Installing IBM App Connect on Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS GovCloud (US)

ROSA-only content After you provision the Red Hat® OpenShift® Service on AWS (ROSA) cluster on AWS GovCloud (US), you can install IBM App Connect on the cluster by using the IBM App Connect Operator that is distributed through the IBM Entitled Registry.

From the Red Hat OpenShift Software Catalog or OperatorHub, which provides a user interface for discovering Operators, you can install the IBM App Connect Operator into your cluster to obtain an independent deployment of App Connect.

The IBM App Connect Operator is also included with IBM Cloud Pak for Integration, which delivers a collection of product capabilities (or components) in a streamlined integration solution. App Connect provides the application integration capability within the unified containerized environment. Cloud Pak for Integration is delivered as a set of Operators within the Software Catalog or OperatorHub.

To complete the steps for installing App Connect, ensure that you have cluster administrator authority with cluster-admin permissions.

Adding the IBM App Connect Operator to a catalog by using the Red Hat OpenShift web console

From an online cluster with access to public registries, you can add the IBM App Connect Operator to the list of Operators that you can install from a catalog. To add the Operator to a catalog, deploy a catalog source resource for the IBM Operator Catalog, which provides a catalog of IBM product offerings. When you install the IBM App Connect Operator, its images are pulled directly from the public registries.

To install the Operator by using the OpenShift web console, complete the following steps:

If using Red Hat OpenShift 4.20 or later, click the Quick create icon

in the banner and then click Import YAML. On Red Hat OpenShift 4.19 or earlier, click the Import YAML icon

in the banner. Then, copy and paste the following resource definition into the Import YAML editor.

apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: CatalogSource
metadata:
  name: ibm-operator-catalog
  namespace: openshift-marketplace
spec:
  displayName: IBM Operator Catalog
  publisher: IBM
  sourceType: grpc
  image: icr.io/cpopen/ibm-operator-catalog
  updateStrategy:
    registryPoll:
      interval: 45m

Import YAML editor with the resource definition for the IBM Operator Catalog

Click Create.
Search for the IBM App Connect Operator from the Software Catalog or OperatorHub by typing app connect.

Installing the IBM App Connect Operator

After the IBM App Connect Operator becomes available in the catalog in your cluster, you can install the Operator by using the Red Hat OpenShift web console or CLI.

To install the IBM App Connect Operator, follow the instructions at Installing the IBM App Connect Operator.

When you install the IBM App Connect Operator, custom resources for the App Connect components are provided as APIs. You can use these custom resources to create App Connect Designer and App Connect Dashboard instances that you can use to develop and run integrations with the help of the following resources: flows, integration runtimes, integration servers, configuration objects, trace objects, and switch servers.

Next steps

After you install the IBM App Connect Operator in your cluster, you can create the App Connect components that you (or other users) need. These components include authoring and runtime environments, and resources that you can create within those environments.

App Connect Designer

App Connect Designer is an authoring environment that you can use to develop flows. A flow connects IBM and third-party applications and APIs, and provides a way to automate tasks or workflows, and boost productivity. When you create a flow, you use connectors to establish connections to, and interact with, the target applications or APIs that are referenced in the flow. To further customize a flow, you can use toolbox utilities to apply specialized processing to the flow; for example, if...then conditions or for each loops.

You can also use the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit to develop message flows that process your business messages and data. The Toolkit is a development environment that is available with IBM App Connect Enterprise or IBM App Connect Enterprise for Developers.

App Connect Dashboard

App Connect Dashboard is a runtime environment that you can use to host the flows that you create in App Connect Designer (Designer flows) or in the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit (Toolkit flows). You host these flows by deploying them as integration runtimes or integration servers.

An integration runtime or integration server provides an isolated runtime environment for a Designer or Toolkit flow. When you deploy an integration runtime or integration server, you can also define environment-specific settings or additional content that you want to apply to that integration runtime or integration server. You define these settings or additional content by creating configuration objects.

To aid with troubleshooting, you can also enable and manage trace on an integration runtime or integration server to record additional details that can be analyzed to discover the cause of a problem.

Switch server

A switch server is a special kind of integration server that you can use to configure secure connectivity if a flow, integration runtime, or integration server in your cluster needs to interact with your on-premises App Connect Enterprise or IBM Integration Bus system, or with some other private network.

Obtaining and applying your IBM Entitled Registry entitlement key

To allow the Operator to pull the software images for the App Connect components from the IBM Entitled Registry, you need to obtain an entitlement key that you can supply as a Kubernetes pull secret. You can add this pull secret to each namespace where you want to create your App Connect components or resources, or you can add it as a global pull secret.

For more information, see Obtaining and applying your IBM Entitled Registry entitlement key.

Creating your authoring and runtime environments, and other App Connect resources

After you create a pull secret to store your entitlement key, you can begin to create the App Connect components or resources that you or other users need.

The following considerations apply:

If you want to create Designer flows that you can subsequently deploy to run as integration runtimes or integration servers, create an App Connect Designer instance to host your Designer flows and an App Connect Dashboard instance to host your deployed integrations.
If you also want to deploy Toolkit flows to run as integration runtimes or integration servers, you can deploy them to the same App Connect Dashboard instance as the Designer flows. (If you are developing Toolkit flows, but not Designer flows, you do not need to create an App Connect Designer instance.)
If you plan to create Designer or Toolkit flows or integrations that run callable flows or connect to applications in a private network, create a switch server to configure secure connectivity between the flow components in your cluster and the on-premises system.
You also need to associate the switch server with the App Connect Designer or App Connect Dashboard instance where the flow or integration is running. You can do so by adding the switch server name to the custom resource settings for the App Connect Designer or App Connect Dashboard instance when or after you create the instance.
If you want to apply environment-specific settings or additional content to an integration runtime or integration server that you are deploying, define these settings in configuration objects. You can create the configuration objects before you deploy the integration runtime or integration server, or during its deployment.
You can enable or run trace only after you deploy an integration runtime or integration server.

For information about creating your authoring and runtime environments, and other App Connect resources, see the following details:

Task	Reference
Create an App Connect Designer instance	App Connect Designer Authoring reference
Create an App Connect Dashboard instance	App Connect Dashboard reference
Create a switch server	App Connect Switch Server reference
Create and manage flows in an App Connect Designer instance	Creating and managing flows in App Connect Designer
Create configuration objects, deploy Designer or Toolkit flows to an integration runtime or integration server, and manage tracing from an App Connect Dashboard instance	Deploying App Connect Designer and IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit integrations in the App Connect Dashboard
Create configuration objects, integration runtimes, and integration servers, and manage tracing from the Red Hat OpenShift web console	Configuration reference App Connect Integration Runtime reference App Connect Integration Server reference Trace reference