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Welcome to this lesson on OpenShift. This guide provides a concise, high-level overview of OpenShift — what it is, how it fits into cloud computing models (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS), and the core container and orchestration technologies it builds on. OpenShift is Red Hat’s enterprise container application platform for developing, deploying, and hosting cloud-native applications. As a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), OpenShift abstracts and manages infrastructure concerns so development teams can focus on building code and shipping features faster.
The OpenShift by Red Hat logo sits above three red podiums labeled IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, each topped with icons for a server (IaaS), a terminal (PaaS), and an image (SaaS). The PaaS podium is centered and taller than the other two.
Distribution models for OpenShift
  • OpenShift is available in multiple distribution and delivery models to fit different organizational needs:
Core technologies that power OpenShift OpenShift builds on container runtimes and Kubernetes and adds developer and operator-centric tooling:
  • Container runtimes and images: tools like Docker and CRI-O enable packaging applications, dependencies, and settings into OCI-compatible container images for consistent deployment.
  • Kubernetes: the de facto orchestration layer that schedules, scales, and heals containers across a cluster.
  • OpenShift: provides higher-level constructs and integrated tooling on top of Kubernetes — CI/CD, image registries, developer workflows, RBAC, networking, and more — to streamline development and operations.
Docker and container images let you create immutable application artifacts that can be transported and run consistently across environments. Kubernetes provides scheduling, self-healing, rolling updates, and scaling for those images. OpenShift extends Kubernetes with additional APIs, web consoles, build/pipeline integrations, and enterprise features.
An infographic-style layout showing tech cards for Tools (Git icon), Kubernetes, and Docker on the left. On the right are red stylized diagrams of connected service nodes and container tiles, illustrating container orchestration and deployment.
Key OpenShift features and platform capabilities
  • Integrated developer experience: source control integrations (GitHub, GitLab), web console, and developer workflows to accelerate code-to-cluster delivery.
  • CI/CD and build pipelines: built-in build strategies and pipeline integrations for automated build, test, and deploy stages.
  • Image registry: a built-in, secure container image registry to store and manage application images.
  • Software-defined networking (SDN): cluster networking and service connectivity provided out of the box.
  • API-driven platform: consistent, well-documented APIs for automation and integration with external systems.
  • Security and multi-tenancy: Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), projects (namespaces), and team management to control access and separate workloads.
Each feature will be explored in later lessons with hands-on examples and demos.
A slide titled "Tools" showing a red, connected chain of circular nodes representing components like SCM, Pipeline, Registry, Software Defined Networking, API, and Governance with simple icons. The design visualizes a toolchain or workflow across those labeled stages.
Prerequisites and recommended learning path If you already know Docker and Kubernetes basics, you can move on to OpenShift architecture and administration topics. If you’re new to containers or orchestration, consider these hands-on introductory courses to get practical experience: Further reading and references
If you plan to follow the hands-on portions of this course, prior familiarity with basic Linux commands, Git, Docker (or another container runtime), and Kubernetes concepts will be helpful.
That’s it for this lesson — in the next lesson we’ll dive into OpenShift architecture and cluster components.

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