
OpenShift by Red Hat - kragniz
https://openshift.redhat.com/app/
======
peterwwillis
If you don't like the idea of relying on RedHat to play with this tech,
remember that it is Open Source. Download it, use it, heck make a business
that builds on it.

    
    
      https://github.com/openshift/crankcase
      https://github.com/openshift/os-client-tools
      https://openshift.redhat.com/community/wiki/build-your-own
    

(I will say though: they make it extremely easy to get started and I really
like using OpenShift so far. I've never used Heroku, but if it's this user
friendly i'd definitely have used it before... Why don't they have a free
offering for people to test out the service?)

~~~
scottostler
FWIW, heroku does. The first heroku slice for a project is free, with the
caveat that it'll be spun down during periods of inactivity.

I imagine that most hobby users of heroku (say for a weekend hackathon) aren't
paying anything.

~~~
petercooper
I know of people who deployed prototypes and even production work for clients
to Heroku (I did once too ;-)). Quite a few people run Jekyll blogs on there
long term for free as well. It's pretty amazing what you can get out of a
single dyno for something that's not high traffic (i.e. most apps).

------
bobsy
I don't like this "Free" business.

It doesn't make sense and the complete lack of pricing info really puts me
off.

So I play around with this, like it and choose to stick with it. They then
introduce uncompetitive pricing.. I just wasted my time. They do not need to
give exact pricing - they might not know at the moment - but they should at
least give an overview of what they plan to do.

> We will keep this free plan for the foreseeable future. The free plan
> allows...

> This free plan will exist while we develop and test the service. As the
> service becomes stable we will be introducing paid plans and you will be
> asked to upgrade.

These 2 statements make sense to me. The fact they mention nothing about
pricing on their site confuses and annoys me.

~~~
sgdesign
The problem with free stuff is the lack of support. If I mess something up and
my site crashes after hitting the HN front page, I want someone to throw money
at until things work again.

~~~
sabat
_I want someone to throw money at until things work_

In that case, although you can certainly pay for support (as others have
pointed out)—but you're probably not the intended audience for this service.

~~~
TheSteve0
Actually you are the intended audience. We are keenly aware that people want
this capability. The free tier won't have this built in, but the other tiers
will.

------
T-A
From the ToS ( <https://openshift.redhat.com/app/legal/site_terms> ): "you
give Red Hat a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-
exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly
perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or
display on or through the web site"

That makes me a little nervous.

~~~
azundo
Here is the clause from the OpenShift Preview Services ToS (not the site
terms): <https://openshift.redhat.com/app/legal/services_agreement>

3.3. Your License to Red Hat. You hereby grant to Red Hat a non-exclusive,
non-transferable, royalty free license to use Your trademarks, trade names and
logos in connection with publicizing the Preview Services and communicating
with analysts, customers or the press about the Preview Services. Your further
grant to Red Hat, and any third party service provider on whose services Red
Hat may depend to provide the Preview Services, a perpetual, worldwide, non-
exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to make, use, reproduce,
prepare derivative works, distribute, perform and display Content for the
purpose of providing the Preview Services. Except as set forth in this
Section, Red Hat obtains no rights in Content under this Agreement.

~~~
vsarathy
Thanks for posting the entire clause. Let me just comment as a Red
Hat/OpenShift employee with some insight into the business intent behind the
legal language.

As you can see from the complete clause that includes "...for the purpose of
providing the Preview Services", the license to your content that you grant to
Red Hat is really to allow Red Hat to provide the Service. Also the last
sentence i.e. "Except as set forth in this Section, Red Hat obtains no rights
in Content under this Agreement." should make it clear that there is no other
interest in the users content.

~~~
farazmasoodkhan
I am really confusing by following term and conditions

Rights in Content: By displaying, publishing and making available for download
and use by others any content, messages, text, files, images, photos, video,
sounds, profiles, works of authorship, or any other materials ("Content") you
give Red Hat a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-
exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly
perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or
display on or through the web site. You agree that this license includes a
right for Red Hat to make such Content available to other companies,
organizations or individuals with whom Red Hat has relationships for the
provision of services, and to use such Content in connection with the
provision of those services. You understand that Red Hat may (a) transmit or
distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and
(b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt
that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices,
services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Red Hat to take
these actions. You confirm and warrant to Red Hat that you have all the
rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.

------
Kilimanjaro
I tried the service a couple of months ago and it is really easy to use. Got a
blog up and running in no time just to test the waters using bottle, jinja and
mongo. No sweat.

<http://blog-georgenava.rhcloud.com>

------
nosh
If you're interested in checking out how to get mongo running on openshift,
here are some things to get started

\- Good list of resources:
<https://openshift.redhat.com/community/developers/mongodb>

\- Lots of goodies in here: <https://github.com/openshift>

\- Part 1 of a 4-part series on building mobile apps with titanium, mongodb
and openshift: [http://blog.10gen.com/post/23089705899/mobilize-your-
mongodb...](http://blog.10gen.com/post/23089705899/mobilize-your-mongodb-
building-mongodb-mobile-apps)

\- Upcoming webinar on node.js and mongodb with OpenShift:
<http://www.10gen.com/events/building-web-services>

Disclaimer: I work at 10gen

------
ryancutter
I wrote a Python web app on OpenShift (Tornado not Django) and really liked
it. While I don't have experience with Heroku, I was really impressed with
OpenShift.

However, be aware that not everything is enabled yet. I ran into problems when
I discovered the multiprocessing package doesn't work
(<https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=814991>).

------
jamesu
I have yet to find a service as straightforward as Heroku. Cloudfront comes
close... but i get the feeling especially when looking at the documentation
that Heroku have really put in a lot of effort into making a simple to use
application platform.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Dotcloud does it for me. I'd love to support RedHat though.

~~~
jwarzech
Never heard of Dotcloud before, anyone have experience hosting a decent size
app with them?

~~~
shykes
Wunderkit (<http://wunderkit.com>) runs on dotCloud. So doe Punchtab
(<http://punchtab.com>). Both serve many millions of monthly uniques.

------
edtechdev
Yeah I'm excited about it and it's getting me to finally take the step from
traditional web app development (vps, php, etc.) to more easily scalable app
development - and it's all open source, no vendor lock-in, and hopefully
affordable pricing in the future.

Look forward to seeing more tutorials & code samples online and on their site.
For example has anyone tried out meteor (w/node.js & mongodb) with it yet.
Also, hopefully it will integrate with some of the browser-based IDEs out
there like cloud9.

~~~
TheSteve0
Did you ask for integration with cloud9? Funny you should mention that:
[https://openshift.redhat.com/community/blogs/look-ma-no-
hand...](https://openshift.redhat.com/community/blogs/look-ma-no-hands-
developing-for-the-cloud-in-the-cloud-with-cloud9-ide)

------
ique
How can this be free? If I host a massive application here, will they shut it
down or rate limit or how can this work?

~~~
wnm
the preview is free and has a limit:

"The developer preview supports up to 3 gears per user. You have a quota of
40,000 files, 1GB of storage, and 512MB Memory per gear. It is free to use and
you can run your application indefinitely. If you need to increase this quota,
please mailto:openshift@redhat.com with your username, domain and Application
URL."

from: [https://openshift.redhat.com/community/faq/how-many-
applicat...](https://openshift.redhat.com/community/faq/how-many-applications-
can-i-deploy-and-how-long-can-i-run-them-for)

~~~
noveltyaccount
<https://openshift.redhat.com/community/faq#t2n9495>

Where can I get more information on Pricing ?

To get more information on the pricing and timing of a paid version of
OpenShift please send an email to openshift@redhat.com

------
japhyr
Has anyone chosen openshift over heroku for django? I didn't see any pricing
info; is openshift still in beta?

~~~
bpp198
OpenShift is free.

~~~
ralphsaunders
But what's the catch?

~~~
halfasleep
It's Free Software, you can run it yourself or switch providers at will. The
catch may be in the lack of features compared to a proprietary option (like
Heroku)

------
dabeeeenster
No mention of pricing anywhere on their site. What?

~~~
r080
FAQ has something: "To get more information on the pricing and timing of a
paid version of OpenShift please send an email to openshift@redhat.com"

------
bergie
Very interesting, though documentation doesn't seem to be very comprehensive
yet.

There is little information about process management, like
<https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/process-model>

Not to mention how to create custom Cartridges, like you can do with Heroku
buildpacks: <https://gist.github.com/fe7f04abbd9538b656c5>

~~~
TheSteve0
We actually do have custom cartridge:
[https://openshift.redhat.com/community/blogs/a-paas-that-
run...](https://openshift.redhat.com/community/blogs/a-paas-that-runs-
anything-http-getting-started-with-diy-applications-on-openshift)

------
will_work4tears
Couldn't get their client software to work on Ubuntu. Even followed a few
tutorials. I think I'm missing something, but haven't a bunch of time to
invest.

~~~
nduong
I like these instructions:
[http://www.stylesen.org/openshift_client_tools_installation_...](http://www.stylesen.org/openshift_client_tools_installation_debianubuntu)

~~~
geuis
Thats not really a tutorial, just an introduction on how to install the CLI
tools. What's missing is a tutorial on how to _use_ them.

------
amalag
I tried openshift a few months ago for Rails. A real pain in the butt. They
dont have simple deploy like Heroku. Even heroku can be time consuming in the
beginning to get right, openshift was even more complicated. It may work
better for Java I don't know, looks like they are right on the bleeding edge
with support for Ruby 1.8.7.

~~~
TheSteve0
Our roadmap has more support for newer versions of Ruby coming soon. We
started with the base packages in RHEL but are now working to also bring newer
versions as standard cartridges. That said, you can also use a DIY cartridge
to get Ruby 1.9.x

~~~
sabat
Good to know; I just came here to complain. :-)

On the other hand, though, I think you should have probably started with the
1.9.2/1.9.3 series rather than the ancient 1.8.7.

------
gary4gar
the rubyist in me is happy to report that openshift is written largely in
ruby. so all ruby programmers should try running openshift in their own
machinea

------
geuis
The documentation is frankly awful. For example, when getting the status:

rhc domain status -l <myemailhere> I get an error about ~/.ssh/config not
existing. I added my ssh key via the web interface and have no idea what's
going on here.

In looking at the User Guide, I find it gets me no where.
[http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-
US/OpenShift/2.0/html/User_Gu...](http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-
US/OpenShift/2.0/html/User_Guide/chap-User_Guide-
OpenShift_Web_Interface.html#sect-User_Guide-Configuring_Your_Local_Machine)

The relevant message here is:

"If your system fails any of the tests, make a note of the error message and
consult the relevant section of the OpenShift User Guide for further
information."

Nothing like a circular reference that leads to nowhere.

~~~
TheSteve0
You probably created your domain and application through the web interface.
This is an issue we are working through now - sorry we haven't gotten to it
yet - it will be fixed in the next couple of sprints. The problem is that your
SSH env has not been set up to work with the RHC tools yet. They expect a
configure file in the .ssh directory to specify which key talks to the
*.rhcloud.com domain. This KB article may help you get started:
[https://openshift.redhat.com/community/kb/kb-e1034-ssh-
facts...](https://openshift.redhat.com/community/kb/kb-e1034-ssh-facts-to-be-
aware-of) Again, my apologies and we are actively working on that story right
now.

------
diminish
Do we have any major computing player remaining without an app cloud offering
or plan?

~~~
Kudos
Apple?

~~~
pmjordan
iCloud has developer APIs - all your code just happens to run on the OS X and
iOS clients (which are distributed via the App Store, which sits in the
cloud).

------
nivertech
Why all PaaS providers (Heroku, CF, OpenShift) building their CLI tools using
Ruby? Are they copying Heroku? Maybe because Python used for OS itself? What
dotCloud uses?

~~~
shykes
dotCloud's cli is written in Python. In the long run I don't think it matters
which language it's written in - as long as it's easy to install on every
computer.

------
Ryan_Shmotkin
Tsk tsk.. ruby 1.8.7 by default

~~~
dagw
and python 2.6 and PostgreSQL 8.4 and Perl 5.10. They definitely don't seem to
be aiming for the "cutting edge" crowd.

~~~
286c8cb04bda
Redhat stopped targeting the "cutting edge" demographic about 10 years ago.
They enlist them as QA for their real customers now.

------
ctrlaltesc
Interesting that the install instructions for Red Hat Linux distributions is
far more complicated than that of other Linux distributions.

But seriously, if they are offering a free platform to anyone with an email
address then what sort of precautions are they taking to prevent abuse?

~~~
Wickk
Are we talking content abuse? It's in their ToS if we are. Not entirely sure
how effective they're going to be at monitoring malicious content, but it's
there.

------
jefe78
I wish they'd list pricing in the event you grow beyond the free plan.
Reluctant to even bother trying without knowing that type of information.

------
twqqis
just a quick compliment to RH; loving how the employees are giving
constructive feedback on the comments here :)

------
robotomir
How does it compare to CloudFoundry? Aside from having official PHP support,
that is.

~~~
jvoorhis
CloudFoundry's PHP support is also official. While it's not yet available
through cloudfoundry.com, you can use it now with AppFog
(<http://appfog.com>).

Disclaimer: I work at AppFog and contributed to the initial version of PHP
support for the CloudFoundry open source project at
<https://github.com/cloudfoundry>.

------
mythz
I'm generally a fan of RedHat, but not having details on the most important
point of OpenShift that will decide whether it will fail or succeed in the
market (i.e. the price) is a scummy play - that I only expected from
enterprises. I hope these "enterprise marketing" tactics aren't a trend for
RedHat.

~~~
TheSteve0
This is not a bait and switch. We are trying to make sure we get the pricing
right. That said - we plan to make the current free tier free even when we
announce pricing. We are also committed to being competitive in terms of
pricing. We will be announcing pricing this summer.

~~~
mythz
But you've "announced" your cloud platform, yet I can't justify any time
learning or becoming familiar with it since there is no idea on price - it's
frustrating.

~~~
TheSteve0
Does the other cloud providers seem reasonable to you? If so then you might
want to spend time investigating. As a dev evangelist for OpenShift, I can say
it doesn't take much time to get a simple app up and running. Come by
#openshift on freenode and we can help you if you get stuck

~~~
mythz
No they don't - that's my point (Only AppEngine did before they increased
their prices). Because of the high cost of available clouds I don't use any
clouds and just run my own dedicated server.

------
jballanc
If you're not paying, you're the product.

~~~
bgilroy26
It's in developer preview, they're hoping you tell your friends and generate
buzz.

~~~
jballanc
Right. You're the product. In this case, you are the marketing product. It's
not always bad to be the product. Cows eat for free, right? Just a good thing
to keep in mind.

~~~
bgilroy26
Absolutely.

~~~
claytonc
Honestly the buzz I want to hear is "you guys suck, here's 10 ways you could
be better" before we start taking money, at which point it's "you guys suck
and you're taking our money, give me my money back". I'm trying to build the
service I would use, and the intent as mhicks said up above is to always have
a free tier so that folks get a chance to try it out before they commit.

~~~
bgilroy26
Best of luck with this project. Its encouraging to see a large organization
that is so committed to open source taking a stake in PaaS!

------
thomasfl
This is cool!

------
nathell
I made a mental typo when reading the name and omitted the "f."

~~~
claytonc
I do that about 3 times a day. I also got rejected for an openshift license
plate because of that significant f...

