1. OpenShift on
Azure Stack
Takayoshi Tanaka, Software Maintenance Engineer
tatanaka@redhat.com

2. Takayoshi Tanaka
Software Maintenance Engineer at Red Hat Japan
◦ OpenShift
◦ Red Hat on Azure
◦ SQL Server on RHEL
Microsoft MVP for Azure (Jul 2018 -)
◦ for C# (July 2013- June 2018)
Social
◦ Blog: Red Hat Developers. Personal. Personal in Japanese
◦ Twitter @TanakaTakayoshi

3. Disclaimer: support status
This presentation doesn’t express any public statements.
OpenShift doesn’t support Azure Stack right now.
I’ll tell what we can know from public information today.
If you have Red Hat subscription, please see this
knowledgebase.
https://access.redhat.com/articles/3413531

4. Takeaways
What is Azure
Stack?
How Azure Stack is
different from
Azure?
Can we deploy
OpenShift on
Azure Stack right
now?

5. Azure Stack & Azure
CONSISTENCY HYBRID SECURE

6. Use Azure Stack for
Real-time latency requirement
Connectivity Issue
Local data processing
Regulation at the each country

7. Why OpenShift
Supporting various platforms
◦ Bare metal
◦ OpenStack
◦ Public clouds (Azure, AWS, GCP)
◦ Azure Stack  New
A same application on container etc can run on many platforms.
◦ Image
◦ Deployment config
◦ Service etc…

8. Azure Stack
Generals

9. Key consideration
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-stack/user/azure-stack-considerations

10. Admin Portal & User Portal
Admin Portal: Portal for Azure Stack Operators (Administrators)
User Porta: Portal for Azure Stack users. Almost same as public Azure.

11. Azure CLI
The same commands could work both for Azure Stack and Azure.
◦ Except API version difference
$ az cloud register --name <Azure-Stack-Cloud-Name> --
endpoint-resource-manager "https://<resource-manager-
endpoint>" --suffix-storage-endpoint <suffix-for-storage-
accounts>
$ az cloud set -n <Azure-Stack-Cloud-Name>
$ az login
$ az cloud update --profile 2017-03-09-profile

12. ARM Template
Compatibility
◦ Deploy the same resources to Azure and Azure Stack
◦ Support more complex scenario than CLI
Note:
◦ To deploy RHEL with unmanaged disk, you have to upload VHD
file to dedicated storage account(s).
ARM Template has no direct way to upload or copy VHD files.

13. OpenShift on
Azure Stack

14. Base RHEL Server Image
Almost same as public Azure
◦ Upload the custom OS image (VHD file).
You can use the same VHD both for public Azure & Azure Stack
Azure Stack supports only unmanaged disk
◦ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/roadmap/managed-disks-in-azure-stack/

15. OpenShift on Azure Stack
You can install OpenShift on Azure Stack in the same way as
public Azure.
◦ Create Azure VMs and other Azure resources
◦ Install OpenShift with ansible playbook
Microsoft released an ARM Template
◦ https://github.com/microsoft/openshift-container-
platform/tree/azurestack-release-3.9
◦ It’s not tested by Red Hat.

16. The current issues
◦ Azure Cloud Provider is unavailable
◦ due to the kubernetes configuration issue
◦ I’m guessing AKS team is working on that:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/roadmap/azure-container-service-
aks-on-azure-stack/
◦ Azure File is not available
◦ https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-stack/user/azure-stack-
acs-differences

17. Storage Option
If Azure Cloud Provider is unavailable, available storage options
is limited.
Network Storage – not recommended for RDBMS and high
load usage (cassandra, etc)
◦ OpenShift Container Storage (formerly Container Native Storage)
◦ external NFS
Block Device
◦ Actually, no options other than local device.

18. Cloud Provider Consideration
If Cloud Provider becomes available in OpenShift on Azure
Stack, you have to configure Azure service principal.
You have to set up Azure Stack with Azure Active Directory
(AAD) or Active Directory Federation Service (ADFS) for Identity
Store.
◦ https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-stack/azure-stack-key-
features#identity