Considerations for deploying API Connect on Linux for IBM Z

Review the deployment considerations before installing API Connect on IBM Z.

Supported deployment topologies

When you deploy API Connect as a capability in Cloud Pak for Integration, only the Management and Portal subsystems can be installed on the IBM Z (s390x) architecture. The Gateway and Analytics subsystems must be installed as capabilities running on Linux x86_64 (a physical DataPower Gateway appliance can optionally be deployed on Linux x86_64).

To provide protection for data at rest, you should use volume encryption for the selected storage provider. For example, you might choose to use OpenShift Data Foundation 4.12 with encryption enabled.
Tip: For OpenShift Data Foundation in a production environment, the optimal minimum deployment is 4 storage nodes, with 3 Object Storage Daemons (OSDs) on each node. This provides much greater data resiliency in the event of any OSD failures.

Limitations

When you deploy API Connect as a capability of Cloud Pak for Integration on IBM Z, the following limitations apply:

  • Only a fresh install of API Connect 10.0.5.0 is supported; migration from other architectures or form factors is not supported.
  • The 2 data center deployment configuration is not supported.
  • Internal certificates cannot be customized.
  • Open tracing for API management and AI Test Gen are not supported.
  • The Management subsystem backup configuration only supports S3 storage.
    Note: A custom S3 store can be set up within the cluster to allow Management subsystem backups to remain local. For example, the Multi-Cloud Object Gateway provided by OpenShift Data Foundation includes an S3 store implementation that can be used for local storage of your backups.