What are the current limitations for containerized deployments of FileNet Content Manager and IBM Content Foundation

Answer

There are two types of limitations identified in this technote:

• Current limitations: Limitations that might be removed in future FileNet Content Manager, IBM Content Foundation, and IBM Content Navigator releases.
• Platform limitations: Limitations that are caused by the underlying technology used in the containers. It is unlikely that these limitations will be removed in a future release.

Current Limitations

The following capabilities are not currently supported in a containerized environment:

• Content Federation Services for Image Services (CFS-IS)

  As of P8 5.5.10, this limitation is removed.

• Content Federation Services for IBM Content Integrator (CFS-ICI)
• Content Federation Services for Content Manager OnDemand (CFS-CMOD)
• Content Platform Engine request forwarding

  As of P8 5.5.10, this limitation is removed for content services requests. Request forwarding related to workflow processing is still not available.

• For Content Navigator
  • Classic theme
  • Using a configuration database from a traditional installation for an IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation installation. The desktops, and so on, must be manually re-created. For more information about this topic, see the following technote: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6608650. Note that the configuration database from a traditional install can be used with a standalone Content Navigator container; however, updates might be needed.
  • In a traditional/container side-by-side environment, use separate configuration databases for the traditional and containerized environments. Separate configuration databases are required to ensure that the traditional Content Navigator interacts with a traditional Content Platform Engine installation, and the containerized Content Navigator interacts with the containerized Content Platform Engine installation,
  • Connecting to Box.
  • External Share is not supported in a Cloud Pak for Business Automation deployment.
  • When used with a FileNet repository, the Content Platform Engine must also be running in a container and connectivity must use the WSI protocol and not EJB.

Platform Limitations

The following capabilities are not supported by WebSphere Liberty and therefore cannot be supported in a containerized environment:

• Virtual Member Manager (VMM)

  If you use this capability and want to move to containers, an LDAP migration is required. Contact IBM Expert Services for help with the LDAP migration.

• EJB protocol

  If you use this capability and want to move to containers, update your applications to use the Web Services Interface (WSI), or consider rewriting your applications to use GraphQL.

• Web Services Security (WS-Security) in the CMIS 1.1 specification

  The CMIS v1.1 implementation is available, with the limitation that support for Web Services Security (WS-Security) is not available as Liberty does not support using an LTPA key as a WS-Security token.

  The CMIS v1.0 implementation is not available in the container environment.

No Plans To Support

This section identifies the features or integrations for which there are no plans to add support with containers:

• Watson Explorer
• Watson Video Viewer

Other Considerations

The following list identifies some additional items to consider before implementing a move to containers:

• Containers support a single mount point for file storage. If you use more than one mount point, update your file storage locations to use the same mount point.
• For the types of storage that can be used with containers, see the following technote:  https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6592835
• The following tools run outside of a container:
  • Content Engine Bulk Import Tool (CEBIT)
  • FileNet Deployment Manager (FDM)
  • Process Designer