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COMPARISON

Expanso and OpenShift: Enterprise Orchestration vs. Compute Over Data

OpenShift provides a comprehensive enterprise Kubernetes platform for managing containerized applications within defined infrastructure, while Expanso brings computation to distributed data-enabling processing where data lives across edge, cloud, and on-premises environments.

Key Differences

Core Philosophy

OpenShift
Enterprise-grade Kubernetes platform built around centralized cluster management. Extends Kubernetes with enhanced security (SELinux, RBAC), developer tools (Source-to-Image builds), and Operator Framework for application lifecycle management. Assumes your data can be brought to the cluster for processing.
Expanso
Built around 'Compute Over Data'-bringing computation to wherever your data already exists. Instead of moving sensitive healthcare records, financial data, or proprietary datasets to a central cluster, Expanso runs jobs where the data lives-respecting data sovereignty, security policies, and compliance requirements.

Enterprise Features & Developer Experience

OpenShift
Comprehensive enterprise platform with integrated CI/CD (Pipelines, GitOps), developer console, built-in registry, service mesh (Istio), and monitoring (Prometheus). Provides opinionated workflows that accelerate application development within the platform's boundaries.
Expanso
Focused on data-intensive compute workloads rather than application lifecycle management. Integrates with your existing CI/CD and development tools. Brings enterprise-grade orchestration to distributed data processing-whether analyzing medical imaging across hospital networks or processing financial transactions at regional data centers.

Data Gravity & Compliance

OpenShift
Centralized cluster model requires data movement to the compute environment. While OpenShift supports multi-cluster deployments, each cluster typically aggregates data for processing. This can conflict with data residency requirements (GDPR, HIPAA) and creates compliance challenges.
Expanso
Addresses data gravity head-on. When your medical imaging data must stay in specific countries, when financial records can't leave certain networks, or when IoT sensor data is too large to transfer-Expanso processes it in place. Maintains compliance by never requiring data to leave its authorized location.

Infrastructure Footprint

OpenShift
Requires substantial infrastructure for the control plane (etcd, API servers, schedulers) and worker nodes. Minimum viable cluster demands significant resources. Each additional cluster multiplies this overhead-challenging for distributed edge deployments or resource-constrained environments.
Expanso
Lightweight by design. No need to deploy full clusters everywhere. Can run on existing infrastructure-from powerful edge servers to modest compute nodes. Single control plane can orchestrate jobs across thousands of distributed locations without requiring each site to run a full cluster.

Multi-Cluster & Edge Operations

OpenShift
Advanced Container Platform (ACP) and Multi-Cluster Engine support deploying applications across multiple clusters. However, each cluster requires connectivity to central management and substantial local resources. Edge deployments often require specialized configurations and additional tooling.
Expanso
Designed from the ground up for distributed, multi-site operations. Jobs execute on edge devices, factory floors, retail locations, or mobile platforms-even with intermittent connectivity. No requirement for persistent network connections to central control. Data processed locally, results returned when possible.

At a Glance

FeatureOpenShiftExpanso
Enterprise Kubernetes Platform Kubernetes-compatible
Integrated CI/CD & Developer Tools Integrates with existing
Data Locality Priority
Compute Over Data
Edge Computing (Disconnected) Requires connectivity
Data Sovereignty Compliance Requires data movement
Lightweight Deployment Full cluster required
Multi-Site Data Processing Multi-cluster overhead

Collaboration, not Competition

OpenShift and Expanso address different enterprise challenges and work together naturally. Use OpenShift to manage your core containerized applications, microservices, and development workflows in your data centers and primary cloud environments. Then use Expanso to run data-intensive jobs across your distributed organization-processing patient records at each hospital, analyzing transactions at regional financial centers, or running ML inference on factory floor equipment.

OpenShift excels at centralized application management. Expanso excels when data can't or shouldn't move. The question is: Does your data need to come to the compute, or should compute go to the data?

Ready to process data where it lives?

Maintain compliance, reduce costs, and accelerate insights by bringing compute to your distributed enterprise data with Expanso.

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