Explanation of DevOps Velocity editions

IBM® DevOps Velocity (Velocity) is available in several editions.

All editions are full-featured and support unlimited users. Editions vary by the number of concurrent user sessions, and the availability of product support.

Table 1. Product editions
Edition Description
Standard Edition (SE) Supports unlimited sessions and provides 24/7 product support.
Standard Edition Trial (SET) Supports unlimited sessions and offers support during normal business hours. Free to use for 60 days.
Community Edition (CE) The Community Edition is free to use and supports two concurrent sessions. Community support is available.

Standard Edition

The Standard Edition is enterprise-ready and supports any number of concurrent user sessions. You have access to full 24/7 product support and all related resources.

After you install the software, configure the Rational® Common Licensing server for your installation.

Note: Until you configure your license, Velocity restricts you to two concurrent sessions.

Standard Edition Trial

The Standard Edition Trial version provides a 60-day free trial of the Standard Edition. As with the full Standard Edition, you have access to all product features and unlimited sessions. You have access to product support but, because trials are not supported for production environments, support is limited to normal business hours.

You can upgrade to the Standard Edition at any time.

After the 60-day trial expires, your installation is downgraded to the Community Edition and product support ends. All of your data is saved and maintained but you are restricted to two concurrent sessions.

Community Edition

The Community Edition is ideal for small shops that do not need more than two concurrent sessions. You can have more than two users, but only two can be logged-on concurrently. This edition provides community support, including the public forum and other product resources. You can apply product updates as they become available.

You can upgrade at any time.

Obtaining Velocity

You obtain a key and download the installation file from the Velocity product page. You can acquire a key for the Community Edition or the Standard Edition. When you run the installation program, you are prompted to supply your key.

Note: You cannot complete the installation without supplying either a Community Edition access key or Standard Edition trial key.

After you install the Community Edition, you can immediately start using all product features.

After you install the Standard Edition Trial, you can immediately start using all product features. A banner in the Velocity user interface reminds you how many days are left in the trial.

IBM code signing

Use IBM code signing to authenticate the Docker images.

The https://velocity-code-signing.s3.amazonaws.com page lists all versions for which the signatures is available.

To authenticate Docker images, complete the following steps:
  1. Access the URL https://velocity-code-signing.s3.amazonaws.com appended with the <version>-signatures.tgz to download the signature of the required version. For example, use the following URL

    https://velocity-code-signing.s3.amazonaws.com/4.0.10-signatures.tgz to download version 4.0.10 signature.

  2. Extract the signatures.tgz file and you can see the signatures folder under each services directory.
  3. Run the gpg --import signatures/UrbanCodeVelocitykey.public.asc command to add the key to database.
  4. Run gpg -k or gpg --fingerprint command to get the key's fingerprint.
    Note: Save the key's fingerprint for the future use.
  5. Run skopeo copy docker://[REPO_URL]:[TAG] dir:[TARGET_DIR] command to copy the Docker image's manifest using Skopeo.
    Note: For Skopeo installation, see instructions.
    Note: For example : To copy DockerHub's urbancode/velocity-se-security-api:2.2.1.58 manifest file to img directory, run {{ skopeo copy docker://docker.io/urbancode/velocity-se-security-api:2.2.1.58 dir:img }} command.
    Note: To copy images from IBM Certified Registry (ICR), see instructions and authenticate it.
  6. Run skopeo standalone-verify [TARGET_DIR]/manifest.json [SERVICE_NAME]:[TAG] [GPG_KEY_FINGERPRINT] [SIGNATURE_FILE_NAME] command to verify Docker images from IBM Certified Registry (ICR) and Docker Hub. Run this command to verify each and every Docker images.
    Note: For example: To verify security-api-2-2-1-58-signature, run {{skopeo standalone-verify img/manifest.json security-api:2.2.1.58 C23B7A541748128FA747C9B993D9D34E725A0A9A security-api-2-2-1-58-signature}} command.

    The output of a successful signature verification command is Signature verified, digest sha256:d8b639632ffaa5f611592c3ef3a712e143e6af0ec72ecf4fe93d6a33581e81c7. This command appears when sha256 output matches the key's fingerprint.

Changing editions

You can upgrade from the Community Edition to the Standard Edition Trial, or from the trial to the Standard Edition at any time.

To upgrade from the Community Edition to the Standard Edition Trial, you obtain a trial key that you can apply to start the trial. After you apply the key, you have unlimited concurrent sessions and access to product support. A banner in the product UI displays the remaining trial days. After you apply the key, you do not have to restart Velocity.

To upgrade from the Standard Edition Trial to the full Standard Edition, you apply your license to stop the trial and begin 24/7 product support. After you apply your license, you do not have to restart Velocity.

If you want to skip the trial and upgrade from the Community Edition to the full Standard Edition, obtain and then apply your license.

IBM Cloud Pak for Application Devops

The IBM Cloud Pak is a modern way of approach to redistribute the IBM legacy products in easily accessible platform. The IBM Cloud Pak modernize the existing application to support cloud environments that helps clients to avoid lock-in. The IBM Cloud Pak offerings include consistently adding capabilities for deployment, lifecycle management, and production quality of service – logging, monitoring, version upgrade and roll-back, vulnerability assessment and testing. The IBM Cloud Pak offers an enterprise-ready software solution that covers the full bandwidth of the cloud portfolio includes, applications, data, integration, automation, multi-cloud management, and security. The IBM Cloud Pak application offers cloud DevOps with the following features:
  • Cloud Native: For the DevOps clients, Cloud DevOps tracks and reports the application deployment, which application is deployed, where the application is deployed, when the application deployed. IBM Cloud DevOps reports whether the application is deployed in public or private source. IBM Cloud DevOps orchestrates all applications using multiple pipelines when the development teams contributing for deployment.
  • Modernization: As a part of modernization of applications, Clients use both new and existing applications. IBM Cloud DevOps enables continuous delivery of multi-applications on cloud and deploy any application anywhere: from IWA5 on VMs, to z systems, to containers on kubernetes, and to public/private cloud, and integration with other deployment tools such as Tekton and Jenkins.

IBM Cloud Pak 2.1 is released on IBM Cloud channels.

Backing up and rolling back Velocity

You can back up and roll back Velocity brand at any time.