IBM Cloud Paks for Integration aka CP4I — Learn & Share(Part1)

Target Audience : Integration Architects focused on building cloud native platform for hosting IBM products including MQ , ACE , API Connect , Datapower .

Disclaimer : Views are of my own and reflects my personal understanding .

This is my 1st blog about CP4I, as I wanted to share my learning gained over past few months .

What exactly is CP4I, it’s one of IBM Cloud Paks launched around early 2020. To my understanding, its IBM strategic vision to offer its traditional industry leading Integration products in true cloud native architecture — which aims at

1. Software offered in fully containerized — the way they are built, deployed , managed and consumed.
2. CP4I runs in a fully supported way on RedHat Openshift. It’s Openshift only and not supported on another Kubernetes platform. Reason is that IBM is 100% committed to Hybrid Cloud and RHOCP is supported as PaaS or self-managed on IaaS in your own data center (on-premise) as well as in any Cloud (AWS, Azure, Google, IBM Cloud…)
3. To have one common function layer and a tight integration on strategy of CloudPaks development on & for openshift.

Note: The included OCP licenses may not be used for other purposes. There are some licensing aspects, so best to ask respective Sales rep.

3. CP4I is not one product, but per me a framework comprising of various Operators ( available in IBM Openshift operator hub ). These operators are purpose built and certified to deploy/manage containerized workloads and have a lifecycle , where IBM will enhance them as part of CP4I product lifecycle.

Read product documentation @ IBM Cloud Pak for Integration Version 2020.4.1

• Base Horizontal Layer which is IBM Common Services (between this is common to all of other Cloud Paks ) which are generic services including license metering, IAM, end-to-end monitoring, Logging , Prometheus etc
• IBM Integration Platform Navigator — This is really great as it holds together an Integration centric view of all products deployed on OCP cluster (specific to CP4I operators). It’s basically a Self-Service Portal where users (based on their permission) gets a view assigned, can deploy resources, can connect to further web admin consoles, open logging etc.

(for below functional operators, I will plan to share my understanding in upcoming article) As the name says, these operators are purpose built as the name says for that specific IBM product.

• MQ operator
• ACE operator
• Datapower operator
• API Connect operator
• Aspera operator
• Operations Dashboard — this is really another exciting feature , which aims at providing a Transactional level view on Integrations flowing within CP4I. basically, it’s based on Tracing agents being injected into workloads , which aims at sending info about transactions to Ops Dashboard . From my learnings and what I learned from Cp4I team — this is not equivalent and not a monitoring solution. But, more to offer Tracing to Dev and Ops team. Also, its an optional feature if one wants to use say in MQ Queue Manager or even at message level.

4) CP4I requires either Block or File storage. Please do check IBM Cp4I knowledge page — this is very specific and supported on certified storage providers. During my interactions, one of recommended approach is to use Openshift Container Storage (which is another RedHat Operator ) to be deployed in same cluster but dedicated worker nodes — to present Block, File and Object storage. (will try to capture more in upcoming articles). CP4I includes entitlements for 12 TB of Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage.

5) Why Cloud Native — In my view for 2 reasons ( obviously there are many more)

• CP4I built on containerized architecture
• Openshift ( being the hosting layer ) can be deployed on most of public cloud providers, OnPremise — so Cp4I shall also work. I have myself tried it on OCP deployed on VMware ( UPI mode) and Azure RedHat Openshift (ARO)

6) Why CP4I — the most important why should one use CP4I. Again my personal view, however there are many more advantages which I have either not explored or beyond my level of knowledge.

• IBMs strategic vision and direction , most likely this might be the “New Normal” in upcoming years for Architectures to support Cloud Native and containerized workloads.
• If a company has existing deployment of IBM Integration products and is on its path of Digital transformation — where its required to either upgrade existing integration deployments or Cloud Journey where we still want to say MQ on Azure or AWS , then this will be a very good way forward.
• with CP4I its not just the functional products like MQ, ACE , Datapower but the surrounding ecosystem of IBM Common Services , IBM Integration Platform Navigator , Operations Dashboard — it gives a wholesome feeling of what everyone had to develop on their own — like centralized logging, common dashboard for all products, etc
• New SRE ways of working — Being built as a Cloud Native product and on openshift , gives CP4I needed capabilities where Developer and Operations team can fully work in SRE ways , like I am working on use-case where we will keep all configurations in Git and use DevOps CI-CD tools for automatic deployments and Syncing .

About Me:

I am Anshul Rastogi, currently working as Solutions Architect around Integration Platform and Managed services.

With good support and guidance , I started my journey into CP4I more as a HOBBY project where I learned about Openshift, kubernetes , new SRE ways of working . But, now I am involved on Live Customer Project involving CP4I.

Thanks to IBM Cloud Paks Acceleration Team (aka Garage ), with whom I have worked closely — so far the best team and really skilled Architects, Developers, SME and they have really aimed at supporting partners and customers.