The Kubernetes concept of a pod, which is one or more containers deployed on one host and the smallest COMPUTE unit that can be designed, deployed, and managed, is used by OpenShift Online.

Pods are the container's rough equivalent of a machine instance (physical or VIRTUAL). Containers within pods can share their LOCAL storage and networking because each pod has its internal IP address and so owns its own port space.

Pods have a life cycle in which they are defined, assigned to a node, and then operate until their container(s) exit or they are removed for some other reason. Pods MAY be removed after leaving or preserved to allow access to their containers' logs, depending on the policy and exit code.

Changes to a pod specification can't be done while it's running in OpenShift Online because it's immutable. Changes are implemented in OpenShift Online by terminating an existing pod and re-creating it with the new configuration, base IMAGE(s), or both. Pods are also viewed as disposable, and their condition is not preserved when they are regenerated. As a result, rather than being managed directly by users, pods should normally be managed by higher-level controllers.