Q: Hi Juuso! Tell us a little about your OpenShift background?

Juuso: My journey with Red Hat OpenShift began in 2018 with version 3 – the platform was still in its infancy at the time. The following year, we were able to build a more automated package for the newer version, with the goal of creating a lightweight and easy-to-maintain private cloud. 

In the beginning, many homegrown solutions had to be created, but as OpenShift developed, more and more commercially supported tools were used. Red Hat’s idea has been to offer ready-made solutions: ones that would require the independent coordination of several projects to build from open source code blocks.

Q: What did you initially set out to produce and why? 

Juuso: OpenShift – like Kubernetes in general – introduces a new layer of abstraction around applications. Code alone is not enough, but also requires defining the container description, number of instances to run, environment variables, persistent storage, and network settings. Centralized configuration management helps you visualize and manage the configuration needed to deploy applications. 

The goal of productization was to lower the threshold for application developers. Templates and automation brought repeatability, and with GitOps, maintenance also benefited: configurations remained in sync and workloads could be moved from one cluster to another relatively painlessly.

Q: How is application-level security considered on the OpenShift platform side? 

Juuso: While many other platforms allow applications to have broad system-level access or even root privileges, OpenShift defaults to removing unnecessary privileges and running workloads in isolation. 

When the application is built with this in mind, no problems arise. The challenges mainly arise when migrating services from platforms where a more permissive culture has come to dominate.

Q: Now that you have experience with public cloud and on-prem, what are the concrete differences between them? 

Juuso: Surprisingly little. Managed OpenShift in a public cloud is practically no different from your own private cloud. The biggest differences are related to services outside the platform. 

In the public cloud, ready-made solutions are available for things like managing secrets and providing persistent storage. In the on-prem world, these have to be built and integrated into the overall system yourself.

Q: What do you like about your job? 

Juuso: Kubernetes is a complex entity, but the productized version makes management surprisingly smooth. There is a lot you can build on top of the solutions, and at the same time you are constantly learning new things. 

Often, problems are more user-related than system-related. Solving them is more of a learning opportunity than a simple error situation. This is what makes the work interesting.

Q: What is important to consider in the future? 

Juuso: Containers are not a solution for everything, and they shouldn’t be put on a pedestal. But they can be used to build solutions where release management, configuration, and security are integrated directly into the platform.

It is also important that the configuration does not just remain on the running machine, but is found in version control. This supports portability, risk management and, above all, business continuity.

Platform solutions like OpenShift are not just about technology management, they are part of an organization’s digital resilience. When the architecture supports automation, security, and portability, it ensures that the business stays up and running even in unexpected situations.