Deploying a microservice to OpenShift by using a Kubernetes Operator

You will learn how to deploy a cloud-native application with a microservice to Kubernetes by using the Open Liberty Operator.

Kubernetes is a container orchestration system. It streamlines the DevOps process by providing an intuitive development pipeline. It also provides integration with multiple tools to make the deployment and management of cloud applications easier. You can learn more about Kubernetes by checking out the Deploying microservices to Kubernetes guide.

Kubernetes operators provide an easy way to automate the management and updating of applications by abstracting away some of the details of cloud application management. To learn more about operators, check out this Operators tech topic article.

The application in this guide consists of one microservice, system. The system microservice returns the JVM system properties of its host.

You will deploy the system microservice by using the Open Liberty Operator. The Open Liberty Operator provides a method of packaging, deploying, and managing Open Liberty applications on Kubernetes-based clusters. The Open Liberty Operator watches Open Liberty resources and creates various Kubernetes resources, including Deployments, Services, and Routes, depending on the configurations. The Operator then continuously compares the current state of the resources, the desired state of application deployment, and reconciles them when necessary.