Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud partners

IBM is dedicated to make Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud the best OpenShift service that helps you migrate, operate, and administer your containerized workloads. To provide you with all the capabilities that we need to run production workloads in the cloud, Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud partners with other third-party service providers to enhance the cluster with top-notch logging, monitoring, and storage tools.

Review our partners and the benefits of each solution that they provide. To find other proprietary IBM Cloud and third-party open source services that we can use in the cluster, see Understand IBM Cloud and 3rd party integrations.

LogDNA

IBM Log Analysis with LogDNA provides LogDNA External link icon as a third-party service that we can use to add intelligent logging capabilities to the cluster and apps.

Benefits

Review the following table to find a list of key benefits that we can get by using LogDNA.

Benefit Description

Centralized log management and log analysis When you configure the cluster as a log source, LogDNA automatically starts collecting logging information for the worker nodes, pods, apps, and network. Your logs are automatically parsed, indexed, tagged, and aggregated by LogDNA and visualized in the LogDNA dashboard so that we can easily dive into the cluster resources. We can use the built-in graphing tool to visualize most common error codes or log entries.

Easy findability with Google-like search syntax LogDNA uses Google-like search syntax that supports standard terms, AND and OR operations, and lets you exclude or combine search terms to help we find your logs more easily. With smart indexing of logs, you can jump to a specific log entry in any moment in time.

Encryption in transit and at rest LogDNA automatically encrypts your logs to secure your logs during transit and at rest.

Custom alerts and log views We can use the dashboard to find the logs that match your search criteria, save these logs in a view, and share this view with other users to simplify debugging across team members. We can also use this view to create an alert that we can send to downstream systems, like PagerDuty, Slack, or email.

Out-of-the-box and custom dashboards We can choose between a variety of existing dashboards or create your own dashboard to visualize logs in the way we need it.

Benefit	Description
Centralized log management and log analysis	When you configure the cluster as a log source, LogDNA automatically starts collecting logging information for the worker nodes, pods, apps, and network. Your logs are automatically parsed, indexed, tagged, and aggregated by LogDNA and visualized in the LogDNA dashboard so that we can easily dive into the cluster resources. We can use the built-in graphing tool to visualize most common error codes or log entries.
Easy findability with Google-like search syntax	LogDNA uses Google-like search syntax that supports standard terms, AND and OR operations, and lets you exclude or combine search terms to help we find your logs more easily. With smart indexing of logs, you can jump to a specific log entry in any moment in time.
Encryption in transit and at rest	LogDNA automatically encrypts your logs to secure your logs during transit and at rest.
Custom alerts and log views	We can use the dashboard to find the logs that match your search criteria, save these logs in a view, and share this view with other users to simplify debugging across team members. We can also use this view to create an alert that we can send to downstream systems, like PagerDuty, Slack, or email.
Out-of-the-box and custom dashboards	We can choose between a variety of existing dashboards or create your own dashboard to visualize logs in the way we need it.

Integration with Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud

LogDNA is provided by IBM Log Analysis with LogDNA, an IBM Cloud platform service that we can use with the cluster. IBM Log Analysis with LogDNA is operated by LogDNA in partnership with IBM.

To use LogDNA in your classic or VPC cluster, we must provision an instance of IBM Log Analysis with LogDNA in your IBM Cloud account and configure your Kubernetes clusters as a log source. After the cluster is configured, logs are automatically collected and forwarded to your IBM Log Analysis with LogDNA service instance. We can use the IBM Log Analysis with LogDNA dashboard to access your logs.

For more information, see Manage Kubernetes cluster logs with IBM Log Analysis with LogDNA.

Billing and support

IBM Log Analysis with LogDNA is fully integrated into the IBM Cloud support system. If you run into an issue with using IBM Log Analysis with LogDNA, post a question in the logdna-on-iks channel in the Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud Slack External link icon , or open an IBM Cloud support case. Log in to Slack by using your IBMid. If you do not use an IBMid for the IBM Cloud account, request an invitation to this Slack .

Sysdig

IBM Cloud Monitoring with Sysdig provides Sysdig Monitor External link icon

as a third-party, cloud-native container analytics system that we can use to gain insight into the performance and health of our compute hosts, apps, containers, and networks.

Benefits

Review the following table to find a list of key benefits that we can get by using Sysdig.

Benefit Description

Automatic access to cloud-native and Prometheus-custom metrics Choose from a variety of pre-defined cloud-native and Prometheus-custom metrics to gain insight into the performance and health of our compute hosts, apps, containers, and networks.

Troubleshoot with advanced filters Sysdig Monitor creates network topologies that show how your worker nodes are connected and how your Kubernetes services communicate with each other. We can navigate from your worker nodes to containers and single system calls, and group and view important metrics for each resource along the way. For example, use these metrics to find services that receive most requests, or services with slow queries and response times. We can combine this data with Kubernetes events, custom CI/CD events, or code commits.

Automatic anomaly detection and custom alerts Define rules and thresholds for when we want to get notified to detect anomalies in the cluster or group resources to let Sysdig notify you when one resource acts differently than the rest. We can send these alerts to downstream tools, such as ServiceNow, PagerDuty, Slack, VictorOps, or email.

Out-of-the-box and custom dashboards We can choose between a variety of existing dashboards or create your own dashboard to visualize metrics of our microservices in the way we need it.

Benefit	Description
Automatic access to cloud-native and Prometheus-custom metrics	Choose from a variety of pre-defined cloud-native and Prometheus-custom metrics to gain insight into the performance and health of our compute hosts, apps, containers, and networks.
Troubleshoot with advanced filters	Sysdig Monitor creates network topologies that show how your worker nodes are connected and how your Kubernetes services communicate with each other. We can navigate from your worker nodes to containers and single system calls, and group and view important metrics for each resource along the way. For example, use these metrics to find services that receive most requests, or services with slow queries and response times. We can combine this data with Kubernetes events, custom CI/CD events, or code commits.
Automatic anomaly detection and custom alerts	Define rules and thresholds for when we want to get notified to detect anomalies in the cluster or group resources to let Sysdig notify you when one resource acts differently than the rest. We can send these alerts to downstream tools, such as ServiceNow, PagerDuty, Slack, VictorOps, or email.
Out-of-the-box and custom dashboards	We can choose between a variety of existing dashboards or create your own dashboard to visualize metrics of our microservices in the way we need it.

Integration with Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud

Sysdig Monitor is provided by IBM Cloud Monitoring with Sysdig, an IBM Cloud platform service that we can use with the cluster. IBM Cloud Monitoring with Sysdig is operated by Sysdig in partnership with IBM.

To use Sysdig Monitor in your classic or VPC cluster, we must provision an instance of IBM Cloud Monitoring with Sysdig in your IBM Cloud account and configure the cluster as a metrics source. After the cluster is configured, metrics are automatically collected and forwarded to your IBM Cloud Monitoring with Sysdig service instance. We can use the IBM Cloud Monitoring with Sysdig dashboard to access your metrics.

For more information, see Analyze metrics for an app that is deployed in a Kubernetes cluster.

Billing and support

Because Sysdig Monitor is provided by IBM Cloud Monitoring with Sysdig, your usage is included in the IBM Cloud bill for platform services. For pricing information, review available plans in the IBM Cloud catalog External link icon .

IBM Cloud Monitoring with Sysdig is fully integrated into the IBM Cloud support system. If you run into an issue with using IBM Cloud Monitoring with Sysdig, post a question in the sysdig-monitoring channel in the Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud Slack External link icon , or open an IBM Cloud support case. Log in to Slack by using your IBMid. If you do not use an IBMid for the IBM Cloud account, request an invitation to this Slack .

Portworx

is a highly available software-defined storage solution that we can use to manage local persistent storage for the containerized databases and other stateful apps, or to share data between pods across multiple zones.

What is software-defined storage (SDS)?
An SDS solution abstracts storage devices of various types, sizes, or from different vendors that are attached to the worker nodes in the cluster. Worker nodes with available storage on hard disks are added as a node to a storage cluster. In this cluster, the physical storage is virtualized and presented as a virtual storage pool to the user. The storage cluster is managed by the SDS software. If data must be stored on the storage cluster, the SDS software decides where to store the data for highest availability. Your virtual storage comes with a common set of capabilities and services that we can leverage without caring about the actual underlying storage architecture.

Benefits

Review the following table to find a list of key benefits that we can get by using Portworx.

Benefit Description

Cloud native storage and data management for stateful apps Portworx aggregates available local storage that is attached to your worker nodes and that can vary in size or type, and creates a unified persistent storage layer for containerized databases or other stateful apps that we want to run in the cluster. By using Kubernetes persistent volume claims (PVC), we can add local persistent storage to our apps to store your data.

Highly available data with volume replication Portworx automatically replicates data in your volumes across worker nodes and zones in the cluster so that your data can be accessed at all times and that your stateful app can be rescheduled to another worker node in case of a worker node failure or reboot.

Support to run hyper-converged Portworx can be configured to run hyper-converged External link icon to ensure that your compute resources and the storage are always placed onto the same worker node. When the app must be rescheduled, Portworx moves the app to a worker node where one of our volume replicas resides to ensure local-disk access speed and high performance for the stateful app.

Encrypt data with IBM Key Protect We can set up IBM Key Protect encryption keys that are secured by FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certified cloud-based hardware security modules (HSMs) to protect the data in your volumes. We can choose between using one encryption key to encrypt all your volumes in a cluster or using one encryption key for each volume. Portworx uses this key to encrypt data at rest and during transit when data is sent to a different worker node.

Built-in snapshots and cloud backups We can save the current state of a volume and its data by creating a Portworx snapshot External link icon . Snapshots can be stored on the local Portworx cluster or in the cloud.

Integrated monitoring with Lighthouse Lighthouse is an intuitive, graphical tool to help you manage and monitor your Portworx clusters and volume snapshots. With Lighthouse, we can view the health of our Portworx cluster, including the number of available storage nodes, volumes and available capacity, and analyze your data in Prometheus, Grafana, or Kibana.

Benefit	Description
Cloud native storage and data management for stateful apps	Portworx aggregates available local storage that is attached to your worker nodes and that can vary in size or type, and creates a unified persistent storage layer for containerized databases or other stateful apps that we want to run in the cluster. By using Kubernetes persistent volume claims (PVC), we can add local persistent storage to our apps to store your data.
Highly available data with volume replication	Portworx automatically replicates data in your volumes across worker nodes and zones in the cluster so that your data can be accessed at all times and that your stateful app can be rescheduled to another worker node in case of a worker node failure or reboot.
Support to run hyper-converged	Portworx can be configured to run hyper-converged to ensure that your compute resources and the storage are always placed onto the same worker node. When the app must be rescheduled, Portworx moves the app to a worker node where one of our volume replicas resides to ensure local-disk access speed and high performance for the stateful app.
Encrypt data with IBM Key Protect	We can set up IBM Key Protect encryption keys that are secured by FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certified cloud-based hardware security modules (HSMs) to protect the data in your volumes. We can choose between using one encryption key to encrypt all your volumes in a cluster or using one encryption key for each volume. Portworx uses this key to encrypt data at rest and during transit when data is sent to a different worker node.
Built-in snapshots and cloud backups	We can save the current state of a volume and its data by creating a Portworx snapshot . Snapshots can be stored on the local Portworx cluster or in the cloud.
Integrated monitoring with Lighthouse	Lighthouse is an intuitive, graphical tool to help you manage and monitor your Portworx clusters and volume snapshots. With Lighthouse, we can view the health of our Portworx cluster, including the number of available storage nodes, volumes and available capacity, and analyze your data in Prometheus, Grafana, or Kibana.

Integration with Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud

If we have a classic Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud cluster, we can choose worker node flavors that are optimized for SDS usage and that come with one or more raw, unformatted, and unmounted local disks that we can use to store your data. Portworx offers best performance when you use SDS worker node machines that come with 10Gbps network speed. However, we can install Portworx on non-SDS worker node flavors in classic clusters, but we might not get the performance benefits that the app requires.

Portworx is installed by using a Helm chart. When you install the Helm chart, Portworx automatically analyzes the local persistent storage that is available in the cluster and adds the storage to the Portworx storage layer. To add storage from your Portworx storage layer to our apps, we must use Kubernetes persistent volume claims.

For more information about how to install and use Portworx with Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud, see Storing data on software-defined storage (SDS) with Portworx.

Billing and support

Classic SDS worker node machines that come with local disks, and classic virtual machines that you use for Portworx are included in your monthly Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud bill. For pricing information, see the IBM Cloud catalog External link icon

. The Portworx license is a separate cost and is not included in your monthly bill.

If you run into an issue with using Portworx or we want to chat about Portworx configurations for the specific use case, post a question in the portworx-on-iks channel in the Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud Slack External link icon . Log in to Slack by using your IBMid. If you do not use an IBMid for the IBM Cloud account, request an invitation to this Slack .