Outcome Overview

Enable the Red Hat OpenShift OVN-Kubernetes default CNI plug-in to also be the default for IBM ROKS OpenShift cluster deployments so that IBM Cloud clusters can benefit from Red Hat engineering resources, and vice versa. 

The default networking plug-in today for IBM ROKS clusters is Calico, which is largely self-supported by a small group within the organization that could benefit from additional resources to develop non-trivial customer feature enhancements.

OVN-Kubernetes is the default networking for all Red Hat OpenShift managed (ROSA, OSD with ARO to follow) and self-managed clusters across all other platforms and has significant engineering resources to develop multiple any-sized customer features and provide leadership to upstream Kubernetes networking.  While OVN-Kubernetes is the default, Red Hat partners with 3rd-party organizations to jointly support alternative certified CNI plug-in solutions, including Calico. 

Success Criteria

IBM ROKS provides OVN-Kubernetes as its default out-of-the-box networking CNI for all new clusters. __ 

Expected Results (what, how, when)

There are several customer and internal benefits of IBM ROKS offering OVN-Kubernetes as the default OpenShift cluster CNI ranging from accelerated delivery of customer-requested enhancements, to a unification of engineering and support resources across organizations as a multiplier, to unification and focus on a highly-capable, cross-industry Kubernetes networking solution as our out-of-the-box opinionated default networking that works on every platform that OpenShift supports.

There is a stretch goal to offer a migration solution for Calico customers to convert to OVN-Kubernetes, but this would not be a requirement for customers.

OpenShift telemetry (as of 2024-08-30) reports approximately 1.4% of all telemetry-reporting OpenShift clusters deployed in the field are using Calico as the primary CNI plug-in,. Separately,100% of all IBM ROKS clusters are using Calico.  We expect to see a small variation in the overall percentage, but a quarterly drop in the IBM ROKS-specific percentage (once feature parity is near or completed) as a measure of progress. __ 

Post Completion Review – Actual Results

TBD.