Experiment - Business workflow on Single Node OpenShift

Rashid · November 20, 2023

sno   automation   workflow

In my previous blog, I discussed about Red Hat Single Node Openshift and how to extend executing applications in a distributed computing framework.

I will explore IBM Business Workflow Services in a Single Node Openshift deployment in this blog. The services are part of IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation. It is a modular set of integrated software components built for a hybrid cloud, designed to automate work and accelerate business growth.

The platform allows digitizing business operations such as content, workflow, decisions, and capture. In my experiment, I focused on the workflow component.

Steps

Setup Single Node OpenShift:

I used the following hardware specifications:

  • 64 vCPU cores
  • 250GB of RAM
  • 300GB Storage

You can refer to the official guide for the deployment: Installing OpenShift on a single node.

Storage layer

You will need to provide file and block storage classes.

Here are some options:

  • If you run on a public cloud, I prefer using their storage ecosystem such as AWS EBS or Azure Disk.
  • Otherwise, you can consider other options, such as LVM Operator, Rook Ceph, or NFS server.

Prepare the OpenShift for Cloud Pak for Business Automation deployment

  • Create a new project
oc new-project cp4a
  • Create a cp4a user

You can use any other supported method. I used htpasswd for simplicity :)

htpasswd -c -B -b ./users.htpasswd cp4a password

oc create secret generic htpass-secret --from-file=htpasswd=./users.htpasswd -n openshift-config

cat << EOF | oc apply -f -
apiVersion: config.openshift.io/v1
kind: OAuth
metadata:
  name: cluster
spec:
  identityProviders:
  - name: my_htpasswd_provider 
    mappingMethod: claim 
    type: HTPasswd
    htpasswd:
      fileData:
        name: htpass-secret 
  EOF   

oc login -u cp4a

oc whoami
  • Create the entitlement key
oc create secret docker-registry ibm-entitlement-key \
    --docker-username=cp \
    --docker-password=myEntitlementKey \
    --docker-server=cp.icr.io \
    --namespace=myNamespace

You can find the key in the MyIBM Container Software Library

  • Create a serviceAccount
cat << EOF | oc apply -f -
apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: ibm-cp4ba-anyuid
imagePullSecrets:
- name: "ibm-entitlement-key"
EOF
  • Bind the security context constraints to the serviceAccount
oc adm policy add-scc-to-user anyuid -z ibm-cp4ba-anyuid

  • Download the cert-kubernetes repository.

  • Extract the contents from the .tarfile in the ibm-cp-automation/inventory/cp4aOperatorSdk/files/deploy/crs folder.

  • Run ./cp4a-clusteradmin-setup.sh script.

The starter deployment provisions PostgreSQL and OpenLDAP with the default values, so you do not need to prepare them in advance.

Install Cloud Pak for Business Automation

  • Run ./cp4a-deployment.sh script.

  • Follow the script’s instruction by providing the required information such as:

  • “Is this a new installation or an existing installation?” New
  • “What type of deployment is being performed?” Starter
  • “Select the cloud platform to deploy” Openshift Container Platform (OCP) - Private Cloud

In a later stage, you will be asked which capabilities you want to deploy … in my case, I used Workflow Authoring and Workstream Services (Option 5). You can choose the same or try something different.

Results

  • Business Automation Workflow: Studio

  • Business Automation Workflow: Workplace

  • Deployment usage

  • OpenShift usage (idle state)

Shout out to Lamiaa Said for the deployment support.