Red Hat updated its OpenShift Online platform with a focus on streamlining application provisioning and deployment in a multitenant cloud environment.

Basics on the updates include greater support for developers to build cloud-native applications on a cloud-based container platform. These would be developers looking to bypass provisioning, management, and scaling oversight.

Details on the updates include a “one-click and Git-push” deployment designed for users looking for easier deployments instead of greater control over the deployment lifecycle. The system also now offers automatic scaling; a source-to-image (S2I) framework for building reproducible container images; access to integrated development environments (IDEs) like Eclipse, Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio, and Titanium Studio; and the Red Hat OpenShift Application Services middleware platform to build applications, integrate with other systems, orchestrate rules and process, and support deployment across hybrid environments.

The OpenShift Online platform is offered in a free “starter” version that includes 1 GB of memory and 1 GB of storage. A “pro” version is also available and includes additional memory or storage priced at $25 per month per gigabyte and access to a basic support feature.

Red Hat said OpenShift Online has hosted more than 3 million applications built since its launch in 2011. The platform is primarily built on Docker containers and orchestrated using Kubernetes container cluster management.

Red Hat in April updated the platform with changes targeted at support for an enterprise Kubernetes cluster, expanded application support, and security and networking enhancements.

Red Hat last month announced it had deepened OpenShift native integration into Amazon Web Services (AWS). The on-premise integration plans include the ability to build and extend container-based enterprise applications using AWS compute, database, analytics, machine learning, networking, and mobile application services.

Analysts have highlighted potential opportunities from the OpenShift platform.

IDC last year released a report projecting cost and operational savings tied to the use of OpenShift. They included an average annual benefit of $1.29 million per 100 application development team members per year over five years; 66 percent faster application delivery times; and a 531 percent average return on investment over five years.

BMO Capital Market recently noted an OpenShift presentation had “a waiting line of attendees with folks getting turned away.”

Red Hat in its latest quarterly results conference call said the OpenShift platform was included in five of its 44 latest deals valued at more than $1 million. During the call, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst explained OpenShift was seeing attention from the financial services market and retail space.

Cowen and Company said Red Hat doubled its OpenShift customer base year-over-year, from around 150 customers in 2016, to 300 customers on board this year. The firm said roughly 34% of that base was from the financial services sector.

Looking ahead, Whitehurst said the service is likely to be the company’s biggest revenue driver over the next three years.

“OpenShift drives the rest of the portfolio in a very meaningful way,” Whitehurst said. “Once people are using OpenShift [it’s] much easier to consume our middleware services. And we’ve seen really good traction with middleware services after people have adopted OpenShift.”

Cowen and Company did sound a tone of caution on its support for Red Hat, citing “the onslaught of new open source minimalist Linux distributions” hitting the market could impact its enterprise aspirations.

“The breadth of the competition reinforces that ‘regular’ [Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server] is not the ideal [operating system] for large-scale container deployments, and thus there is an opportunity for rival solutions to establish footholds, including CoreOS and [VMware’s] Project Photon,” the financial firm said.