It’s a PaaS: Vanilla Kubernetes vs OpenShift on OpenStack Lab Setup Guide

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Overview

Often a lot of people seem to confuse Kubernetes with OpenShift or a platform-as-a-service (PaaS). Kubernetes is of course on it’s own, not. It is an orchestration layer or technology for containers but a lot is missing to really call it a platform. OpenShift is Red Hat enterprise Kubernetes platform. It contains Kubernetes but also a whole lot more which make it a true platform. So which is right for you? It depends a lot on your requirements and what you are trying to achieve. The purpose of this article is to setup an environment for running a workshop that compares the Kubernetes experience with OpenShift in order to gain more insight and understanding in what you may actually need. Many people sit down with slides or at a whiteboard, but I really find that is not adequate and you really need to experience it, first hand.

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Getting Started with Machine Learning

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source: https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2017/07/24/5-questions-to-ask-about-machine-learning/

Overview

In this article we will dive into machine learning. We will begin by understanding the concept, then look at some of the use cases, requirements and finally explore a real world scenario using a demo application.  Machine learning has the potential to dramatically change our lives, jobs and influence decision making on a scale that has never been seen before. It is one of the most exciting and also scary technological advancements to ever come around. It is the future but is also happening right now which is why there couldn’t be a better time to get started than today.

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Building A Niche Cloud: A Pragmatic Approach

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Teamwork-ants-building-a-house

source: https://innolectinc.com/how-smart-is-your-team/teamwork-ants-building-a-house/

Overview

Before getting started you might want to read about the birth of the niche cloud in the first part of this two part series.

We have all heard the saying, you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. Yes that is true, but we aren’t thankfully dogs. Learning to do something new of course, requires an open mind-set and a desire for change. Many organizations are getting left out of digital disruption these days because they keep falling back on old outdated ideas, behaviors and habits. Our minds are so full, so occupied and so tired we simply cannot grasp or don’t have the energy for anything new. We spend our time applying what is new to what we know, which is old.

In this article lets reset our minds and look at an approach to build a niche cloud from the ground up. Instead of pealing back the onion we will apply layer after layer until we have the onion itself. Of course I realize there is a lot more and this article is just scratching at the surface, nevertheless it is an approach, a basic rule-set and guideline for getting started.

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OpenStack 14 (Rocky) Lab Installation and Configuration Guide for Hetzner Root Servers

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rdo

Overview

In this article we will focus on installing and configuring OpenStack Rocky using RDO and the packstack installer. RDO is a community platform around Red Hat’s Enterprise OpenStack Distribution. It allows you to test the latest OpenStack capabilities on a stable platform such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or CentOS. This guide will take you through setting up Hetzner root server, preparing environment for OpenStack, installing the OpenStack Rocky release, adding a floating ip subnet through OVS, configuring networking, security groups, flavors, images and are other OpenStack related services. The outcome is a working OpenStack environment based on the Rocky release that you can use as a baseline for testing your applications using OpenStack capabilities. The installation will create an all-in-one deployment however you can use this guide to create a multi-node deployment as well.
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The Birth of the Niche Cloud?

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1200px-Flightless_Dung_Beetle_Circellium_Bachuss,_Addo_Elephant_National_Park,_South_Africa

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_niche

Overview

In this article we will take a step back from my typical technical discussions and how-to guides to think about the path that lies ahead of us, in our industry. Today we have a very polarizing environment, similar in fact to the US political system.  On one side you have extremely customized on-premise environments that serve specific purpose or business niches but on the whole are hard, if not impossible to maintain and very costly. On the other side you have generic public cloud, infrastructure that always works (well almost, nothing is perfect), scales and is available at click of a button with predictable pricing structure but doesn’t fit specific purpose by default.

The industry has for many years recognized these worlds were growing further apart and defined the solution as hybrid cloud management to manage them or even bridge the worlds. But gluing two polarized worlds together was only ever destined to fail. Hybrid cloud, which often drags with it the management, is dead. I think more are interested in talking about multi-cloud and I see multi-cloud replacing what hybrid cloud once stood for. I see container platforms providing the glue, management platforms once promised.

The same battle purpose built vs generic repeats itself over and over in all facets of our lives. The truth is we need both. In this article we will explore a new thought or idea, called niche clouds which could provide a purpose built cloud of the future.

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OpenStack 13 (Queens) Lab Installation and Configuration Guide for Hetzner Root Servers

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Overview

In this article we will focus on installing and configuring OpenStack Queens using RDO and the packstack installer. RDO is a community platform around Red Hat’s Enterprise OpenStack Distribution. It allows you to test the latest OpenStack capabilities on a stable platform such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or CentOS. This guide will take you through setting up Hetzner root server, preparing environment for OpenStack, installing the OpenStack Queens release, adding a floating ip subnet through OVS, configuring networking, security groups, flavors, images and are other OpenStack related services. The outcome is a working OpenStack environment based on the Queens release that you can use as a baseline for testing your applications using OpenStack capabilities. The installation will create an all-in-one deployment however you can use this guide to create a multi-node deployment as well.
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Satellite on OpenStack 1-2-3: Systems Management in the Cloud

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Logotype_RH_Satellite_RGB_Black plus_signopenstack

Overview

In this article we will explore an important part of day 2 operations in OpenStack or any IaaS, systems management. There are two ways to maintain applications: immutable or lifecyle. Satellite is a product from Red Hat that focuses on lifecycle management. Specifically the deployment, updating, patching and configuration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as well as the applications running on top throughout entire lifecycle. We will discuss the value Satellite brings to OpenStack and why systems management is a key part of day 2 cloud operations. Investigate the Satellite architecture and how it applies to OpenStack. Finally we will go through hands-on deploy of Satellite on OpenStack, even deploying an instance and automatically connecting the instance to Satellite, all using Ansible.

The Value of Satellite in OpenStack

Satellite is the second product Red Hat created after RHEL. It has been around for over 10 years and recently gone through a major re-architecture from ground up to address cloud. Red Hat customers have used Satellite to create a standard operating environment (SOE) for RHEL and the applications that run on RHEL for 10+ years. Satellite provides the ability to create various content views and bring them together in a composite content view (a group of content views). This allows us to group content (RPMs, configuration management, Tar files, whatever else) and most importantly version it. Once we can group software and version it we can start thinking about release management across a lifecyle environment. A lifecycle environment is typically something similar the holy trinity: development, test and production. The versions of software for our OS and applications of course vary, you don’t want to update software in production without testing in development or test right?

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