What is HyperShift?

HyperShift is an OpenShift middleware that decouples the control plane from the data plane (worker nodes), allowing control planes to run as workloads on a central management cluster.

The Problem it Solves

In standalone OpenShift, every cluster runs its own control plane (etcd, kube-apiserver, controllers) on dedicated master nodes. This creates:

• Resource overhead: 3+ master nodes per cluster just for the control plane
• Provisioning time: 30-45 minutes including bootstrap
• Distributed operations: each control plane is independently operated

How HyperShift Solves It

Standalone OpenShift — each cluster embeds its own control plane on dedicated master nodes:

graph LR
    subgraph "Standalone Cluster 1"
        M1[Control Plane<br/>Masters x3]
        W1[Workers 1..N]
        M1 --> W1
    end

    subgraph "Standalone Cluster 2"
        M2[Control Plane<br/>Masters x3]
        W2[Workers 1..N]
        M2 --> W2
    end

    subgraph "Standalone Cluster 3"
        M3[Control Plane<br/>Masters x3]
        W3[Workers 1..N]
        M3 --> W3
    end

Each standalone cluster is self-contained — it embeds its own control plane on dedicated master nodes. There is no shared management layer; every cluster independently operates its own etcd, API server, and controllers.

HyperShift Model — a single management cluster hosts all control planes as pods:

graph LR
    subgraph "Management Cluster"
        D[Management Cluster]
        D --> E[HCP 1 - Pods]
        D --> F[HCP 2 - Pods]
        D --> G[HCP 3 - Pods]
    end

    E -.-> H[Workers 1..N]
    F -.-> I[Workers 1..N]
    G -.-> J[Workers 1..N]