What's new in IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps 4.11.0

Get a quick overview of what is new with IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps.

IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps leverages AI to streamline IT operations, increase uptime, improve efficiency, and reduce costs. The solution supports Operations teams to deliver optimum performance and assurance by:
  • Breaking down data silos
  • Providing real-time insights into IT systems
  • Augmenting incident management with AI
  • Automating incident resolution
For details on all the new features and changes introduced with this IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps version, review the following sections:

Install and upgrade

  • Postgres database changes: IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps 4.11.0 uses multiple Postgres v17 clusters instead of a single shared Postgres v13 cluster. This is to provide improved performance, scale, and reliability. The planning, installation, upgrade, administration, backup and restore with OADP, and backup and restore with IBM Fusion procedures are substantially updated for this change, which affects deployments on Linux and Red Hat OpenShift. IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps deployments that upgrade to v4.11.0 have their Postgres database migrated as part of the upgrade procedure. Note the following in particular:

    • If you want to use GitOps to upgrade a production deployment of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on Red Hat OpenShift that uses hybrid storage, then you must contact IBM Support before you start your upgrade. Learn more

    • If IBM Sales representatives and Business Partners supplied you with a custom configmap for a custom-sized deployment, then you must contact IBM Support to get a new custom configmap before you start your upgrade. Custom-sized deployments require a new custom configmap for the upgrade to succeed. The upgrade must not be conducted without first updating the custom configmap, failure to do so can result in data loss and a broken deployment. Learn more

    • If you are upgrading a production deployment of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on Red Hat OpenShift that uses hybrid storage, you now require a minimum of 9 worker nodes. Learn more

  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.19 support: Support is added for Red Hat OpenShift 4.19 for new or upgraded deployments of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps 4.11.0 and Infrastructure Automation 4.11.0. Learn more

  • IBM Fusion 2.11.0 support IBM Fusion 2.11.0 is supported for the backup and restore of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps. Learn more

  • Active user count: The maximum number of active users is increased from 40 to 100 for custom-sized deployments. For more information, see Custom sizing.

  • Image mirroring options for offline deployments (IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform): The installation, upgrade and backup procedures are updated to support image mirroring using ImageDigestMirrorSet (IDMS) in addition to the existing ImageContentSourcePolicy (ICSP) option. Learn more

  • IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps upgrade on Linux: An additional check is added to the upgrade procedures to check that aiopsctl tooling updates are successful before the upgrade of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps is started. Learn more

  • Infrastructure Automation console install and console upgrade: To streamline the installation and upgrade flows, the console install and console upgrade topics are removed from the documentation. This is in line with the notification in these topics in the IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps documentation from v4.9.1 onwards. Use the CLI based procedures in Installing and Upgrading.

  • Infrastructure Automation upgrade: Stand-alone Infrastructure Automation can only be upgraded to 4.11.0 from Infrastructure Automation v4.10.0 or v4.10.1 because of changes to the internal MongoDB component. Learn more

  • Multi-architecture support (IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform): Support is added for the deployment of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on multi-architecture Red Hat OpenShift clusters. Learn more

Automating processes

  • IBM Cognos Analytics 12.1 support: Support is added for IBM Cognos Analytics 12.1. Learn more

Defining integrations

  • Breaking change in Instana metric integration: If you have an existing Instana metric integration set up in Cloud Pak for AIOps, the upgrade to version 4.11.0 might introduce a breaking change, which results in a loss of infrastructure metric data, depending on the state of BeeInstana.

    Previously, infrastructure metric data from Instana was collected by using the Instana API (/api/infrastructure-monitoring/metrics). Starting from Cloud Pak for AIOps 4.11.0, this API is replaced by the new Analyze Infrastructure API (/api/infrastructure-monitoring/analyze/entities) to mitigate the API rate-limit constraints. The new Analyze Infrastructure API requires BeeInstana to be enabled.

    For more information, see Creating Instana integrations.

  • Instana alert handling: Cloud Pak for AIOps now uses JSONata to create and configure alerts from Instana events. By customizing this JSONata, you can customize how the Instana events are handled and alerts are created.

    For more information, see Configuring Instana alerts by using JSONata.

Managing applications (services) and viewing topologies

  • Resource status data is now retrieved from the inventory service instead of the topology service: This retrieval offers improvements in retrieval speed, especially for resources with a large number of status information. This change applies to all screens and features that display resource status data, such as:

  • Specify properties for fuzzy search and search suggestions: Search suggestions and fuzzy searches are now (by default) restricted to the 'name' and 'tags' properties ('tag' includes other token fields). This change results in speed and efficiency gains, though it may result in changes in search results. You can configure the properties searched in the Topology search section of the Configuring advanced topology settings topic.

  • A second SevOne Observer load job has been added: For SevOne versions 7.2 and later, you can use the v2load job, which introduces a range of new capabilities and performance uplifts derived from the updated SevOne APIs, while also providing backward compatibility for previous versions. See Configuring SevOne Observer jobs for more information.

  • Proximity feature was added for viewing resource groups: The new proximity feature lets you view resource groups on a map that are a specified distance from each other. This feature also lets you view resources that are within proximity of risks that have been identified via External Risks Observer jobs.

Non-production (technology preview)

  • watsonx.ai service: The watsonx.ai service enables components within IBM Cloud for AIOps to interact with the generative AI features of watsonx.ai. This comprises the following parts:

    • IBM watsonx.ai integration: An IBM watsonx.ai integration allows you to leverage the incident summarization generative AI algorithm in IBM Cloud for AIOps. Once the watsonx.ai integration is created, the incident summarization algorithm can be enabled using AI model management.

    • Incident summarization algorithm: The Incident summarization algorithm allows you to summarize incidents based on alerts, AIOps insights, and associated runbooks using watsonx.ai.

    • Incidents UI: The Incidents UI allows you to view AI generated incident summarization. This helps you to reduce response time to incidents.

  • Cloud Pak for AIOps assistant: Cloud Pak for AIOps assistant is designed to simplify the management of Cloud Pak for AIOps by offering real-time operational guidance, troubleshooting support, and system optimization recommendations. Once enabled, the assistant appears as a chat widget across most user interface pages (except the home page).

    After enabling the feature and configuring the assistant tile in the AI Model management section, the assistant becomes active within a few minutes. If needed, the feature can be disabled by removing its training configuration and updating the flag to disable. This assistant enhances the user experience by providing quick, context-sensitive help directly within the Cloud Pak for AIOps platform.

  • Automated incident summaries with AI in Cloud Pak for AIOps : The automated incident-summary feature with AI in Cloud Pak for AIOps uses generative AI through IBM watsonx.ai to automatically generate concise, informative summaries of incidents. Which helps you quickly understand and respond to issues. Once enabled, you can generate, edit, and regenerate incident summaries directly from the Incident Overview page. All summary events are saved in the Notes and Activity tab for easy reference.

Security and compliance

  • Fixed security vulnerabilities: Fixes and updates are included to address reported security-related vulnerabilities with IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps. For more information about the included fixes, see Security bulletins and fixes.