What's new in Red Hat OpenShift

Red Hat OpenShift is the unified app platform to build, modernize, and deploy applications at scale. Red Hat OpenShift 4.15, based on Kubernetes 1.28 and CRI-O 1.28, is now generally available. This article highlights notable updates in this release for Developers with OpenShift. Here are some important features available in OpenShift 4.15. Here are some of the new features available in OpenShift 4.15. To learn about additional updates, see Develop your Superpowers with Red Hat OpenShift 4.15.

Unleash New Powers with Pipelines, Developer Hub, and more!

The Developer Perspective in OpenShift Console includes four new capabilities: a new dynamic plugin-based dashboard for OpenShift Pipelines, access to additional information in OpenShift Pipelines for Red Hat Trusted Software Supply Chain, enhancements for build strategy and creating Serverless functions. The PipelineRun Details page in the Developer or Administrator perspective of the web console provides an enhanced visual representation of PipelineRuns within a Project. Discover Red Hat Developer Hub in the web console with new  quick starts that provide step by step instructions to learn how to install and use the developer hub. Red Hat Developer Hub 1.0 GA, based on the Backstage project, provides software templates and plugins for OpenShift deployments, access to pipeline runs, viewing clusters from OCM and more. Builds for OpenShift Container Platform 1.0 an extensible build framework based on the Shipwright project,  lets you build container images in the web console. 

Podman Desktop 1.7’s enhanced onboarding experience makes it easier to set up your local environment. Use the Red Hat OpenShift Local extension to create local clusters. Use the UI to manage Pods, Services, Deployments and Routes. The OpenShift Toolkit IDE extension by Red Hat,  for Visual Studio Code and IntelliJ now has a UI for Helm Charts with Helm repo management, allows perform Import From Git and deploy apps (from AI applications to Quarkus applications) directly from OpenShift (Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS, Microsoft Azure Red Hat OpenShift,  OpenShift Local) and it integrates OpenShift Serverless Functions with OpenShift Toolkit for VS Code for OpenShift Serverless 1.31 and Function CLI 1.13.

OpenShift Pipelines 1.14 based on Tekton 0.56

OpenShift Pipelines is a cloud-native continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) solution based on Kubernetes that automates deployments across multiple platforms by removing the hidden implementation details. Release 1.14 introduces Tekton Results in Technology Preview which provides support for external databases and storage as well as a new API for detailed log summaries with various filters. Pipelines As Code adds multiple GitHub Apps support and remote pipeline capabilities in PAC resolver which makes pipeline management more seamless. The Secrets Store CSI driver and Tekton integration are now validated and make RHEL entitlements available in Buildah pods. Tekton Results are now accessible in the Console and as a dynamic plugin for a CI-centric dashboard. See the OpenShift Pipelines release notes to read about other improvements.

OpenShift GitOps 1.12 based on Argo CD 2.10 coming in March

OpenShift GitOps allows administrators to consistently configure and deploy Kubernetes infrastructure and applications across clusters and development lifecycles. Release 1.11 released in December introduces dynamic shard rebalancing in Technology Preview. Dynamic shard rebalancing feature makes it easier to manage replicas of applications and distribute cluster resources per shard. In addition, dynamic rebalancing lets you set maximum and minimum shards while the round-robin algorithm manages the process. Gitlab SCM provider now supports self-signed certs. Release 1.12 adds Technology Preview support for the upstream Argo CD command line interface (CLI), a rollouts traffic management plugin for OpenShift Routes, and Technology Preview for OpenShift GitOps for MicroShift which only includes the core Argo CD components for a smaller footprint version of GitOps. Additionally, Notifications goes GA. More information can be found in the OpenShift GitOps 1.11 release notes.

OpenShift Serverless 1.32 based on Knative 1.11

OpenShift Serverless provides autoscaling and networking for containerized microservices and functions. Serverless Functions increases developer velocity by providing templates to jumpstart both application and container creation and now supports persistent volume claims (PVCs) which provide permanent data storage and a more refined Developer Console experience. You can create OpenShift Serverless functions through the developer console using OpenShift Container Platform Pipeline. OpenShift Serverless multi-tenancy with Service Mesh is now available as a Technology Preview (TP) feature for both Serving and Eventing. For edge use cases, Serverless is now supported with Single Node OpenShift. To learn more, please see the OpenShift Serverless 1.32 release notes. 

OpenShift Service Mesh 2.5 based on Istio 1.18 and Kiali 1.73

Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh creates a central point of control in an application. The latest release adds General Availability support for Arm clusters, more options for observability integrations with the addition of GA of Zipkin and OpenTelemetry and envoyOtelAls extension providers, and  GA of OpenShift Service Mesh Console plugin. IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack support and the Kiali Backstage plugin for Red Hat Developer Hub are both available in Developer Preview. The updated Developer Preview of the Service Mesh 3 Kubernetes Operator or the “Sail Operator”is available. More information can be found in the OpenShift Service Mesh 2.50 release notes.

Get started with Red Hat OpenShift 4.15

To get started with Red Hat OpenShift 4.15, try the Developer Sandbox for Red Hat OpenShift. It provides free access to a shared OpenShift cluster for your development needs without requiring you to set up and configure an OpenShift cluster. Once you sign up, learn more about OpenShift and Kubernetes through hands-on interactive learning content.

You can also explore OpenShift Platform capabilities and try it for the cloud footprint of your choice.