Tech Topic

OpenShift Serverless

Build and deploy serverless applications using an event-driven infrastructure on
Red Hat® OpenShift®

Try the tech preview

What is serverless?

Using the Serverless model, an application can simply consume compute resources and automatically scale up or down based on use. This removes the overhead of server provisioning and maintenance from the developer, letting them focus on application development instead.

Developers focus on creating new applications, not managing the infrastructure their apps are running on. They also develop their code to run anywhere, abstracted from the underlying infrastructure.

That’s why Serverless computing is so attractive; developers can focus on writing code and delivering their applications faster.

What is Knative?

Knative (pronounced “Kay - Native”) extends Kubernetes to provide a set of components for deploying, running and managing modern applications running serverless. Using Knative means your serverless applications can be deployed and run on any Kubernetes platform, limiting the potential for vendor lock-in.

Knative is maintained by the open source community, including companies like Red Hat, Google, IBM and SAP, along with a great ecosystem of startups.


Offers a request-driven model that serves containerized workloads that auto-scale based on demand and that can "scale to zero."

Eventing Eventing

Common infrastructure for consuming and producing events to stimulate applications.

What is OpenShift Serverless?

OpenShift Serverless helps developers to deploy and run applications that will scale up or scale to zero on-demand. Applications are packaged as OCI compliant Linux containers that can be run anywhere.

Knative serving diagram Knative serving diagram

Applications can be triggered by a variety of event sources, such as events from your own applications, cloud services from multiple providers, Software as a Service (SaaS) systems and Red Hat Services (AMQ Streams).

Knative eventing diagram Knative eventing diagram

OpenShift Serverless applications can be integrated with other OpenShift services, such as OpenShift Pipelines, Service Mesh, Monitoring and Metering, delivering a complete serverless application development and deployment experience.

Defining the path to serverless

The serverless application is still packaged and deployed as a container. The difference is in how Kubernetes is instructed to launch the container to function as a serverless application. Which makes it easy to migrate your current containerized applications to run as serverless.

OpenShift makes it easy for developers to take advantage of delivering serverless applications. Through the CLI or through the GUI, tell OpenShift the container needs to run as a serverless, and unlock the capabilities of Knative.

OpenShift Serverless benefits

Run anywhere


Integrate with legacy

Build modern, serverless applications and support legacy apps through event sources. Manage them alongside your other applications on Red Hat OpenShift.

Focus on business


Operations friendly


OpenShift Serverless


Knative three part blog series

Get started building, configuring, and managing serverless applications with Knative, Kubernetes, and Red Hat OpenShift—this series covers...

Start Reading

Knative’s first year: Where it’s at and what's next in serverless

Today we celebrate the one year anniversary since the Knative project came to the world of Kubernetes. Red Hat is one of the top vendor...

Start Reading