Azure Red Hat OpenShift

Azure Red Hat OpenShift is a fully managed OpenShift service on Microsoft Azure, co-managed by Microsoft and Red Hat. It combines the power of Red Hat OpenShift, an enterprise Kubernetes platform, with the scalability, security, and integration features of Azure. Deploy, manage, and scale containerized applications on Azure while benefiting from automated updates, monitoring, and security patches. Azure Red Hat OpenShift provides a robust environment for building, deploying, and managing cloud-native applications.

Azure Red Hat OpenShift with hosted control planes is a deployment option for Azure Red Hat OpenShift that runs the OpenShift control plane as a fully managed service, separate from the worker nodes that run your applications. It creates a cleaner boundary between the control plane and the data plane, which simplifies ongoing maintenance and upgrades. Azure Red Hat Openshift with standard architecture remains fully supported and actively developed by Microsoft and Red Hat while Azure Red Hat Openshift with hosted control planes offers an additional deployment choice.

Both are the same first-party Azure Red Hat OpenShift service jointly engineered, operated, and supported by Microsoft and Red Hat, billed through Azure and eligible for your Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC), with the same Azure-native identity, security, and governance. The difference is where the OpenShift control plane runs. With Azure Red Hat OpenShift with standard architecture, each cluster's control plane runs in your own Azure subscription, so you pay for control-plane nodes on every cluster, which Microsoft and Red Hat provision and operate on your behalf. With hosted control planes deployment model, the control plane moves into a Microsoft-managed Azure subscription, decoupled from your worker nodes and run by Micorsoft and Red Hat site reliability engineers.  Azure Red Hat OpenShift with hosted control planes is especially valuable when you run many clusters or need to spin environments up and down quickly, for example consolidating a growing multi-cluster estate or standing up dev/test and burst environments cost-efficiently. You can start new clusters on Azure Red Hat OpenShift with hosted control planes today.

Azure Red Hat OpenShift builds upon Kubernetes with a complete, enterprise-ready platform. Unlike basic Kubernetes, it includes pre-integrated components: container management, automation, networking, CI/CD, monitoring, registry, and authentication—all tested together. Azure Red Hat OpenShift provides fully managed operations with automated upgrades, enhanced security, integrated developer tools, and simplified management through the Azure portal with unified billing and support. 

Yes. Switching to Azure Red Hat OpenShift is seamless because it's built on upstream Kubernetes projects. Transition with minimal disruption while keeping your preferred languages, frameworks, and databases. Your Kubernetes resources will be compatible, and you'll gain access to embedded CI/CD, a container catalog, and image streams. Or, use your existing pipeline with Azure Red Hat OpenShift for a smooth migration, enhancing development with enterprise features and managed services benefits.

No, you don't need to sign a contract with Red Hat. Azure Red Hat OpenShift billing falls under Azure paid services.

Request support in the Azure portal. Microsoft and Red Hat engineers will triage and address your request.

Review the product availability by region page for more information.

Azure Red Hat OpenShift provides a service-level agreement (SLA) of 99.95% availability. Review the SLA page for more information.

OpenShift is Red Hat's enterprise Kubernetes platform that enhances standard Kubernetes with a suite of tools for building, deploying, and managing containerized applications at scale. It integrates developer workflows, CI/CD pipelines, security controls, monitoring solutions, and automated operations to provide a complete container platform that simplifies development and operations tasks. It’s available either as self-managed software or as managed cloud services like Azure Red Hat OpenShift.

Azure Red Hat OpenShift is primarily a platform as a service (PaaS), offering a complete platform for building, deploying, and managing applications with integrated tools for CI/CD, security, and monitoring. While it’s built on Kubernetes (often categorized as a CaaS or Container as a Service), Azure Red Hat OpenShift goes beyond container orchestration by providing a higher-level solution for application management, making it more of a PaaS with container orchestration capabilities.