“CP4BA Deployment Methodologies – IBM Cloud & TechZone”
IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation (CP4BA)
Part-1
AUTHOR
Brahm Singh, IBM Automation Architect.
Ecosystem Engineering – SI Lab (ISL Ahmedabad)
Email – brahm.singh@ibm.com
ABSTRACT
IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation deployment methodology describes how to deploy the CP4BA components like Business Automation, Decision Services, etc., on IBM OpenShift platform as well as other cloud platforms like AWS, and Azure. CP4BA deployment provides a better and smooth platform where DevOps or even Dev team can deploy their capabilities with help of automation techniques.
In CP4BA deployment, we have a hybrid cloud deployment feature which makes it more powerful rather than other competitors. We leverage OpenShift Cloud platform (PaaS) to perform the deployment task for CP4BA.
INTENDED AUDIENCE
This blog is intended for Developers and Architects who deal ( or will deal) with any of the following situations:
- Developers planning to move to a career in IT Architecture
- Architects involved with defining solution architecture
- Professionals involved in Pre-sales and Solution proposals
INTRODUCTION
IBM CP4BA helps to automate business operations with an integrated platform of automation capabilities. The platform relies on Kubernetes, which is open-source application container orchestration software that makes it easier to configure, deploy, and manage containerized applications. It is designed to help all types of projects small and large, improve employee productivity, and deliver better end-to-end customer journeys while you reduce the burden of governing your content and processes. It can increase your ability to scale and do more work faster and better.
Image Credits: IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation
Cloud Pak for Business Automation (CP4BA) and its features and capabilities help to improve business growth and provide rapid automation.
- Resolve client issues and provide a single platform where end-to-end solutions
- Provide solutions to reduce repetitive tasks and human error-free process
- CP4BA core capabilities like Document Processing, Workflow, Decision Management, and Content Services helps the client to reduce manual process and also provide a better solution in terms of more accurate document processing, sequential activities, case management, and improvement and assist to make better decision making
- CP4BA accelerators help improve business growth and accelerate the speed like Operational AI to provide dashboard capability, Process Mining optimizes the current process based on events logs and assists in the improvement of scope and make better resource utilization.
DEPLOYMENT METHODOLOGIES
We can deploy CP4BA components using the following methodologies for IBM Cloud and TechZone.
(Deprecated)
In all deployment methodologies, we have required a common pre-requisite checklist for CP4BA deployment
- At least one cloud Infrastructure like IBM Cloud, IBM TechZone, and other clouds.
- Basic understanding of container & containerization, docker, terraform CI/CD tools, YAML, etc.
- Cloud user account and Entitlement key of cloud account.
- Basic understanding of RedHat OpenShift platform.
- GitHub Account to access the CP4BA deployment-related content.
- Tools required like text editor Visual Studio Code, Docker Desktop, IBM Cloud CLI, and GitHub Desktop (Optional).
- Request reserve an environment in IBM TechZone with the latest OpenShift version like 4.10 and above.
- OpenShift Cluster size depends on business needs for starter or production environment deployment of CP4BA required different sizes of a cluster, storage, worker nodes, etc.
- Manual Deployment Process
In the manual deployment method, we need to follow certain steps and configurations to perform the CP4BA deployment in IBM OpenShift platform.
First of all, we need to make sure common pre-requisite checklist before starting the deployment of CP4BA. Then perform bellow steps
- Once we get the confirmation of OpenShift environment is ready then go to OpenShift Admin console as an Administrator role.
- Create a new project i.e. cp4ba.
- We Need to create pre-requisite secretes i.e., admin.registrykey and ibm-entitlement-key inside the cp4ba project.
- Steps how to create secrets
- Click the Projects option from the left menu option as shown below figure.
Image Credits: IBM RedHat OpenShift Admin Console
- Go to the inventory section from overview tab section of cp4ba project and click on Secretes Click to Create Select Image pull secret option and entered the required fields like
Image Credits: IBM RedHat OpenShift Image Pull Secret Creation Form
For admin.registrykey Secret
Secret Name - admin.registrykey,
Registry server address – cp.icr.io,
Username – cp
Password – IBM Entitlement Key
Email – Current User Email Id
For ibm-entitlement-key Secret
Secret Name - admin.registrykey,
Registry server address – cp.icr.io,
Username – cp
Password – IBM Entitlement Key
Email – Current User Email Id
- We need to create a service account using IBM CLI.
- Click on the main menu top right side user name and select the option Copy login command as shown below figure, and generate a dynamic token to access the environment via the command line or terminal from the local system.
Image Credits: Login token generation
- Open a terminal (Mac System) or command line (Windows), paste the access token command, and run. Make sure OpenShift CLI command is already installed on your local system otherwise follow the below link
https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/4.8/cli_reference/openshift_cli/getting-started-cli.html
- Create the ibm-cp4ba-anyuid service account (SA) in a service-account-for-starter.yaml file.
Image Credits: Service Account for CP4BA
- Apply the service account to the target namespace using the terminal or command line. Where the ${NAMESPACE} is the namespace where you want to install the deployment.
Image Credits: Service Account creation command for CP4BA
- Bind the security context constraints (SCC) to control the actions the SA can take and what it can access.
Image Credits: Service Account role and policy apply command
- After successful secrets and service account creation then need to install the catalog for CP4BA in OperatorHub.
- Go to support page and select the current release like 22.0.2 as shown below figure.
(Please skip this step if Operator Catalog is already there in Operator Hub)
Image Credits: IBM Support Page for CP4BA
- Click to interim fix the latest version like IF001 and inside this need to copy all catalogs as shown below figure.
(Please skip this step if Operator Catalog is already there in Operator Hub)
Image Credits: IBM Catalog for CP4BA
- Go Back to IBM OpenShift admin console and click on + icon from the menu option as shown below figure and paste the copied IBM catalog for CP4BA and click on to create button to install the CP4BA catalog. (Please skip this step if Operator Catalog is already there in Operator Hub)
Image Credits: IBM import catalog for CP4BA
- After the successful catalog installation, we can see it in OperatorHub and select the Business Automation option from the All Items menu option then click on IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation(CP4BA) multi-pattern operator catalog as shown below figure.