🚀 From Zero to ROKS: Getting Started with OpenShift on IBM Cloud

Getting started with Kubernetes can be overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be difficult.

If you’re curious how quickly you can go from nothing to a production-ready OpenShift cluster, this video is a great place to start. The video shows how easy it is to spin up Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud and begin building cloud‑native apps without wrestling with infrastructure.

What is ROKS? 🪨

Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud (ROKS) is a fully managed Kubernetes platform that helps you build, deploy, and scale applications without worrying about cluster infrastructure.

What is OpenShift?

OpenShift is a Kubernetes-based platform with built-in developer and operational tools.

Why IBM Cloud Wins for OpenShift

IBM Cloud provides the managed environment, security, and integrations needed for production workloads. It handles the heavy lifting of provisioning, configuring, and managing the OpenShift masters, allowing teams to focus on application development rather than infrastructure.

While many providers offer managed OpenShift, Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud (ROKS) is engineered to remove the administrative overhead typically associated with the Red Hat ecosystem. It is a fully managed platform where IBM handles the provisioning, configuration, and management of the OpenShift master nodes.

Prerequisites

No Red Hat account required

With IBM Cloud,

• No Red Hat credentials needed
• No pull secrets required
• Everything is handled during cluster creation

Flexible provisioning options

You can create clusters via GUI, CLI, Terraform / Ansible.

Enterprise-grade SLA & compliance

99.99% SLA, GDPR, HIPAA-ready, PCI + SOC 1/2/3 compliant

Managed control plane

Master nodes are free, dedicated, and highly available

Flexible infrastructure

Choose from shared / dedicated nodes, bare metal, multiple architectures

What you’ll learn in the video

The tutorial walks through a beginner journey:

1. Creating your first cluster: You’ll start by provisioning a VPC-based OpenShift cluster on IBM Cloud.
2. Accessing the OpenShift console: Once your cluster is ready, you can use the web console or connect via CLI.

Next Steps

Once done, everything shows as healthy. You’re ready to deploy apps.

Day 2 Operations

Let IBM Cloud help manage your day 2 operations around security, logging, and monitoring.

Centralized Observability

Instead of running heavy logging/monitoring pods inside every cluster, you can connect to IBM Cloud Log Analysis and Monitoring with a single click.

Encryption (KYOK)

Secure using IBM Key Protect or Hyper Protect Crypto Services. This offers "Keep Your Own Key" (KYOK) capabilities.

Image Security:

Enable the Portieris open-source project to enforce image deployment policies, ensuring only signed, secure images run in your pods.

How long does it take?

In our tests, a cluster becomes available in almost exactly 30 minutes. While Ingress setup may take a few additional minutes, you can be ready to deploy apps in the time it takes to grab lunch.