APPUiO
![APPUiO](../_images/appuio.png)
APPUiO is our Kubernetes "Namespace as a Service" offering based on Red Hat OpenShift.
APPUiO gives you instant access to a shared, fully managed, ready to use Red Hat OpenShift cluster in just a few minutes. Focus on your application rather than on setting up or managing your cluster, and bring your ideas to production in a breeze.
Use Cases
Why using APPUiO?
- Cloud Native App Development
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Get instant access to your own namespace on a running OpenShift Cluster. Don’t worry about provisioning infrastructure in a cloud provider, installing OpenShift, or even about waiting until a new cluster is provisioned for you. Just login, create a namespace, and you’re ready to
oc deploy
your new application. And only pay for it as soon as you actually use it! - MVP
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Have a new idea in mind for your next multi-billion business online? Spin a new OpenShift namespace on APPUiO, deploy your MVP, and go back to raising more venture capital.
- DevOps & CI/CD Pipelines
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Need DevOps but lack resources? Run your CI/CD pipeline, deploy, and preview your application on a running OpenShift cluster right now before going live. Redeploy as many times as you want until you’re ready to go. Only pay for what you use!
- Machine Learning
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Need a separate cluster to train a machine learning model with new data right now? Get your own namespace, deploy your code, and achieve the singularity faster.
- Production App Hosting
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Need instant flexibility and scale for your system? Host your application in minutes in production, and as you grow your business, APPUiO grows with you. APPUiO not big enough for your success? Migrate your app to Managed OpenShift and let your app thrive in a dedicated environment.
- Mobile App Backends
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Are you an iOS or Android developer needing to deploy your back-end on a scalable, trusted environment? Get your own OpenShift namespace and support your mobile users with a reliable infrastructure, compatible with all of your favorite programming languages.
- Education
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Do you teach Cloud Native technologies to your students? Let them experience the full power of a real OpenShift cluster with their own individual namespace; setup their student environment in seconds through GitOps, and watch their knowledge go live on the cloud.
- Technology Trial
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Are you interested in getting your own Managed OpenShift cluster, but you need to hedge the risks of trying out new technology? APPUiO to the rescue: get a namespace in minutes, and deploy a simple "Hello, World!" application. Use it for production later if you want, with the confidence of knowing that migrating to a bigger Managed OpenShift cluster will be a simple procedure.
- Resellers
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Are you a Cloud Service Provider and would like to offer OpenShift / Kubernetes to your customers, but you lack the skills or staff to manage a full cluster? Resell APPUiO and let us manage the cluster for you.
Services and Features
- Instant On
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Get your own OpenShift namespace in minutes, ready to use.
- Pay-per-use
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Only pay for the resources you actually use; see our price model for more information.
- User workload monitoring
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OpenShift uses Prometheus for monitoring its health. The same technology stack can also be used to monitor workloads deployed by cluster users. Users can create service monitors, alert rules and alert routes to monitor their applications. They can also use the OpenShift web console or a Grafana dashboard to inspect the metrics of their applications over time.
- Logging
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The underlying Kubernetes allows accessing logs of running workloads. On top of that, the OpenShift logging subsystem aggregates logs from throughout the cluster and makes it available through a single user interface. On VSHN Managed OpenShift, Loki is used as the logging solution.
- Node Flavors
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Be it general purpose workload, CPU hungry or latency sensitive workload, we offer best matching node flavor for your workload.
- User Management
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Organize your namespaces in teams and organizations, and assign users to those teams; control who can access which namespaces at a glance.
- Backup
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Backup all your work with the free pre-installed K8up backup operator, and benefit from the extensive choice of OpenShift operators to protect your data.
- Pre-Installed and Configured Operator
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APPUiO provides the following Kubernetes operators pre-installed and pre-configured, ready to be used:
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K8up: Kubernetes Backup Operator.
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Cert Manager: X.509 certificate management for Kubernetes.
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Vertical Pod Autoscaler: Monitors the current and past resource consumption and, based on it, provides recommended values for the containers' CPU and memory requests.
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- Community Support
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For those needing more help, we offer additional Support Plans.
These features apply to all APPUiO Zones, deviations are documented in the respective zone documentation. |
Key Features
Custom domains |
Bring your own domain or use an automatic APPUiO subdomain to host your application, free to use. |
Let’s Encrypt |
Secure your domain by serving it with an automatically renewed Let’s Encrypt certificate. |
Scheduled jobs |
Run regularly scheduled jobs with the Kubernetes |
Source-to-image |
Build your containers directly in the APPUiO zone with Source-to-Image |
Deployment Strategy |
All deployment strategies are available. |
Bring your own Operator (CRD) |
Operators are provided by the platform already. Own Operators can operate on the existing objects in the cluster. Installation of own CRDs isn’t possible. |
Support |
Additional paid support is available with different Support Plans. |
Zones
An APPUiO Zone is a single highly-available OpenShift cluster. It runs in one data center of the specified Cloud Provider.
Please take a look at the APPUiO Portal for a list of available zones.
Conditions
- Update Policy
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There are three types of upgrades:
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APPUiO Zones receive automatic revision upgrades (for example, from 4.x.1 to 4.x.2). These updates can happen at any time without prior announcement.
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Upgrades of minor OpenShift versions (for example from 4.7 to 4.8) are announced in advance. The announcement will contain a description of all possible breaking changes. Please subscribe at status.appuio.cloud/ if you are interested in those announcements.
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We do not know how the migration path from OpenShift 4 to 5 will look like. From the past (OpenShift 3 to 4), we know that this can be a more involved as in place upgrade was not possible. When we reach that point, we will figure this one out and will let you know how the procedure will look like for you.
Upgrades can contain anything that is part of an OpenShift cluster. Be it the worker nodes, the API or any core component running on top of it (like for example logging and monitoring).
On request, we can provide you with access to an already upgraded APPUiO Zone, for you to test your deployment if needed.
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- Status Information
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We communicate the status of the platform on status.appuio.cloud. Please subscribe there to get notified of any incidents.
- Resource Availability
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APPUiO is provided without any guarantees of resource availability.
- SLA
- Fair-Use Policy
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APPUiO is a shared platform. Unless otherwise stated, this fair-use principle applies to the use of our services. APPUiO users must use their resources moderately, so as not to degrade the service level available to other users.
- Privileged Containers
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Privileged containers can’t run on APPUiO.
- Log retention
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The OpenShift integrated logging (Elasticsearch / Kibana) retains collected logs for 72h (3 days), after that time-period logs are permanently deleted.
Frequently asked questions
Can I have many namespaces?
You can have as many namespaces as required, in as many zones as needed.
Can I migrate my applications to VSHN Managed OpenShift later?
Yes. Any workload running in APPUiO is guaranteed by design to run unchanged in an Managed OpenShift cluster.
Can I cancel my membership at any time?
Yes. You can cancel your APPUiO subscription at any time, and you won’t be charged during the next billing cycle. Extra charges due in the current billing cycle will be charged before cancellation. Access to your current namespace will automatically be blocked at the end of the current billing cycle, and any deployments and applications running in it will be deleted.
How many users can I add to my APPUiO namespaces?
You can add as many users as needed. Just ask them to register a new free APPUiO account and then add them to your organization. You can select which namespaces they should access later on.
Can I migrate my namespaces to another zone?
Yes, but even if all zones offer the same base features, they don’t offer the same extended features.
My question about APPUiO isn’t listed here, who could I ask?
Contact us at info@vshn.ch with any questions you might have.