What's new in IBM Cloud Pak for Integration 2023.4.1

Find out about new features and improvements in IBM Cloud Pak® for Integration.

To get updates between releases:

Important announcements - Sign up at My Notifications.

Tips on getting the most out of Cloud Pak for Integration capabilities - Go to Cloud Pak for Integration Community Blog.

The latest fixpack versions - See "Export commands for all operators" in Adding catalog sources to a cluster (OPERATOR_VERSION=x.x.x).

New features

Cloud Pak for Integration version 2023.4.1 adds the following enhancements, including a large number of new features available in the IBM Cloud Pak Platform UI:

Platform UI architecture simplification

The Platform UI architecture is simplified, resulting in the following benefits:

  • Improved resilience and maintenance, because each instance now has an independent routes to access it.

  • Significant reduction of resources that are needed by the Platform UI and auth components (50%-100%, depending on the metric). For more information, see Compute resources for development environments.

  • The Platform UI no longer requires RWX storage. For more information, see Storage considerations.

  • Installation is 5 times faster.

  • Simplified experience for configuring external route TLS.

The Platform UI has a new home page and theme switcher

The new home page design enables faster, simpler navigation. The new welcome banner includes a theme switcher that gives you a choice between a light theme, dark theme, or custom theme (to match your existing system UI).

Declarative APIs and declarative API Products can be managed from the Platform UI

The Platform UI now displays declarative API and declarative API product instances. It also supports creation, edit, viewing, and deletion actions, with a new form view to simplify creation. For more information, see Using declarative APIs and Using declarative API Products.

Share and reuse more custom resources templates in the Platform UI

Users can share and reuse templates to create any integration instance. These templates are managed from Automation assets. For more information, see Using the Platform UI.

Labelling enhancement in the Platform UI

Users can add labels to instances so that they can be grouped, backed up, and tracked more effectively. For more information, see Using the Platform UI.

New canvas authoring tool in the Platform UI

A new flexible, graphical canvas interface enables you to create, manage, and connect integration instances and other components in a single workflow.

You can now deploy your integrations from the Canvas view, as well as the existing UI form and YAML views. You can also use any of these views to configure existing instances. Updates that you make in one view are simultaneously updated in the other views. For example, updates that you make in the canvas also appear in the corresponding YAML code. For more information, see Using the canvas to create instances and integrations.

Disaster recovery with OADP

You can now backup and restore the following instance types in Cloud Pak for Integration by using Red Hat OpenShift API for Data Protection (OADP):

Operator Instance type
Cloud Pak for Integration
  • Platform UI
IBM Automation Foundation assets
  • Automation assets
IBM App Connect
  • Configuration
  • Integration dashboard
  • Integration design
  • Integration runtime
  • Integration server
  • Switch server
IBM Event Streams
  • Kafka cluster
  • Kafka connect
  • Kafka topic
  • Kafka user
  • Kafka bridge
  • Kafka connector
  • Kafka reblanace

OADP provides an alternative method of protecting these instances from a disaster scenario, compared to the automated approach that is described in Disaster recovery. For more information about backing up Cloud Pak for Integration instances by using OADP, see Backing up and restoring IBM Cloud Pak for Integration.

Entitlement to Storage Fusion Essentials

Cloud Pak for Integration 2023.4.1 customers have entitlement to Storage Fusion Essentials. This offers clients entitlement to storage without purchasing an additional storage license, and includes support for Block, File and Object Storage. Included in Storage Fusion Essentials through Cloud Pak for Integration entitlement:

  • Fusion Data Foundation internal deployment node up to 12TB per cluster. This includes compression, cluster-wide encryption and cross-availability zone HA.

  • No usage time limit.

  • Fully supported by IBM.

For more information, see Licensing.

Product changes

Support for IBM zCX Foundation for Red Hat OpenShift

Cloud Pak for Integration supports installation on IBM zCX Foundation for Red Hat OpenShift. For more information, see Operating environment.

Support for single node OpenShift

Cloud Pak for Integration supports installation on single node OpenShift, offering flexibility for your deployment topologies. Use cases in which single node OpenShift may support your goals include resource-constrained environments and edge site deployments. For more information, see Installing on a single node OpenShift (SNO) cluster.

Keycloak for identity and access management (IAM)

Keycloak is an identity and access management system now available in IBM Cloud Pak for Integration. Administrators can define admin and viewer roles for users across the Cloud Pak. Additional fine-grained roles can be defined for specific instances.

The IBM Cloud Pak foundational services operator automatically installs Keycloak when it is needed by an instance that is part of Cloud Pak for Integration. For more information, see Identity and access management.

Removal of Grafana that is provided by IBM Cloud Pak foundational services

Effective with Cloud Pak for Integration 2023.4.1 , the Grafana monitoring operators installed by Cloud Pak foundational services is removed. No further updates will be provided. No new uses of this service can be started.

Users who want to implement monitoring should use Instana monitoring. For more information, see Enabling IBM Instana monitoring.

Users who want to implement Grafana need to install the community operator. Confirm that you have sufficient unrestricted OpenShift entitlement to install community software. Entitlement from the OpenShift 'restricted' licenses that are included with Cloud Pak for Integration cannot be used for this purpose. You can then upload a custom dashboard using the examples under "Dashboard examples" in Enabling OpenShift Container Platform monitoring.

Changes to IBM Cloud Pak foundational services operator installation

The IBM Cloud Pak foundational services operator is no longer installed automatically. Install this operator manually if you need to create an instance that uses identity and access management. Also, make sure you have a certificate manager; otherwise, the IBM Cloud Pak foundational services operator installation will not complete.

License Service is installed independently

The License Service must now be installed independently. Depending on how you previously installed the License Service, it might have been uninstalled during the upgrade to this version.

To install the License Service, follow the instructions in Deploying License Service.

Support for using OpenShift-hosted control planes

Cloud Pak for Integration now supports installing on a cluster by using OpenShift-hosted control planes.

Documentation updates

This release includes a number of improvements to the Cloud Pak for Integration documentation, including:

  • Upgrading: updated content on using an upgrade plan in Managing versions and upgrades by using the Platform UI.

  • A new, comprehensive section on using Keycloak for identity and access management (IAM).

  • For U.S. government clients that need to comply with Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS), documentation on the FIPS compliance status for Cloud Pak for Integration and instances, and instructions on how to deploy into a FIPS-enabled OpenShift Container Platform cluster.

  • Guidance using the new canvas tool to connect and manage instances.

  • Improvements to Licensing page. based on stakeholder feedback.

  • Updated troubleshooting content in Known limitations.

New releases of instances

Instances are listed by their product operator names (for example, Queue manager is listed as "IBM MQ").

This release of Cloud Pak for Integration includes the following updates to products:

For information about previous releases, see the Cloud Pak for Integration documentation.

System requirements

See System requirements for complete information.

Known issues

For known issues and workarounds, see Known limitations.