Baseline. Over his career he has also edited or contributed to a wide range of enterprise technology publications, including IT Business Edge, Channel Insider, ComputerWorld, TMCNet and Digital Review, and he later led editorial for CTOEdge.com. His reporting and analysis span software development, cloud computing, cybersecurity, IT channel strategy and, more recently, artificial intelligence and DevOps practices. A recognized voice in enterprise IT journalism, Vizard is known for tracking emerging technology trends as they move from early adoption into mainstream enterprise use. He now serves as Chief Content Officer for Techstrong Group, where he oversees editorial strategy across the full network — DevOps.com, Security Boulevard, Cloud Native Now, Digital CxO, Techstrong.ai, TechStrong.IT, Techstrong Semi and PlatformEngineering.com — in addition to writing and hosting content for Techstrong TV and the Techstrong Gang podcast.

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