1. OpenShift / Kubernetes

For this guide I'll use Red Hat OpenShift Local, which lets you run an OpenShift cluster on your own machine. To get it, head to Red Hat OpenShift Local on Red Hat Developer and click Install OpenShift on your laptop. You'll be given a link to download the installer — make sure you choose the correct architecture for your MacBook.

Run crc setup to prepare your host operating system for the OpenShift Local virtual machine. Then start your cluster with crc start to create a minimal OpenShift 4 cluster on your computer.

crc setup
crc start

A couple of adjustments to the disk and memory are needed for the operator to run. Apply them with:

 oc login -u kubeadmin  https://api.crc.testing:6443crc config set disk-size 50
crc config set memory 14000

If you don't have the oc command, it can be downloaded from the OpenShift command-line tools page (or from the Command line tools link in your OpenShift web console). Once the cluster is up, open the OpenShift UI using the URL https://console-openshift-console.apps-crc.testing.

2a. Prepare the cluster

Create a new project for the operator and operands, and point the CLI at the new namespace:

oc new-project ace

Next, create an image pull secret in that namespace. It authenticates to the IBM Entitled Registry where the images are stored, so the Operator images can be pulled.

First, obtain an entitlement key to pull App Connect images:

1. Log in to the IBM Container software library with the IBMid associated with your entitled software.
2. Click Get entitlement key (or Add new key), then Copy. If you already have a key, just click Copy.
3. Save the entitlement key for the next step.

Then create the pull secret. Name it ibm-entitlement-key, use cp as the username, your entitlement key as the password, and cp.icr.io as the Docker server:

kubectl create secret docker-registry ibm-entitlement-key \
  --docker-server="cp.icr.io" \
  --docker-username=cp \
  --docker-password="myEntitlementKey"

2b. Installing the Helm chart

Add the IBM Helm chart repository to your local repository list:

helm repo add ibm-helm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IBM/charts/master/repo/ibm-helm

Once it completes you can search the charts and run helm repo update to refresh chart information. Now install the Operator, using --set flags to override defaults in values.yaml:

helm install ibm-appconnect ibm-helm/ibm-appconnect-operator \
  -n ace \
  --set namespace="ace" \
  --set operator.installMode="OwnNamespace" \
  --set operator.forceAmd64="true"

Verify the deployment:

helm ls

You should see output similar to:

NAME             NAMESPACE   REVISION   STATUS     CHART                            APP VERSION
ibm-appconnect   ace-helm    1          deployed   ibm-appconnect-operator-13.3.0   13.3.0

kubectl get pods

You should see output similar to:

NAME                              READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
ibm-appconnect-5ff87d696b-bgvxg   1/1     Running   0          2m31s

3. Deploy the ACE Dashboard

First, create a secret holding the Agent credentials. Save the following to a file, then apply it with oc apply -f <file>.

kind: Secret
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: ace-agents-configuration
stringData:
  WATSONX_API_KEY: <WatsonX API Key>
  WATSONX_HOST_URL: https://us-south.ml.cloud.ibm.com
  WATSONX_PROJECT_ID: <WatsonX Project ID>
type: Opaque

Now create a YAML file for the Dashboard and deploy it:

apiVersion: appconnect.ibm.com/v1beta1
kind: Dashboard
metadata:
  name: dashboard
spec:
  version: '13.0'
  license:
    accept: true
    license: L-CGSU-AUCFFB
    use: AppConnectEnterpriseNonProductionFREE
  storage:
    type: ephemeral
    size: 1Gi
  replicas: 1
  authentication:
    integrationKeycloak:
      enabled: false
  authorization:
    integrationKeycloak:
      enabled: false
  api:
    enabled: true

Check whether the Dashboard is ready:

oc get Dashboard

Once it reports a Ready state, open the Dashboard at https://dashboard-ui-ace.apps-crc.testing.

For more on remote administration, refer to the App Connect documentation.

NOTE: Using the Remote Administration capability can be tricky due to the networking on Openshift Local. The url used in the cluster won't work from external endpoints.