IBM typically releases a new update to IBM Cloud Pak for Integration every 6 months. The most recent release has been announced on May 14th 2024, and will be available June 21st 2024.
While there are some significant new technical enhancements, which I will cover below, there are some other aspects of the release that will also interest customers, particularly those with existing deployments. One is the new version naming. This release marks a move away from date-based versioning to a ‘Version.Release.Modification’ (VRM, or VRMF) style versioning. Hence being 16.1.0 instead of 2024.2.1. It is expected that future releases will follow this VRM style naming. There is no special significance in this change. It is simply a naming style change.
The second key aspect that’s not strictly a technical enhancement is that this release is a new Long-Term Support release. Cloud Pak for Integration deliveries are supported for 2 years, but in the past releases were either designated as Continuous Delivery (CD) releases or Long Term Support (LTS) releases. CD releases would get fixes until the next CD release was available, when fixes would be available for the latest release instead. With LTS releases support with fixes would be available for 2 years. This pattern continues with the latest release, but the version naming will also help to identify the LTS and CD releases. The LTS release will be denoted by an update to the Version or Release number, but if the change is a Modification level or Fix level then it is a CD release. Note that a new LTS release also acts as a new CD release, in terms of acting to replace the old CD release.
A further enhancement is around support for Red Hat OpenShift releases. The last few releases of Cloud Pak for Integration have supported deployment onto multiple even numbered OpenShift releases (i.e. 4.12 and 4.14). This new release of Cloud Pak for Integration will be supported for deployment on both even-numbered and odd-numbered releases from 4.14 onwards.
Now there are some exciting and very useful technical enhancements as well.
A new Integration Assistant using conversational AI. This feature, in preview, will currently offer to assist in a number of tasks by asking questions to create outcomes, rather than requiring the use to fill in a webform. As a preview, IBM retains the right to update or remove this feature to reflect changes in the underlying technology or capabilities.
An additional enhancement builds on new capabilities added in the previous release for Backup and Restore. The previous release included consistent backup and restore for Custom Resources using Red Hat OpenShift APIs for Data Protection (OADP) for App Connect, Event Streams, Event Endpoint Management and Automation Assets. This release extends this to include IBM MQ and MQ Advanced, API Connect and DataPower Virtual Gateway.
Cloud Pak for Integration has an asset repository, used to store integration template and assets for reuse. In the latest release an administrator can mark assets as ‘Approved’. This would likely be done for assets defined with certain criteria that meet defined business needs, such as the number of replicas, the type of storage or the use of Transport Layer Security. The business can create these approved integration templates in order to encourage the adoption of their preferred characteristics.
In conjunction with a new feature in Red Hat OpenShift, it will also be possible for Cloud Pak for Integration to enforce this use of approved assets. The new OpenShift feature is currently only available in preview, where the OpenShift cluster would need to be configured to enable this preview feature until it becomes formally part of the OpenShift platform release.
Declarative deployment helps to simplify and speed deployment of integrations without the user being required to have detailed knowledge of deployment details. Previous releases of Cloud Pak for Integration added declarative deployment for APIs and API Products. This latest release adds declarative deployment of messaging queues for loose coupling of integration instances. Cloud Pak for Integration can therefore deploy MQ queues using known good practices. Queues, channels and users are visible and editable directly in the Integration Assembly canvas.
z/OS container extensions (zCX) enable customers who have their critical applications and data on z/OS to exploit the power and agility of container workload deployed in Red Hat OpenShift. The latest release of Cloud Pak for Integration supports deployment onto Red Hat OpenShift running in zCX. Now OpenShift, applications and integrations can be deployed on z/OS and inherit z/OS qualities of service. Customers can take advantage of MQ and MQ Advanced, App Connect, Event Streams, Event Endpoint Management, Aspera High Speed Transfer Server and API Connect Portal and Manager deploying in zCX, improving resiliency and latency.
As with previous releases of Cloud Pak for Integration, the capabilities of the bundled integration offerings also are enhanced in this release and are available both as components in Cloud Pak for Integration and also as standalone deployments of the integration products. Therefore Cloud Pak for Integration continues to provide access to IBM MQ and MQ Advanced, IBM App Connect, IBM API Connect, IBM DataPower, IBM Event Streams and Event Endpoint Management, and also IBM Aspera High Speed Transfer Server.
A final note for customers looking to migrate from the previous Long Term Support release – Cloud Pak for Integration 2022.2.1, is that as previously announced, Operations Dashboard is no longer included in Cloud Pak for Integration. While customers can select their preferred monitoring and tracing product, Cloud Pak for Integration is pre-configured for IBM Instana in this role and so this would be the simplest to configure and deploy. Customers buying any new entitlement to Cloud Pak for Integration since 9th December 2022 can request 6 months of Instana Observability Self-Hosted at no charge for monitoring integrations.
A 60-day trial entitlement of Cloud Pak for Integration is available at this link.