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Originally published by Santhosh Muniswami 1 September 12, 2020 as developerWorks recipe.

Overview

This tutorial walks you through the steps to deploy IBM Edge Application Manager V4.1 on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform V4.4 from IBM Cloud Pak System V2.3.3.0. It emphasizes on the usage of inbuild accelerators.

Introduction

IBM Edge Application Manager is an Edge environment that helps you to create, deploy, run, secure, monitor, maintain, and scale business logic and analytics! It can run anywhere and manage workloads on virtually any edge endpoint, including servers, gateways, and devices. Using IBM Cloud Pak System accelerators, you can enable various products on IBM Cloud Pak System platform.

This tutorial walks you through the steps to deploy IBM Edge Application Manager V4.1 on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform V4.4 from IBM Cloud Pak System V2.3.3.0. It emphasizes on the usage of inbuild accelerators.

Ensure that you have completed the prerequisites before you start with this tutorial. For more information, see [OpenShift Container Platform accelerator V4.4].

Assumptions are that the IBM Cloud Pak System is at V2.3.3.0 firmware and you are entitled for OpenShift Container Platform accelerator V4.4 and IBM Edge Application Manager accelerator V4.1.0.0

IBM Cloud Pak System comes with built-in support for automated deployment of IBM Edge Application Manager. It makes it easier to deploy the edge computing capabilities quickly and deliver applications to market with speed.

Before you deploy your first IBM Edge Application Manager cluster on IBM Cloud Pak System, the following prerequisites must be in place:

• IBM Cloud Pak System V2.3.3.0 or higher Intel based IBM Cloud Pak System models W2500, W3500, and W3550 are supported. There is currently no support for the Power based IBM Cloud Pak System model W3700.
• OpenShift Container Platform Accelerator V4.4 IBM Edge Application Manager accelerator depends on OpenShift Container Platform accelerator for deploying OpenShift Container Platform cluster in IBM Cloud Pak System. For detailed steps, see [OpenShift Container Platform accelerator V4.4 recipe].
• IBM Edge Application Manager Platform on OpenShift Container Platform accelerator V4.1 IBM Edge Application Manager Platform on OpenShift Container Platform accelerator V4.1 deploys IBM Edge Application Manager on IBM Cloud Pak System V2.3.3.0. Get this accelerator from [IBM Fix Central]
• Active subscription with Red Hat for the OpenShift Container Platform
  Unlike the Red Hat subscription for RHEL and RHSS, the OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) subscription is not included with IBM Cloud Pak System. For detailed steps, see [OpenShift Container Platform accelerator V4.4 recipe].
• License for IBM Edge Application Manager IBM Edge Application Manager license is not included with IBM Cloud Pak System. Procure it from https://www.ibm.com/account/us-en/.
• BYOL for IBM Edge Application Manager After you procure the license for IBM Edge Application Manager 4.1, download BYOL package for IBM Edge Application Manager from IBM Fix Central.
• Enough compute, memory, and storage resources on IBM Cloud Pak System Requirement for CPUs, RAM, and disk space for an instance of IBM Edge Application Manager varies with business requirement and capabilities that instance is going to host. However, at minimum a single IBM Edge Application Manager cluster requires at least 68 virtual CPUs, 224 GB of RAM, and 1560 GB of storage.

Note: IBM Cloud Pak System comes with Red Hat subscriptions for RHEL and RHSS. The IBM Knowledge Center covers these prerequisites.

Step-by-step

• Load and verify required artefacts on IBM Cloud Pak System V2.3.3.0

By default, IBM Cloud Pak System V2.3.3.0 loads most of the required content on the system. The following list provides everything that you need to have in IBM Cloud Pak System before you start:

As a next step, you must import and/or verify BYOL binaries and accelerators.

• Importing and verifying BYOL binaries

The “BYOL binaries for IBM Edge Application Manager V4.1 on IBM Cloud Pak System Images” are not installed by default. To confirm, do the following steps:

1. 1. Log in to the IBM Cloud Pak System.
   2. Go to System > Storehouse Browser.
   3. Verify whether you see any entries in /admin/files/Edge folder as shown in Figure 1. If the entries are not available, then it indicates that the binaries are not loaded.

Figure 1.BYOL binaries for IBM Edge Application Manager V4.1 on IBM Cloud Pak System Images have not been loaded

For the process to load the IBM Edge Application Manager accelerator V4.1 BYOL binaries, see IBM Cloud Pak System Knowledge Center.

Figure 2.BYOL binaries for IBM Edge Application Manager V4.1 on IBM Cloud Pak System have been loaded

Confirm that the files are now visible from the IBM Cloud Pak System. Go to System > Storehouse browser and confirm that you see what is shown in Figure 2.

• Importing and verifying accelerators

From the IBM Cloud Pak System Catalog, you can check whether the required accelerators are available or not. Go to Catalog > Pattern Types and filter for the name of the accelerator. For example, “Foundation”. Make sure that the correct version of the accelerator is present in the catalog and that the status is “Available” as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Foundation 2.1.17.0 accelerator is loaded in the catalog

Generally, the Foundation V2.1.17.0 accelerator is present in the IBM Cloud Pak System V2.3.3.0 system as shown in Figure 3. You must load the other components as per the sequence specified in this table.

It is recommended to load accelerators by using the IBM Cloud Pak System Command Line Interface (CLI). For more information about IBM Cloud Pak System Command Line Interface, see IBM Cloud Pak System Command Line Interface (CLI). Accelerators can also be loaded from the IBM Cloud Pak System Console. After the accelerator is loaded, the IBM Edge Application Manager V4.1 accelerator is available in the catalog with the “Available” status as shown in Figure 3.

Go to Patterns > Virtual System Patterns and look for the accelerator “IBM Edge Application Manager on OCP4 – HA V4.1” as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. IBM Edge Application Manager on OCP – HA accelerator

• PrimaryHelper and SecondaryHelper

There are two Helper nodes that run RHEL V7.7. They support the OpenShift Cluster deployed on virtual machines that run Red Hat Core OS. The Helper node provide services for the OpenShift Cluster as documented here in the OpenShift Container Platform V4 documentation: Helper Git Repository and Helper Blog. IBM implements two Helper virtual machines and uses a floating IP address to provide high availability for these services.

• Bootstrap

There is one Bootstrap node that is used to install the OpenShift Container Platform control plane on the Master nodes. It is only used during installation of OpenShift Container Platform.

• Master

There are three Master nodes deployed on virtual machines that run the Red Hat Core OS. OpenShift Container Platform V4 requires three Master nodes, ensuring high availability and quorum of essential Kubernetes services like etcd.

• Worker

By default, there are three Worker nodes deployed on virtual machines that run the Red Hat Core OS. This ensures high availability of containers that run on these Worker nodes. Depending on your IBM Edge Application Manager cluster needs, you can opt for a higher number of Worker nodes or Worker nodes with more CPU and memory. Note that it is possible to add more CPU and memory to Worker nodes after deployment (vertical scaling). It is also possible to add additional Worker nodes to your cluster after deployment (horizontal scaling). Horizontal scaling of clusters is available for V2.3.3.0.

As you can see in the following table, by default, a single IBM Edge Application Manager cluster requires 68 virtual CPUs, 224 GB of RAM, and 1560 GB of storage. Depending on the number and sizing of the worker nodes, the amount of resources can be higher.

With all the previous steps completed, you are now ready to deploy your first IBM Edge Application Manager V4.1 cluster.

• • Access IBM Cloud Pak System console. A page opens as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. ICPS console

• To deploy the cluster, navigate to Provision environments as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Deploy from ICPS console

After you click Provision environments, you will be taken to a page as shown in Figure 7. Verify whether the cluster status is shown as “ready to deploy”.

Figure 7. IBM Edge Application Manager cluster is ready to deploy

• Click Edge Application Manager. It takes you to the deployment wizard as shown in Figures 10-14. Use this wizard to override any deployment parameters.

For this release IBM Edge Application Manager version must be set to 4.1 as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8. Provide cluster name and select IBM Edge Application Manager version

• Click Continue. It opens the Configure Deployment tab.
• Make sure you select the correct environment profile that has all prerequisites setup for cluster deployment.
• Enter password for root and virtuser users as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9. Select environment profile and provide password for root and virt user

• • In the Optional section, click Generate as shown in Figure 10. If not generated, a default key will be generated and used.

Figure 10. Generate ssh key or/and proceed to Accelerator options

• • Click Accelerator options and enter the IBM Edge Application Manager shared component admin password. For this release IBM Edge Application Manager version must be set to 4.1

Figure 11. Enter IBM Edge Application Manager shared component admin password / Click Review and deploy

• • Click Review and deploy. It opens a preview of the inputs.
  • Click Deploy to proceed with deployment as shown in Figure 12.

Figure 12. Click deploy

• • Click Deploy. It launches the cluster deployment and you should see a popup similar to Figure 13.

Figure 13. Launch confirmation

• • Click Manage environments in the popup. The Manage environments page opens with the cluster in launched state as shown in Figure 14. Here, you can monitor cluster deployment progress and review history messages.

Figure 14. Monitor launched cluster

Typically, deployment takes about 2:30 hours. Upon completion, a Cluster Details page opens as shown in Figure 16. Note the link to IBM Edge Application Manager console in the Console section.

Figure 15. Cluster Details

Before you can use the IBM Edge Application Manager Cluster, a few more steps are required as documented in step 5 of Getting started with OpenShift Container Platform 4.x pattern. For detailed steps on how to setup DNS server, see OpenShift Container Platform accelerator V4.4.6.0 recipe. Examine the History section of your cluster to know what needs to be done.

Configure your DNS server

Set up the following two DNS wildcard entries for the floating IP addresses and fully qualified domain name of your IBM Edge Application Manager Virtual System Instance. This value is required to access the IEAM console, OpenShift web-console, applications, and APIs.

. IN A .apps. IN A

In case of our example cluster here, the floating IP address is x.xx.123.52 with corresponding fully qualified domain name xxx-xxx-xx-xx-123-38.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. Therefore, you must configure the following DNS wildcard entries:

*.xxx-xxx-xx-xx-123-52.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx IN A xx.xx.123.52 *.apps.xxx-xxx-xx-xx-123-52.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx IN A xx.xx.123.52

If you are unable to easily make changes to your DNS server, you can add the following entries to your local /etc/hosts file (or equivalent on Windows) for testing purposes. This allows you to logon to the IBM Edge Application Manager console and OpenShift console. Note that you would need additional entries for any applications you would deploy later.

xx.xx.123.52 console-openshift-console.apps.xxx-xxx-xx-xx-123-52.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx oauth-openshift.apps.xxx-xxx-xx-xx-123-52.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx icp-console.apps.xxx-xxx-xx-xx-123-52.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

For detailed steps on how to configure DNS, see OpenShift Container Platform accelerator V4.4.6.0 recipe.

You can access IBM Edge Application Manager by using console link of the instance. For example, https://icp-console.apps.xxx-xxx-xx-xx-123-52.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/.

Figure 16. IBM Edge Application Manager console link

Use admin and IBM Common Services administrator password to log in to the console.

Note: A default password is set for IBM Common Services administrator user in accelerator. It is recommended that you change this password immediately after deployment by following the instructions here.

Figure 17. IBM Edge Application Manager console login

After successful log in, you can see the IBM Edge Application Manager console as shown in Figure 18.

Figure 18. IBM Edge Application Manager console

Now, you can continue to add instances of IBM Edge Application Manager capabilities that you are interested in from IBM Edge Application Manager console within minutes.

IBM Cloud Pak System V2.3.3.0 along with Cloud Pak accelerators enable you to quickly roll out one or more IBM Edge Application Manager clusters. A quick deployment of IBM Edge Application Manager capabilities and consumption by application developers. The automation simplifies the prerequisites setup, OCP cluster deployment, IBM Common Services, and IBM Edge Application Manager’s navigator component deployment in IBM Cloud Pak System providing consistent repeatability and quick turn around.

I big thanks to Shreya Kunar for co-authoring original recipe.

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