IBM containers

You can modernize and scale your enterprise software solutions across multiple environments with IBM® containers that are built for industry standard Kubernetes platforms.

IBM Sterling™ Order Management System containers provide a consistent and scalable foundation for deploying containerized applications on leading Kubernetes-based platforms. These containers are designed to accelerate development cycles, enhance operational efficiency, and reduce infrastructure overhead through a cloud-native, containerized architecture. Kubernetes, the underlying orchestration technology, enables secure, reliable, and automated management of container workloads at scale. Containers offer a streamlined and secure way to deploy, manage, and scale enterprise-grade software in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. One such Kubernetes platform is Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform, and other Kubernetes platforms of your choice can also be used, offering platform flexibility and interoperability. This capability ensures that you can choose the infrastructure that best aligns with your operational and strategic needs.

IBM containers are separately licensed and are available for Sterling Order Management System Software. For more information about the entitlements and downloads, see the Downloading entitled packages. For more information, see Installing.

Note: The IBM Sterling Order Management System containers do not support SOAP-based web services.

IBM container editions

The IBM container editions provide speed and agility, which helps to reduce your operational and infrastructure costs. Sterling Order Management System Software offers the following editions:

Sterling Order Management System Software Professional edition: You can leverage the Professional edition of IBM Sterling Order Management System containers to deploy containerized applications consistently and at scale on leading Kubernetes-based platforms.; The Sterling Order Management System Software Professional edition for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform equivalent of the Professional edition base offering. The auto-scaling performance that is built into this edition achieves better scalability when compared to that achieved by the configuration features that are provided in the earlier releases of the base Professional edition.

Sterling Order Management System Software Enterprise edition: You can leverage the Enterprise edition of IBM Sterling Order Management System to deploy containerized applications consistently and at scale on leading Kubernetes-based platforms.; The Sterling Order Management System Software Enterprise edition for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform equivalent of the Enterprise edition base offering. The auto-scaling performance that is built into this edition achieves better scalability when compared to that achieved by the configuration features that are provided in the earlier releases of the base Enterprise edition.

Sterling Order Management System container images are certified for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and are also compatible with other certified Kubernetes platforms.

As a reference, see Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform documentation. For more information about container benefits on Kubernetes platforms of your choice, see the official documentation specific to that platform.

Applications included in the IBM Sterling Order Management System Enterprise Containers

IBM Sterling Order Management System Software
IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising: Inventory Visibility, Promising, and Optimization service
For more information about getting started with installing IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising by using containers, see Installing.

Remember: The Sterling Intelligent Promising is inclusive with the Order Management System Enterprise container entitlement. It is neither available with the Order Management System Professional Containers nor as a standalone container service. For more information, see Pricing.

IBM Sterling Order Management System Operator

The Helm chart is deprecated from IBM Sterling Order Management System Software 10.0.2206.0 (June 2022) release. Use the Sterling Order Management System Operator to manage and automate the life cycle of your Sterling Order Management System Software. The Operator provides custom resources to specify required application state and automatically creates or updates the Kubernetes resources to achieve the expected state. For more information about the Operator and installation, see IBM Sterling Order Management System Operator overview and Installing Sterling Order Management System Software by using containers.

Order Service

IBM containers provides a comprehensive Order Service feature. Order Service provides scalable and robust order search and order archival capabilities by using modernized technology stack and architecture. Order Service is deployed alongside Sterling Order Management System Software to provide enhanced functionality as part of an expanded solution footprint and comprises of two components; Order Search and Order Archival. For more information about Order Service and the supported components, see Order Service.

Helpful links

Stay updated by reading about IBM containers in What's new regularly.

If you are a system administrator...	See this topic
Upgrading to a container model	Upgrading to Sterling Order Management System Software containers
Installing container images	Installing Sterling Order Management System Software by using containers
Installing fix packs for containers	Installing fix pack for Sterling Order Management System Software containers
Security	Recommendations for containers
Troubleshooting	Gather diagnostic information for container related issues

If you are a developer...	See this topic
Installing containers	Installing Sterling Order Management System Software by using containers
Customizing containers	Customizing and generating container images
Setting up a developer toolkit environment	Setting up the Integrated Developer Toolkit environment