Table of Contents for
Getting Started with OpenShift

Version ebook / Retour

Cover image for bash Cookbook, 2nd Edition Getting Started with OpenShift by Katie Miller Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2014
  1. Cover
  2. Getting Started With OpenShift
  3. Getting Started With OpenShift
  4. Preface
  5. 1. Introduction
  6. 2. Creating Applications
  7. 3. Making Code Modifications
  8. 4. Adding Application Components
  9. 5. Environment and Application Management
  10. 6. Library Dependencies
  11. 7. Networking
  12. 8. Disk Usage
  13. 9. Backup
  14. 10. Team Collaboration
  15. 11. Summary
  16. A. Basic Linux for Non-Linux Users
  17. Colophon
  18. Copyright

Chapter 11. Summary

Now, sadly, it is time to wrap up the book. We hope it has been as much fun to read as it was to write. Most importantly, we hope our book fulfilled its purpose: to get you up and running comfortably with OpenShift as fast as possible.

What We Covered

To quickly recap, we covered:

  • Some basic terminology explaining the OpenShift components
  • How to create an application on OpenShift
  • How to modify the template application to use your own code
  • How to add other functionality to your application, such as a database or Cron job
  • How to use the command line with your application to interact with the database
  • How to use environment variables to add other functionality to your application
  • How to work with your log files and create new ones if needed
  • How to add external library dependencies to your application
  • How to add WebSocket functionality to your application
  • What networking options are available and what external ports you can use
  • Where you can write to disk in your OpenShift application
  • How to manage your disk space
  • How to back up your database
  • How to back up your entire application
  • How to use OpenShift to work on a team project

That is a lot of territory covered in a relatively short number of pages. We also used a Python application to illustrate the pattern of development on OpenShift.

Other Areas to Explore

To learn about other people using OpenShift and their projects, check out the OpenShift Developer Spotlight. The OpenShift team also loves to show off the great applications built by users in the Application Gallery. Now that we have taught you how to do all this great stuff, we expect your cool application or biography any minute now.

If you want a more in-depth explanation of development on OpenShift, we highly recommend the OpenShift Online User Guide. This guide is also short, but covers some different topics from our book. It is well worth a read.

While we are great authors, in the highly unlikely scenario where you might need other help than this book, there are also great resources on the OpenShift website, such as the Knowledge Base and FAQs. OpenShift Online has moved to Stack Overflow for Q&A, type resources.

There is also a Developer Center on the OpenShift site. It has information on how to use the Web Console or Eclipse IDE integration. You can also find information there on how to create your own QuickStarts for your favorite applications. The site also covers how to add your own preferred server technology using a custom cartridge. Most importantly, the resource center has links to other languages and databases OpenShift supports, so you can dig in to more specific material for your programming language of choice.

If you want to dive deeper into OpenShift itself, you would like to learn how to run it on your own infrastructure so you can tweak it to your liking, or you love Ruby and want to be part of an open source project, we highly recommend you visit the OpenShift Origin site. Origin is the upstream project for the other two products and it has a friendly and active community. There are many ways to get involved in the community. Here are some links to get you started:

  • All the code is up on GitHub.

    • Pull requests from the community are welcome, and they go through the same process as Red Hatter pull requests.
    • You can also add GitHub issues.
    • There are guidelines on how to contribute to the project.
  • You can see the product roadmap and what the teams are working on for each sprint on the OpenShift Trello boards.
  • There is a public Bugzilla instance.
  • You can come chat in IRC on irc.freenode.net—application developers should come talk in #openshift and people interested in running OpenShift or modifying the platform should drop in to #openshift-dev.
  • There are weekly hangouts on Google+.

There are also at least two other published books on OpenShift, with several more books at various stages of writing or publication. If you are interested in running OpenShift Origin, then we recommend our colleague Adam Miller’s book, Implementing OpenShift (Packt). For a book like ours, aimed at developers using OpenShift, but with a focus on JBoss technologies, look to our colleague Eric Schabell’s book, OpenShift Primer (Developer.Press).

Final Words

Always check the OpenShift website and blog for the latest and greatest features. PaaS is a rapidly evolving area, and the OpenShift team has made a commitment to pushing the state of the art forward. The team is also committed to listening to the users—if you have suggestions for the service you can always write to Steve or Katie, or to . One of the things we love about working with OpenShift is that the more you use it, the more possibilities emerge—so the most important thing at this point is for you to get coding!