Installing IBM RPA with other IBM Cloud Paks

When you install IBM RPA alongside other IBM Cloud Paks, you must make sure that their IBM Cloud Pak foundational services 🡥 versions are also compatible.

Different IBM Cloud Pak foundational services versions handle various aspects of the product differently. Earlier versions of the foundational services stored Kubernetes secrets and ConfigMaps in a different namespace from where they are located now. IBM Cloud Pak foundational services 3.4.0 and higher store Kubernetes secrets and ConfigMaps in the ibm-common-services namespace.

When you install multiple IBM Cloud Pak solutions together, if they do not share foundational services version, they are incompatible from a foundational services perspective.

IBM RPA supports IBM Cloud Pak foundational services starting from 3.19.0 up to 3.23.x.

Requirements

You must install the IBM RPA operator in a namespace. Do not install it in the global namespace.
If you want to install IBM RPA 23.0.x with an IBM Cloud Pak, you must install the Countinuous Delivery (CD) version of the Cloud Pak. IBM RPA uses the CD version of IBM MQ, and it is not compatible with LTS versions of IBM MQ and IBM Cloud Paks.

Procedure

Follow the procedure to install an IBM Cloud Pak with IBM RPA in the same cluster.

Installing IBM Cloud Pak

Install Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.
Install your IBM Cloud Pak of choice in a namespace.
Create two namespaces to install IBM RPA and the common services.
```
oc new-project ibm-common-services-rpa
oc new-project ibm-rpa
```

Installing IBM Cloud Pak foundational services in multiple namespaces

Log in to your OpenShift cluster console.
Click the plus icon. You see the Import YAML dialog box.

Paste the following configmap definition into the dialog box and replace the namespace value with your custom namespaces.

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
    name: common-service-maps
    namespace: kube-public
data:
    common-service-maps.yaml: |
        controlNamespace: cs-control
        namespaceMapping:
        - requested-from-namespace:
            - <cloud-pak-namespace>
            map-to-common-service-namespace: <cloud-pak-namespace>
        - requested-from-namespace:
            - ibm-rpa
            map-to-common-service-namespace: ibm-common-services-rpa

Important:Replace the values of <cloud-pak-namespace> with the namespace that you installed your IBM Cloud Pak on.

Click Create. The common-service-maps configmap is created in the kube-public namespace.

Create a new Catalog Source specific for IBM Cloud Pak foundational services 3.23.x called ibm-operator-catalog2. Save it as a YAML file.

apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: CatalogSource
metadata:
  name: ibm-operator-catalog2
  namespace: openshift-marketplace
spec:
  displayName: ibm-operator-catalog2
  publisher: IBM Content
  sourceType: grpc
  image: icr.io/cpopen/ibm-operator-catalog:v{kube_major_version}.{kube_minor_version}
  updateStrategy:
    registryPoll:
      interval: 45m

You can get the {kube_major_version}.{kube_minor_version} from the Kubernetes Release History 🡥.

Apply the YAML file:
```
oc apply -f ibm-operator-catalog.yaml
```

Create the operatorgroup.yaml file:

apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha2
kind: OperatorGroup
metadata:
  name: operatorgroup
  namespace: ibm-rpa
spec:
  targetNamespaces:
  - ibm-rpa

Apply the YAML file:
```
oc apply -f operatorgroup.yaml
```

Create the Subscription.yaml file for common-services in the ibm-rpa namespace.

apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: ibm-common-service-operator
  namespace: ibm-rpa
spec:
  channel: v3.23
  installPlanApproval: Automatic
  name: ibm-common-service-operator
  source: ibm-operator-catalog2
  sourceNamespace: openshift-marketplace

Apply the YAML file:
```
oc apply -f Subscription.yaml
```

Edit the common service object.

oc -n ibm-common-services-rpa edit commonservice common-service

Accept the license and set the size as small. Once you finish editing the new version is automatically applied:

apiVersion: operator.ibm.com/v3
kind: CommonService
metadata:
  name: common-service
  namespace: ibm-common-services-rpa
spec:
  license:
    accept: true  
  size: small

Edit the resource:

oc -n ibm-common-services-rpa edit commonservice common-service

Add the following contents to the file. Once you are done, save and close the file to apply the settings:

apiVersion: operator.ibm.com/v1alpha1
kind: OperandRequest
metadata:
  name: common-service
  namespace: ibm-common-services-rpa
spec:
  requests:
    - operands:
        - name: ibm-cert-manager-operator
        - name: ibm-mongodb-operator
        - name: ibm-iam-operator
        - name: ibm-monitoring-grafana-operator
        - name: ibm-healthcheck-operator
        - name: ibm-management-ingress-operator
        - name: ibm-licensing-operator
        - name: ibm-commonui-operator
        - name: ibm-events-operator
        - name: ibm-ingress-nginx-operator
        - name: ibm-auditlogging-operator
        - name: ibm-platform-api-operator
        - name: ibm-zen-operator
        - name: ibm-db2u-operator
        - name: cloud-native-postgresql
        - name: ibm-user-data-services-operator
        - name: ibm-zen-cpp-operator
        - name: ibm-bts-operator
      registry: common-service

Create the OperandRequest.yaml to request CPFS for ibm-rpa:

apiVersion: operator.ibm.com/v1alpha1
kind: OperandRequest
metadata:
  name: common-service
  namespace: ibm-rpa
spec:
  requests:
    - operands:
        - name: ibm-cert-manager-operator
        - name: ibm-mongodb-operator
        - name: ibm-iam-operator
        - name: ibm-monitoring-grafana-operator
        - name: ibm-healthcheck-operator
        - name: ibm-management-ingress-operator
        - name: ibm-licensing-operator
        - name: ibm-commonui-operator
        - name: ibm-events-operator
        - name: ibm-ingress-nginx-operator
        - name: ibm-auditlogging-operator
        - name: ibm-platform-api-operator
        - name: ibm-zen-operator
        - name: ibm-db2u-operator
        - name: cloud-native-postgresql
        - name: ibm-user-data-services-operator
        - name: ibm-zen-cpp-operator
        - name: ibm-bts-operator
      registry: common-service
      registryNamespace: ibm-common-services-rpa

Apply the YAML file:
```
oc apply -f OperandRequest.yaml
```
Install the IBM RPA operator.