Purpose of adding Openshift intrastructure nodes

Question

I can see often Openshift architectures including "Infrastructure Nodes" in the picture. What is the difference between these nodes and the masters ? I understand that Infrastructure Nodes typically host non-user pods like ha-proxy but do we need it just for that ? Put it simply, can't the ha-proxy stuff be installed just on the master nodes ? Thanks

Answer 1

The purpose of the Masters is to provide the API and Controllers services and, if possible, make them non-schedulable. Those masters will take care of:

• Handling requests from clients (Nodes, Users, Admins and other infrastructure systems deployed on Openshift)
• Run the Scheduler and Replication Controller
• Provide Client tools (oc and oadm)
• etcd Datastore (if not installed separately in different servers)

Then, all your non-user pods like ha-proxy router, as you say, and docker-registry, registry-console, logging-ops, metrics or whatever you consider infrastructure services (gitlab, nexus and so forth) can be deployed on your infra-nodes.

Answer 2

In addition to @ruben-romero 's answer there is also a difference in subscription and licensing cost of openshift infrastructure nodes.

vCPU consumption of infra nodes does not count towards your usual vCPU count which is used to calculate subscription costs.