Deploying multiple instances on a single cluster (IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on OpenShift)
Learn about deploying multiple instances of IBM Cloud Pak® for AIOps on a Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform cluster.
Overview
IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps can be deployed multiple times on a single Red Hat OpenShift cluster. This is beneficial if you want to use IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps for multiple separate domains, such as different business units within your organization.
By deploying multiple instances of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on a single cluster, the Red Hat OpenShift control plane overhead is reduced and deployment architecture is simplified because there is only one Red Hat OpenShift cluster to manage. Each instance of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps is deployed in a dedicated namespace, enabling multiple IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps instances to run on the same cluster without conflict.
Restrictions
The following restrictions apply for deployments of multiple instances of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on a single cluster:
- Each instance of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps must be installed in a dedicated namespace. If you want to deploy two instances of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, you cannot use the namespace
cp4aiopsfor both instances. You might use, for example,cp4aiopsandcp4aiops2for the namespaces. - The IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps operator must be installed in
OwnNamespacemode. For more information, see Red Hat OpenShift installation mode. - Multiple instances of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps are only supported for deployments on Red Hat OpenShift. Multiple instances of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on a single cluster are not supported for deployments of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on Linux®.
Note: The deployment of other products in the same Red Hat OpenShift cluster as IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps can affect product functionality.
Product Lifecycle
IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps uses a versioning system of X.Y.Z, where X=version, Y=release, and Z=patch. For example, IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps 4.9.0 is version 4, release 9, patch 0.
If you deploy multiple instances of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on a single cluster, then the difference between the instances can vary by a maximum of one release. This maximum skew must be maintained even during upgrade. When upgrading multiple instances of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps on a single cluster, you must upgrade the oldest instance first.
The deployment of multiple instances in the same cluster is only possible in IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps 4.9.0. When v4.9.1 and v4.10.0 are released, you will be able to install them in the same cluster with IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps 4.9.0. However, when v4.11.0 is released you will not be able to install it in the same cluster as a v4.9.0 instance, because of a difference of more than one release between the instances.
Storage Requirements
The storage that you configure must be able to handle the load of multiple instances of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps performantly.
The storage requirements for IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps must be met for each instance individually within the cluster. When an instance is operating under significant load, each additional instance of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps must still be able to obtain the documented IOPS from the storage provider. This typically requires isolation at the storage layer. For more information, see Storage requirements.
On a public cloud, a native storage provider is preferred, as stress from one instance is then less likely to affect the performance of other instances.
Hardware Requirements
The Red Hat OpenShift cluster must have sufficient resources to support the combined requirements of all of its IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps instances.
For more information about the hardware requirements of a single instance of IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, see Hardware requirements. Where there are multiple instances on the same Red Hat OpenShift cluster, the CPU and memory requirements are multiplied by the number of instances.
As part of the installation procedure a prereq checker script validates if there are sufficient resources.