Accelerating IBM Maximo Application Suite on Azure Red Hat OpenShift with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
IBM® Maximo® Application Suite (MAS) is a unified asset lifecycle management solution created to assist organizations in planning, operating and optimizing their physical assets—such as buildings, equipment and vehicles—throughout their lifecycle.
MAS offers connected features for enterprise asset management, asset performance management and asset investment planning. With these features, MAS has extended asset lifespan by 17%, reduced unplanned downtime by 47% and enhanced asset manager productivity by 40%, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). Maximo serves diverse sectors, including manufacturing, energy and transportation, enhancing asset monitoring, enabling condition-based maintenance and ensuring adherence to regulatory requirements.
There are different ways to deploy MAS on Red Hat® OpenShift®. Here, we’re focusing on the deployment of MAS on Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO) by using the Ansible DevOps Collection.
Now, running this collection involves running Ansible scripts or commands on local machines, which might lack clarity and accountability regarding what configurations were made and who performed them. Also, it does not cater to teams aiming for a centralized configuration that can be easily shared and reproduced. This stage is where the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform provides value.
Setting up MAS is a vast process that involves deploying and configuring numerous components. An example of this setup is shown in the architecture diagram, which illustrates how the MAS components are deployed on ARO:
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform (AAP) is a comprehensive solution designed for strategic automation. It offers the security, functionality, integrations and adaptability required to expand automation across various domains, streamline critical workflows and enhance IT operations.
By incorporating an array of tools and features, the platform ensures consistent and scalable automation, empowering organizations to optimize IT processes and embrace enterprise AI successfully. Its versatility supports diverse applications, from automating everyday tasks to managing complex workflows, making it an ideal choice for improving operational efficiency and ensuring security.
Using Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to deploy MAS provides complete control over the solution's deployment and configuration. It uses the platform's capabilities to facilitate deployment by managing off-cluster resources, cloud operations, business continuity and lifecycle management. This automated approach streamlines the process of installing MAS on Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO). Although MAS is compatible with other Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform environments, this discussion covers deploying MAS on ARO using Ansible Automation Platform.
Azure Red Hat OpenShift is a fully managed application platform that allows you to quickly build, deploy and manage Red Hat OpenShift clusters on Microsoft Azure. More than just a Kubernetes platform, this comprehensive application platform provides built-in developer and operational tools and services that simplify containerized application development and management.
Jointly operated and supported by Microsoft and Red Hat, this platform offers automated operations, integrated security and scalability. It’s designed to streamline workflows, enhance DevOps processes, and provide a seamless experience for deploying and scaling applications in the cloud. As a first-party Azure solution, ARO offers easy integration with Azure services. This approach allows customers to draw down their Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) and use a single bill to simplify operations.
Deploy Maximo Application Suite on Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO) by using Ansible Automation Platform
IBM offers an Ansible Automation Platform Execution Environment container image through the Ansible DevOps GitHub repository. This execution environment image is based on Red Hat's latest ansible-automation-platform-24/ee-supported-rhel9 image, which includes Ansible Core, Python dependencies and collections supported by Red Hat. The Ansible DevOps execution environment image also incorporates the IBM MAS DevOps collection along with all the necessary client libraries for operation.
The image is uploaded to quay.io for consumption by the Ansible Automation Platform. Details on how to set up and configure Ansible Automation Platform can be found in the documentation.
With the MAS Execution Environment set up in the Ansible Automation Platform, you can execute your own playbooks to use the roles included in the collection. The documentation provides examples of playbooks for installing and configuring MAS on ARO. Managing your organization's playbooks through source control and running them within Ansible Automation Platform offers a more flexible and tailored approach to deploying and configuring MAS.
The capabilities of the Ansible Automation Platform and the MAS Execution Environment go beyond the initial installation and configuration of MAS. They also support Day 2 operations, such as performing backups or restores, by using the predefined roles in the MAS DevOps Ansible Collection along with the installed libraries.
Because the MAS Execution Environment is derived from Red Hat's official, supported execution environment, it grants access to all of Red Hat's supported collections. This functionality enables the creation of more advanced jobs and workflows within the Ansible Automation Platform. Therefore, tasks like configuring Azure resources—such as subnets and firewalls—can be seamlessly integrated with MAS configuration processes.
Learn more about the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform Service in Azure Marketplace here. You can also watch a demo video covering a core automation use case for Azure, deploying and retiring cloud resources. Try the hands-on, self-paced Ansible Automation Platform in Azure labs. There are multiple labs covering various topics:
- Infrastructure visibility (infrastructure awareness and reporting on Azure)
- Cloud operations (Day 2 operations on Azure)
- Infrastructure optimization (cloud control on Azure)
For hands-on, self-paced labs on Ansible Automation Platform, look at these resources, or at the Ansible Automation Platform documentation. When you get familiar with Ansible Automation Platform, you can use it to leverage the MAS Ansible collection and MAS Execution Environment to help deploy and manage your MAS environments.