Roadmap to running projects on containers

Containers:

You can develop your projects in Workflow Center and run them in Workflow Server on containers. Start by getting your existing process apps and toolkits ready to run in containers, playback and test and then install and run them in a production container environment.

Prepare to convert your projects

You can complete your move to containers in stages. First, move your process apps and toolkits from desktop Process Designer to the web-based Process Designer to make them container compatible. When you're ready, you can install IBM® Business Automation Workflow on containers and move your projects to run in the container environment. For more information, see Prepare your projects for containers.

Convert your projects

To run a project in the container environment, it must be targeted to that environment. All the artifacts in the project and the toolkits that it uses must also be supported in the container environment. There are two aspects to conversion.

Project conversion: You need to convert your process app or toolkit to run in containers. Starting with Business Automation Workflow version 20.0.0.1, a project has a target installation environment that determines whether the project can run in the traditional on-premises environment or in a container. Projects that are created in earlier versions are set to run in the traditional environment. To run the project in a container, you must change its target installation environment.
Artifact conversion: Not all artifacts are supported in the container environment. First, you need to convert all desktop Process Designer artifacts to web Process Designer artifacts. For example, if your process app has BPDs, you need to convert the BPDs to processes. Deprecated artifacts are not supported in containers. Review your projects to see if you need to convert any artifacts. Familiarize yourself with the unsupported artifacts and plan for manual conversions that you might need to do. See Artifact support in traditional and container runtime environments.

Convert your toolkits first. Then, when you're converting your process app, you can simply select the container compatible version of a toolkit that the process app has a dependency on.

IBM Process Designer provides conversion tools that validate the artifacts in a project and the toolkits it depends on, provide a list of the artifacts that you need to convert and guide you through the conversion process. For more information, see Converting the target environment of projects.

Play back and test

You can run, test, and debug your processes and services in the Process Designer Inspector running in the Workflow Center server just as you do for projects that are running in the traditional environment. For more information, see Running and debugging processes and services.

When you're happy with the playback, you can test your application more thoroughly by installing and running it in a test workflow server in a container.

Install snapshots

You can install snapshots to a container environment from IBM Workflow Center for an offline or online Workflow Server, just as you do for traditional projects. To automate snapshot installation, you must use REST APIs. See IBM Business Automation Workflow Operations REST APIs.

Administer snapshots and applications

Use the Process Admin Console to view, manage and administer snapshots.

You can administer and configure runtime settings for snapshots that are installed on a workflow server. See Managing installed snapshots.
You can use Process Inspector to view, manage and troubleshoot process instances. See Administering processes with the Process Inspector.

To automate administrative tasks for snapshots that are installed in containers, you must use REST APIs. See IBM Business Automation Workflow Operations REST APIs.

Work on tasks

V20.0.0.2 End users can orchestrate, prioritize, track, and complete their tasks in Workplace. See Managing work. Or, they can work on their tasks as usual in Process Portal. For limitations, see Limitations.

Visualize business data

You can integrate IBM Business Process Manager in containers with IBM Business Automation Insights and get insight into the performance of individuals and teams by viewing a dashboard of statistics such as the status of user tasks and the workloads of teams or individuals. For information on how to integrate Business Automation Insights, see IBM Business Automation Workflow on containers parameters. For information on how to use Business Automation Insights, see IBM Business Automation Insights.