Preparing for installation of WebSphere Automation

A cluster administrator prepares the environment before WebSphere Automation is installed.

Tip: WebSphere Automation requires a Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform cluster. To prepare the environment and install WebSphere Automation, familiarity with Red Hat OpenShift cluster administration is helpful.

Before you begin

Determine your deployment needs, and decide whether you want to use a starter profile configuration, a production (high availability) profile configuration, or possibly install on a single node OpenShift cluster.

WebSphere Automation is installed by the WebSphere Automation operator. The operator creates an instance of WebSphere Automation, keeps it working correctly, and supports upgrades to later software levels.

A WebSphere Automation instance works best when installed into its own namespace. The default namespace is websphere-automation. WebSphere Automation supports installing multiple instances in the same cluster, but each instance must be in its own namespace.

By default, the WebSphere Automation operator uses the Red Hat OpenShift AllNamespaces install mode External link icon . This install mode supports single and multiple instances of WebSphere Automation. In the AllNamespaces mode, the WebSphere Automation instances share the operator configuration, and run at the same software level. If multiple versions at different software levels are expected or wanted, install a copy of the WebSphere Automation operator into the same namespace as the WebSphere Automation instance.

Procedure

Ensure that your Red Hat OpenShift cluster meets the system requirements.
In particular, ensure that sufficient worker node capacity is available and that compatible persistent storage is installed.
Create the catalog sources.
1. Create the IBM® Operator catalog source.
  Follow instructions in Adding the IBM operator catalog in the IBM Cloud Paks documentation to create a catalog source. A catalog entry is created in your Operator Hub for IBM Cloud Pak foundational services.
2. Verify the CatalogSources installation.
  1. Check the CatalogSources operators.
```
oc get catalogsource -n openshift-marketplace
```
    The command output lists the installed operators for CatalogSources. Ensure the ibm-operator-catalog is listed.
```
ibm-operator-catalog     IBM Operator Catalog    grpc    IBM    1s
```
  2. Check that the pods for CatalogSources are running.
```
oc get pods -n openshift-marketplace
```
    You want the command output to show a Running status for the pods. Ensure the ibm-operator-catalog pod is listed and reaches Running status.
```
NAME                              READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
ibm-operator-catalog-r96r2        1/1     Running   0          1s
```

What to do next

Install a WebSphere Automation operator and create a WebSphere Automation instance with the Red Hat OpenShift console or command-line interface (CLI).