What's new in the current release (version 2020.4.1)

Extended Update Support

Extended Update Support, available for Red Hat OpenShift 4.6, provides a longer time for which updates to the offering are provided. Cloud Pak for Integration 2020.4.1, running only on Red Hat OpenShift 4.6, benefits from defect support until October 27, 2022, in line with the Extended Update Support provided for Red Hat OpenShift 4.6. Organizations can remain on the same release in order to maintain stable production environments for critical applications.

Security bulletins:

Review these security bulletins for potential vulnerabilities with EUS:

Use of DataPower Integration Module

DataPower Integration Module adds support for any-to-any connectivity, IMS integration, and SQL Database Connectivity. Within the Cloud Pak for Integration 2020.4.1 license entitlement, the Integration Module is available for users of DataPower Gateway Virtual Edition.

Access to demo environment scripts

Using a single click, Cloud Pak for Integration 2020.4.1 provides a script to make it easy to launch a demo environment. This capability enables usable demo examples that help highlight capabilities of this release. Cloud Pak for Integration 2020.4.1 includes examples showing how to build demos. For more information, see CP4I deployment samples.

Enhancements to Operators for some components

All Cloud Pak for Integration components are configured and deployed using Operators. In Cloud Pak for Integration 2020.3.1, updates were made to many of the Operators to provide enhanced tooling and additional assistance when using Operators. In Cloud Pak for Integration 2020.4.1, the Operators for MQ and API Connect also benefit from this enhancement to help make it easier for users of all skill levels to deploy and manage components in Cloud Pak for Integration.

Event-driven flows in App Connect Designer

Integration use cases increasingly need to deliver more business agility, and in many cases that comes from responding to events. Enhancement in Cloud Pak for Integration 2020.4 enable the authoring of event-driven flows in App Connect Designer and the ability to deploy these enhancements using the App Connect Dashboard. This capability helps enable businesses to more quickly and simply respond to events through responses generated from integrated applications and assets.

For the Platform Navigator, cluster admins can now use their own logging stack.

Those who wish to use their own logging stack do not need to install the IBM Cloud Pak common services and can reduce their overall usage footprint. The custom resource value spec.loggingUrl enables usage of a custom logging stack. See Deploying platform navigator for more information.

There is a new asset type with support for App Connect Designer event flows

Ability to install in a restricted (air-gapped) network environment without using a bastion host

In addition to the current installation process using a bastion host, users in restricted network environments can now install using a portable storage device. This is useful for those who require a process where they can build an archive file on a machine connected to IBM/Docker, and then later transfer the archive file by the desired method, across their firewall, to a machine that is connected to their isolated cluster.

New connectors available

The capabilities of Cloud Pak for Integration 2020.4.1 to enable rapid connectivity to external systems is enhanced with the addition of new connectors, including those for Amazon DynamoDB, Jenkins, IBM Sterling™ Inventory Visibility and Dropbox. In addition, there is a new Kafka events connector provided that enables an integration flow to be triggered when a message is received about a specified Kafka topic.

Limited entitlement to IBM Storage Suite for Cloud Paks

Integration components that deploy in Red Hat OpenShift need to make use of appropriate storage that works with the Kubernetes environment. As part of Cloud Pak for Integration 2020.4.1, there is limited entitlement to Storage Suite for Cloud Paks. This provides limited access to a number of different storage offerings at no additional cost. Storage Suite for Cloud Paks includes Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage, Red Hat Ceph® Storage, as well as other storage options, including IBM Spectrum Virtualize, IBM Spectrum® Discover, and IBM Spectrum Scale. Not all storage options are included in the limited offering, and not all options that are included are currently supported by Cloud Pak for Integration. The entitlement is limited to a single period of up to three years, and storage is limited to a capacity of 12 TB for Red Hat OpenShift Container Storage and an additional capacity of 12 TB across the rest of the storage offerings.