My Daily Cloud Blog

Introduction

If you’ve ever thought:

“Kubernetes is powerful… but running it ourselves is a lot of work”

That’s exactly where Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA) fits in.

ROSA gives you a fully managed OpenShift platform running directly on AWS, jointly supported by Red Hat and AWS. You get the benefits of Kubernetes and OpenShift without having to manage the control plane yourself.

This series will show you how to go from cluster access to running real applications on ROSA, step by step.

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What Is ROSA (Without the Marketing Speak)?

ROSA is:

• OpenShift running natively on AWS
• Managed by Red Hat (OpenShift components)
• Running inside your AWS account
• Integrated with AWS networking, IAM, and load balancers

You:

• Deploy apps
• Manage namespaces and workloads
• Control access and security

Red Hat:

• Manages the OpenShift control plane
• Handles upgrades and platform reliability

AWS:

• Provides the infrastructure (VPC, EC2, ELB, storage)

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How ROSA Compares to Amazon EKS

Feature	ROSA	EKS
Kubernetes Management	Fully managed OpenShift	Managed Kubernetes only
Built-in CI/CD & Dev Tools	Yes	No
Security Controls	Strong defaults	DIY
Enterprise Support	Red Hat + AWS	AWS only
Operational Overhead	Lower	Higher

Simple rule:
If you want enterprise Kubernetes with guardrails, ROSA wins.
If you want raw Kubernetes, EKS may be better.

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Typical ROSA Architecture

A standard ROSA deployment includes:

• An AWS VPC with public and private subnets
• OpenShift control plane managed by Red Hat
• Worker nodes in private subnets
• AWS load balancers exposing apps
• Native AWS storage and networking

This makes ROSA a great fit for secure and regulated environments.

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When Should You Use ROSA?

ROSA is a strong choice if you:

• Need enterprise Kubernetes
• Want OpenShift features without managing it
• Are deploying mission-critical apps
• Operate in regulated or government environments
• Want tight AWS integration

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What You’ll Learn in This Series

By the end of this series, you’ll know how to:

• Access and manage a ROSA cluster
• Deploy and expose applications
• Scale workloads
• Apply security best practices
• Operate ROSA in production

No fluff — just practical steps.

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What’s Next?

👉 Part 2: Prerequisites and Environment Setup

In the next post, we’ll:

• Set up AWS and Red Hat access
• Install the required CLI tools
• Verify cluster connectivity
• Avoid common permission issues