What is CRI-O?

CRI-O is an open source, community-driven container engine. Its primary goal is to replace the Docker service as the container engine for Kubernetes implementations, such as OpenShift Container Platform.

The CRI-O container engine provides a stable, more secure, and performant platform for running Open Container Initiative (OCI) compatible runtimes. You can use the CRI-O container engine to launch containers and pods by engaging OCI-compliant runtimes like runc, the default OCI runtime, or Kata Containers. CRI-O’s purpose is to be the container engine that implements the Kubernetes Container Runtime Interface (CRI) for OpenShift Container Platform and Kubernetes, replacing the Docker service.

CRI-O is not supported as a stand-alone container engine. You must use CRI-O as a container engine for a Kubernetes installation, such as OpenShift Container Platform. To run containers without Kubernetes or OpenShift Container Platform, use podman.

To set up a CRI-O container engine to use with an OpenShift Container Platform cluster, you can:

  • Install CRI-O along with a new OpenShift Container Platform cluster or

  • Add a node to an existing cluster and identify CRI-O as the container engine for that node. Both CRI-O and Docker nodes can exist on the same cluster.

Why Monitor CRI-O?

In recent times, Kubernetes is widely used in mission-critical environments - eg.,microservices, DevOps, serverless computing, and multi-cloud environments. Though Docker and CRI-O can be used to run containers from Kubernetes/OpenShift Container Platform cluster, CRI-O Container Engine holds an edge over Docker since it is an open source platform and is comparatively lightweight. The containers and the applications in the containers launched using CRI-O is much faster and robust in nature. As continuous access to the containers/applications is the key in modern IT environments, even the smallest slip in the performance of the CRI-O Container Engine would result in huge losses. To ensure 24x7 availability of the CRI-O Container Engine and high performance rate, administrators need to closely monitor the performance and status of the CRI-O Container Engine and its associated components, promptly detect abnormalities, and fix them before end-users notice. eG Enterprise offers a dedicated CRIO monitoring model for detecting and fixing such abnormalities at the earliest.