Click2Cloud Inc. is a Microsoft gold partner and Red Hat ISV and connect Partner Company focussed to provide cross platform cloud solutions.

Click2Cloud’s Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Extension” brings Docker and Kubernetes based containerized .Net application to OpenShift 3 Enterprise. Our DevOps solution, allows developers to build, manage and deploy containerized .Net and lot more other applications straight from Visual Studio IDE to Red Hat’s OpenShift 3 Enterprise Cloud Platform.

Our aim is to integrate Red Hat OpenShift with Microsoft Visual Studio so that developers can harness most of the functionalities of OpenShift within Visual Studio IDE.

This is pre-release version of OpenShift 3 Enterprise Tool for Visual Studio 2015. To participate in beta and use our development infrastructure, kindly register from http://register.click2cloud.net

Download from Visual studio gallery: https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/9a5b8b19-dadf-4b46-8712-527303d32231

Check the GitHub repository: https://github.com/click2cloud/dotnetonopenshift3

Software Pre-requisites

Following are the software pre-requisite to install the ‘Click2Cloud OpenShift 3 Enterprise Tool for Visual Studio 2015’ tool and manage your application on OpenShift 3 Enterprise.

OpenShift 3 All in one environment

Additional Resources

Along with Click2Cloud OpenShift 3 Video Gallery, you can refer the ‘getting started documentation’ accessible from “New OpenShift Application” screen.

image001 Fig 1: ‘getting started documentation.’ Link on New OpenShift Application Window.

Getting Started:

This document provide user a step-by-step instructions to install and use the tool. It covers the following section;

  • Pre-requisite Software to install the plugin
  • Step-by-step details on installing GitHub Extension for Visual Studio 2015
  • Guidelines to Install Git for Windows and OpenShift 3 OC CLI
  • Procedure to download OpenShift Tool for Visual Studio 2015
  • How to Install and Activate OpenShift Tool for Visual Studio
  • Create Your First Application on OpenShift and Manging Projects
  • Deploying Application Changes and Build
  • Log Streaming and Stream Application Logs
  • Stream Build Logs
  • Open Terminals and Port-forwarding

 

The Getting started document is available on Click2Cloud website, and can be directly accessed from here: http://click2cloud.net/downloads/Click2Cloud_OpenShift3_Enterprise_VisualStudio2015_Tool_UserGuide_V1.0.pdf

 

Watch these videos to learn more:

Guideline to enable .NET in OpenShift 3 Environment

https://github.com/Click2Cloud/DotNetOnOpenShift3
Once installed, system will display success message and you can access the Click2Cloud Extension from menus of Visual Studio Console.

image003 Fig: 2 – Click2Cloud Extension in Visual Studio Menu

Features:

Here are a few key features wish to highlight which will help to understand function and capabilities of this tool.

  • Login to OpenShift 3 using ‘Basic’ or ‘Oauth’ protocol

    User can login to OpenShift from Visual studio Extension by providing his OpenShift username & password.

image005 Fig: 3 – Click2Cloud ‘New OpenShift Application’ Screen

 

  • Create and Manage projects in OpenShift 3

    Create new projects or access existing projects from Visual Studio menu.

image007   image009

Fig: 4 – Click2Cloud ‘New OpenShift Project Screen

 

  • Create new OpenShift application from image templates available in server

    There are several application image templates available in the server e.g. asp.net (ver. 4.5, 5.0 etc.), or a combination of asp.net with My SQL, Mongo dB, PostgreSQL, PHP, Pearl and so on. User can use any of these to create application.

image011 Fig: 5 – Click2Cloud ‘Choose Application Template’ Screen

 

  • Create new OpenShift application from custom template

    If user has any application image or image template in his local file system, he can use this by browsing the path to it. (ref. fig.4)

 

  • Open existing application from OpenShift 3 and load in Visual Studio 2015

    User can open his existing application for further development from the ‘Open existing application’ tab from the menu.

image013 Fig: 6 – Click2Cloud ‘Existing Build Configs’ Screen

  • View Webhook URL for newly created application or retrieve it for a running one - Git Webhook URL is used to configure automatic build deployment

    On OpenShift explorer right click on ‘Build configs’ and click on ‘ Show Webhooks’. This will open a new dialog box with webhook URL. Copy this URL with adjacent tab to trigger a new build by sending a request to OpenShift API end point.

image015   image017

Fig: 7 – View Webhook URL

 

  • View Pod & build Logs from OpenShift Explorer

    Pod logs and builds logs can viewed from Visual studio output window.

image019

image021 Fig: 8 – Click2Cloud ‘OpenShift Build Logs’ Screen

 

  • Start Build from OpenShift 3 Explorer

    On OpenShift explorer , right click on ‘Build configs’ and select ‘start build’ to manually start a new build.

image023 Fig: 9– Start build from OpenShift explorer

 

  • Enable HTTPs Protocol (SSL) for existing application

    To configure SSL certificate, Go to services and right click to choose from options and click on Enable SSL. A new dialog box will appear with instructions.

image025 Fig: 11 – Port Forwarding from OpenShift 3 Explorer

 

  • Port Forwarding from OpenShift 3 Explorer

    For port forwarding, go to pods and right click on running application to choose from options and select Port Forwarding. A new dialog box will appear with instructions.

image027 Fig: 11 – Port Forwarding from OpenShift 3 Explorer

 

  • Launch Terminal option from OpenShift 3 Explorer

    To open command prompt, go to running pod and right click to choose from options, select Open Terminal to view

image029 Fig: 12 – Launch CLI

image031

  • JSON Editor Integration with OpenShift 3 Explorer

    To edit any JSON file expand the corresponding tab and right click on running application to select edit option.

image033 Fig: 13 – JSON Editor Integration

Known Issues

  • Auto refresh in OpenShift Explorer not working in few scenarios
  • OpenShift Explorer design issue for different themes
  • In some scenarios Live streaming of Build Logs is not working

 

Further More: At Click2Cloud, It has been a long journey towards integration of OpenShift with windows technologies or we can say to achieve harmony in heterogeneous environments. We are pleased to have same solutions for Red Hat OpenShift Origin 3 and cartridge based OpenShift version 2 and OpenShift online. In upcoming blogs we’ll have a deeper insight for above.

Contacts Us

  • For more details or for a supported version please contact us at contact@click2cloud.net
  • We are also available on these numbers: +1 (425) 749-7495 and  +1 (425) 748-9666.
  • Visit our website click2cloud.net to get insight of tools and FAQs
  • Watch our YouTube Playlist to see how easy it is to develop and deploy application on OpenShift 3 using Click2Cloud’s OpenShift 3 Enterprise Tool for Visual Studio 2015

 

Author

Manish Mishra

VP, Click2cloud Inc.