Maximo Application Suite Customer-managed

IBM Maximo Application Suite technical overview

A Maximo Application Suite instance runs on Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform.

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform enables portability between cloud and on-premises environments, containerization and container orchestration that supports robustness, resiliency, availability, and elasticity, repeatable deployments per the operator model, and automation and streamlining of the development process.

Technical diagram of the main components of a Maximo Application Suite instance. Description provided in the accompanying text.

Refer to the description about each component in the following sections.

Virtual machines and storage

Most Maximo Application Suite applications and prerequisites run on a set of virtual machines that comprise a Red Hat OpenShift cluster. These virtual machines have separate IP addresses and appear as nodes in the Red Hat OpenShift cluster.

The virtual machines are provided and managed in two ways:
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider

For example, an on-premises provider, such as VMware, or a cloud provider, such as IBM Cloud®, AWS, or Azure.

You have direct access to the virtual machines, and you must install and manage the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform software itself.

Managed Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform service provider
For example, Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud.

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform control plane

  • A set of master nodes manages the Red Hat OpenShift cluster.
    Note: To ensure continuous and high availability of the Red Hat OpenShift cluster, use a minimum of three master nodes.
  • These master nodes run the Kubernetes cluster control software that manages what runs on the worker nodes, which are the other nodes in the cluster.
  • The master nodes also maintain an internal database, an etcd that contains the Kubernetes resource definitions.
  • If you are using a Managed Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform service provider, you don’t see these master nodes because the service provider manages them.
  • If you are running your own Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform service, you need to provision virtual machines. After you install the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, interaction with the virtual machines happens through Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and Kubernetes APIs.

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform infrastructure

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform infrastructure components are installed as a part of the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform installation.

  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform infrastructure services, such as logging and monitoring.
  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform provides a storage management mechanism, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Storage that runs in the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform cluster itself.

    Worker nodes have disk storage that is private to that node. The disk storage can be lost if the node malfunctions. Some Maximo Application Suite applications and prerequisites require storage that persists over node failures and that can be shared between nodes. However, if you are running in an external cloud environment, you can choose to use an external storage provider.

Some components must run on every worker node while other components run on three worker nodes. These components can run on any worker nodes in the cluster, but if possible, place the components on dedicated worker nodes. For more information, see Preparing to install Maximo Application Suite on premises.

Maximo Application Suite prerequisites

Maximo Application Suite applications have several dependencies or prerequisites. Some prerequisites are necessary regardless of the selected applications. Other prerequisites are necessary only for specific applications. For most of these prerequisites, you can choose whether to deploy them in the Red Hat OpenShift cluster or run them externally, either in a separate Red Hat OpenShift cluster or by using an external service provider.

Cloud Pak for Data

One prerequisite that must run in the Red Hat OpenShift cluster is the Cloud Pak for Data.

Note: The Maximo Application Suite license entitles you to install and use several Cloud Pak for Data services, provided you are using them with Maximo Application Suite applications.

Cloud Pak for Data consists of a control plane, which has its own user interface and its own set of authorized users. After you install Cloud Pak for Data into Red Hat OpenShift cluster and you log in as an administrator, you can install one or more Cloud Pak for Data services into the Red Hat OpenShift cluster. You can use Cloud Pak for Data to install Db2® Warehouse, which is used by Maximo Monitor and IoT applications.

Maximo Application Suite applications, industry solutions, addons, and tools

Maximo Application Suite provides a suite of applications, tools, and add-ons. You can choose the applications to deploy if the appropriate prerequisites are in place.

Maximo Application Suite instance

Start by installing the base application, Maximo Application Suite core, into Red Hat OpenShift cluster.
  • Use Maximo Application Suite core to install and manage the Maximo Application Suite applications, industry solutions, and add-ons that you want to use.
  • Maximo Application Suite core maintains a registry of users. You can specify which users have access to which Maximo Application Suite applications.

Prerequisites that run outside the Red Hat OpenShift cluster

The following prerequisites run outside the Red Hat OpenShift cluster:

Load balancers
Used to allow access to the protocol endpoints that are used to communicate with the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and with the applications and services that it hosts.
Identity provider
Used to authenticate users when they log in to the Red Hat OpenShift cluster. Usually, the identity provider is an enterprise directory service that supports an LDAP interface.
Most Maximo Application Suite users do not need to log in to Red Hat OpenShift cluster.
You can use the same enterprise directory to manage the login credentials for Maximo Application Suite and Red Hat OpenShift cluster users.
The Maximo Application Suite core and Cloud Pak for Data control planes can both be configured to use this directory service for their user login.
Enterprise SAML identity provider
Allows users to share a single sign-on with other enterprise applications. A user who is signed in to another enterprise application can use the Maximo Application Suite application without reauthenticating.
External SMTP server
Needed to configure Maximo Application Suite core, Maximo Manage, and other applications to send emails to users.
Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE) server
Configured to use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) connections to Maximo Assist.
Bastion host
A host that runs outside of the Red Hat OpenShift cluster. The bastion host has direct network access to the cluster nodes.
A bastion host is necessary if you are installing the Red Hat OpenShift cluster yourself. The bastion host is useful when you install Maximo Application Suite core, Cloud Pak for Data, and other prerequisites into Red Hat OpenShift cluster.

Other software

IBM Cognos® Analytics entitlement is included in Maximo Application Suite 8.10 and later.