Assisted Installer for OpenShift is now generally available
Although clusters created with the Assisted Installer for OpenShift have been and continue to be maintained, the hosted Assisted Installer has remained a Technology Preview until now.
What is the OpenShift Assisted Installer and how does it work?
The Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console’s OpenShift Assisted Installer makes it simple to deploy OpenShift on your nodes. The installer is a managed service for bare metal OpenShift cluster installation (though not restricted to). It does not require a bootstrap node or the installation of Red Hat CoreOS on your nodes prior to installing the cluster; instead, you simply enter your cluster’s information into the web UI and boot your nodes with an ISO image given (see demo below).
It has been accessible as a Technology Preview for several versions, and we have received excellent user feedback during that time. The number of clusters deployed and adoption are both increasing on a daily basis.
Features of the OpenShift Assisted Installer
We’ve created several blog posts describing how to use Assisted Installer. We’d like to highlight a few of the features included in the GA release today. Many additions, fixes, and enhancements have been introduced throughout the GA process and subsequent versions. The following is a list of features that are now available as part of the public availability.
AUTOMATIC FULL STACK
- Cloud.redhat.com hosts Openshift Cloud Manager.
- Web-based user interface flow
- Fully API-driven REST API
- Error handling and progress monitoring
- Internal DNS and a cluster-managed built-in load balancer
MULTIPLE OPENSHIFT TOPOLOGIES
- 3-node compact clusters
- Single-node OpenShift clusters
- Standard multi-node clusters
- Schedulable masters
SIMPLIFIED PREREQUISITES
- No dedicated bootstrap node needed
- No DHCP hostname allocation
- Host call home model (simplified network model)
PRE-INSTALL VALIDATIONS
- Minimum host requirements
- Network connectivity/address matrix
SMART DEFAULTS
- Auto CIDR generation (based on available networks)
- Auto node role assignment
- All OpenShift cluster topologies
NETWORKING
- OpenShift SDN and OVN network types
- Proxy support
- IPv6/IPv4 Dual-stack via API
OTHER FEATURES
- Deploy Multiple OCP releases
- OpenShift on ARM
- Integration with OpenShift Data Foundation
- Integration with vSphere platform (Technology Preview)
- Cluster customizations
- Disk partitioning