OpenShift 4.3: New Improved Topology View

The topology view in the Red Hat OpenShiftConsole’s Developer’s Perspective provides a visual representation of the application structure. It helps developers to clearly identify one resource type from the other, as well as understand the overall communication dynamics within the application. 

Launched with the 4.2 release of OpenShift, topology view has already earned a spotlight in the cloud-native application development arena. The constant feedback cycles and regular follow-ups on the ongoing trends in the developer community have helped in shaping a great experience in the upcoming release. This blog focuses on a few features in the topology view added for OpenShift 4.3.

1. Toggle between the list view and the graph view

In response to the user community, the topology view now comes with a toggle button to quickly switch between the list view and the graph view for a given project. While the graph view comes in very handy in use cases that require cognizance of the role played by individual components in the application architecture, list views could be helpful for more data-focused and investigative tasks. Introduction of this toggle would enable seamless navigation through views irrespective of the contrast in use-cases.

2. Menu for contextual actions

The topology view has a list of components available as a part of the graph. There are various kinds of resource types, connectors, groupings, individual items such as event sources, each one of which supports a different set of action in context. Users could access this exclusive menu for each of the listed items by performing a right-click over them, which further opens a dropdown list with all the available actions. Users could click anywhere outside the menu to make it disappear from the view.

3. Creating a binding between resources

The topology view allows for creating a connection between any given pair of resources by simply dragging a handle from the origin nodes and dropping it over a target node. It reduces the cognitive load on the developer by doing a smart assessment of whether an operator-managed backing service is available for creating the intended binding. In the absence of an operator managed backing service, an annotation-based connection is created. 

4. Real-time visualization of pod transition

The topology view in 4.3 provides convenient and upfront access to scale up/down and increase/decrease your pod count via the side panel. Similarly, users could also start rollout or recreate pods for a given node from the contextual menu(accessed through a right-click or from the actions button on the side panel). Upon performing the associated interaction from the side panel to accomplish any of the mentioned actions, users would get to see a real-time visualization of the transitions that the pods go through.

5. Deleting an applications

Topology view now supports deleting an application from the graph view. By invoking the contextual menu the given application grouping, either by performing a right-click or through the side panel, users could access the delete action. Upon confirming the action, the application group—comprised of components with the associated label, as defined by the Kubernetes-recommended labels—are deleted.

6.  Visualization of Event Sources sink 

The topology view shows elements from Knative Eventing, namely event sources, which help give a developer quick insight into which event sources will trigger their application by looking at it visually.

7. Viewing Knative Services and associated revisions

Users are now enabled to view Knative Service and the associated Revisions/Deployments in the topology view. The revisions in a service which are in the active traffic block would be displayed as a group on the topology view, along with the information on their traffic consumption.

With the continuous evolution of Kubernetes related technology and the introduction of new practices and integrations, OpenShift is constantly updated to reflect the progression. 

Learn More

Interested in learning more about application development with OpenShift? Here are some resources which may be helpful:

• Red Hat resources on application development on OpenShift: developers.redhat.com/openshift

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• Join our OpenShift Developer Experience Google Group, participate in discussions or attend our Office Hours Feedback session
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