Using the Platform UI

The Overview pane on the Platform UI home page summarizes the status of instances and locations that you can manage from this Platform UI deployment. Click a particular status (such as Error or Warning*) to filter the list of deployed instances in the table. You can also click Locations connected to open a page where you can troubleshoot disconnected locations.

You can deploy any instance type by importing a template from Automation assets. Sharing and reusing templates can help your team achieve consistency across your installation.

1. Log in to the Platform UI.

2. In the instances section, click Create an instance.

3. On the "Create an instance" page, click a tile for any instance type.

   Tip: If the operator for a particular instance type is not already installed, the tile may not be available. The UI will provide instructions for installing.

4. On the next page, click Select a template from Automation assets.

5. On the "Select a template" page, click to select a template from the list. You get a preview of the custom resource for the asset you want to use.

6. Click Create from asset.

7. All available fields on the instance creation page are pre-populated with values from the template. Edit these values as needed.

8. (Optional) If you're not ready to deploy your instance, save a draft version of it. Click the overflow menu (three-dot icon), then click Save as draft. The configuration for the instance is stored in the Platform UI. You can continue editing the draft version until you are ready to create the instance from it.

9. Click Create to deploy the instance.

You can edit an existing template, then import it back to Automation assets so that the updated template is available to other users. Sharing and reusing templates can help your team achieve consistency across your installation.

1. Log in to the Platform UI.

2. In the instances section, click Create an instance.

3. On the Create an instance page, click any of the integration types.

4. Click the tile for your desired deployment option, then click Next.

5. Click the overflow menu (three-dot icon), then click Share as template.

6. In the panel, add values for Name, Tags (optional), and Description, then click Share. This action imports the new template to Automation assets so it can be shared with other users.

Applying labels to instances ensures that when you search for your label value in the Platform UI, the list of deployed instances is filtered to show only instances with that label. You can create your own custom labels to categorize your instances. Labels are saved and shared the next time you want apply a label, so you can easily apply the same label to multiple instances.

You can apply labels when you create an instance, or add them to instances that are already deployed. For draft instances, you can add labels only when editing the draft. Labels for draft instances are not visible or editable in the Platform UI.

You can also apply labels to instances so that the instances are available for authoring together in an integration canvas. Make sure that the canvas you create has a reference to this label. For more information, see Using the assembly canvas.

Find the labels for each deployed instance in the Labels column of the instances table in the Platform UI. A list of labels might be represented by a number if there are too many to fit in the column. To update, add, or delete a label, click the label or number in the column to open the "Edit labels" pane.

When you filter instances, your browser's URL is updated, adding parameters that reflect those filters. You can share the updated URL with other users so they can access the same filter.

For example, if you filter the table for the Queue manager instance type, the URL changes to /instances?filters=type%3AQueue%2520manager.

For information on identity and access management, such as authenticating users against an existing LDAP user registry, see Identity and access management.

In the instances table, instances that support being stopped have a Stop button ("stop" icon) if running, or a Start button ("play" icon) if stopped. When you click the Stop button, the instance stops and the operators scale the replicas to 0, with no pods deployed, all in a seamless process.

There are a number of reasons why you might want to stop an instance:

• Remove workloads without deleting the corresponding instances (to reduce licensing costs)

• Temporarily free up resources in your environment

• Pause operations during maintenance or backup procedures

• Preserve the value of replicas that was set in the Kubernetes resource for the instance

For more information about stopping and restarting specific instances, including what updates are made to a Kubernetes resource when you click the Stop or Start button, see the following documentation:

• Integration runtime custom resource values

• Using a Messaging server

• Stopping a queue manager (mq.ibm.com/stop)

• Enterprise gateway annotations