Introduction
IBM Instana Observability provides several monitoring capabilities for IBM Business Automation Workflow (BAW) and IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation (CP4BA), see e.g. IBM Instana Observability - Business processes. This guide explains how to configure the task-index-enabled property in CP4BA to enable additional Instana monitoring options. The process involves three main steps:
Step 1: Verify the Custom Resource Configuration
First, identify the custom resource (CR) for the workflow instance you want to modify. Run:
oc get ICP4ACluster
Example output:
icp4badeploy
Edit the CR (in our case we have only one instance of name icp4badeploy):
oc edit ICP4ACluster icp4badeploy
In the editor, locate the property lombardi_custom_xml_secret_name.
If the value is empty or missing, you will need to create a new secret and add this property.
If it already has a value, a custom configuration exists, and you will need to merge your changes into the existing secret.
Step 2: Secret management
2.1 Create or Update the Secret
a) Log in to the OpenShift console. You can retrieve the console URL with:
oc whoami --show-console
b) Navigate to Secrets
Go to Workloads → Secrets in the OpenShift console.
Filter for the secret you observed earlier (in our case we have a secret with name lombardi-custom-secret).
c) Create or Update the Secret
If no secret exists yet, create a new key/value one.
If a secret already exists, edit it and merge the configuration below with the existing content.
Under Actions → Edit Secret, add the following XML:
<properties><server merge="mergeChildren">
<search-index merge="mergeChildren">
<task-index-enabled merge="replace">true</task-index-enabled>
</search-index>
</server></properties>
The updated secret should look similar to the screenshot provided. This completes the secret creation step.
2.2 Add the Secret to baw_configuration
If the secret was not previously referenced, update the ICP4ACluster custom resource:
oc edit ICP4ACluster
Search for lombardi_custom_xml_secret_name and set its value to the name of your secret.
2.3 Wait for Operator Reconciliation
After adding the secret to baw_configuration, the CP4BA operator will apply the changes.
This may take up to 30 minutes, depending on your environment.
Step 3: Verify task-index-enabled
To confirm the setting:
Identify the BAW server pod:
oc get pods | grep baw (or grep wfps if using Workflow Process Service)
Connect e.g. to the baw-server-0 pod:
oc rsh <pod-name>
Check the file TeamWorksConfiguration.running.xml (for our case the following path applied):
/opt/ibm/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer/TeamWorksConfiguration.running.xml
Ensure at least one entry for task-index-enabled is set to true. The order matters in this context though.
Note: Changes may take time to appear (up to ~30 minutes).
If everything looks correct, your configuration is complete and Instana monitoring features should now work as expected.