Adding catalog sources to a cluster
A catalog source provides metadata about cluster service versions (CSVs),
custom resource definitions (CRDs), and packages that comprise a product or an application. Operator
Lifecycle Manager (OLM), which runs by default on Red Hat®
OpenShift® to help
manage Operators, can query this metadata to discover and install Operators and their dependencies.
To make the IBM® App Connect Operator discoverable, you therefore need to add
its catalog source to a catalog in the cluster.
You can add the IBM App Connect Operator to the list of Operators in your cluster by adding a product-specific App Connect catalog source or by adding the catalog source for the IBM Operator Catalog.
About this task
For most online and offline clusters, applying individual (product-specific) catalog sources is the most effective way to fully control software versioning on a cluster. This allows administrators to:
- Upgrade a product (in this case IBM App Connect) independently.
- Have a fully declarative set of artifacts to recreate exact installations.
- Easily control the upgrade and promotion through environments with a continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline.
- Remove the usage of Manual approval settings on Operators. When you choose a Manual approval strategy during installation, you are required to review a generated Install Plan for the Operator and then manually approve the installation. This option also requires you to review the Install Plan for any subsequent Operator version, and then manually approve an upgrade. With catalog source control, an upgrade can occur only when the specific image digest for a specific catalog source is changed.