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Deploying your OpenShift cluster and jump host

Deploying your OpenShift cluster and jump host

This topic takes you through the steps for creating the Red Hat® OpenShift® on IBM Cloud® cluster and the associated jump host.

Before you begin

When you create the Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud cluster, it is important that the flavor meets SAP's sizing recommendations and your expected workload characteristics, as well as the expected data volumes. The following implementation scenario is based on Minimum Sizing for SAP Data Intelligence and therefore is appropriate for a very basic test environment, only. When planning to setup and deploy a production cluster you must carefully consult the Sizing Guide for SAP Data Intelligence and adapt the flavors that will meet your specific needs. Before creating your cluster, please refer to the most recent SAP documentation, like Installation and Administration Guide. You may find more related information in SAP's Community page.

Please check that your IBM Cloud account is eligible to create clusters. For more information and the steps to set up your account, see Prepare to create clusters at the account level.

Provisioning your OpenShift cluster

Use the following steps to create your Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud cluster. Again, the values used in this scenario are suggestions for a test environment. Please, select additional optional values that will fit your specific needs.

Currently, IBM Cloud offers several Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud versions, starting from 4.6.x up to 4.10.x.

Please consider that SAP only supports Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud version 4.8.x for SAP Data Intelligence 3.2

The Information button provides field-specific information on how to use a field.

  1. Log in to IBM Cloud console and click Create cluster +.

  2. Select your setup - Leave the value set to Manual Setup.

  3. Select Classic for Infrastructure.

  4. Leave the value Default for Resource group.

  5. Select the Geography and the Worker zone based on your geographic location and select Single zone for Availability.

  6. Leave the default Private VLAN and Public VLAN settings that are based on your previous location selections.

    You can change these values if necessary, but make sure that your cluster, VLAN, and jump host are in the same worker zone, i.e. data center.

  7. Check you Worker pool and select at least 8 vCPUs, 32 GB RAM for Flavor and 3 Worker nodes per data center for the test environment.

  8. Leave the values set to Worker pool name, Encrypt local disk and the Master service endpoint

  9. Review the Orchestration service and Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud version details and select Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud 4.8.x.

    Please remember that SAP supports Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud version 4.8.x only!

  10. Check your OCP entitlement - Leave the value set to Purchase additional licenses for this worker pool.

  11. Enter a Cluster name, for example sap-di32-cluster, and optionally Tags.

  12. Check if you want to connect none, one or more of the available integrations, like Activity tracking, Logging and Monitoring

  13. In the Summary pane on the left, review the order summary and then click Create.

For many more additional information on the fields, see Creating a classic standard cluster in the console.

Provisioning your jump host

The jump host's hardware and software requirements are 4 cores, 16 GB RAM, 20 GB disk space, OS: Red Hat 8.x. You can either use a suitable jump server that is connected to the Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud cluster in IBM Cloud, or you can use the following steps to create an IBM® Virtual Servers instance to serve as your jump host.

  1. Log in to IBM Cloud console and click Order +.
  2. Select Virtual Servers for Classic.
  3. Leave the default value Public for Type of virtual server.
  4. Enter a name, for example jump4sdi, for Hostname. Click Information for formatting specifics.
  5. Enter a name, for example, ocpsditest.org for Domain. Domain is the identification string that defines administrative control within the internet. Click Information for formatting specifics.
  6. Leave the default values 1, hourly and None for Quantity, Billing and Placement group.
  7. Select the Location of the same data center (zone) where you set up your Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud cluster.
  8. Click View all profiles and select B1.4x16, which is the minimum requirement.
  9. Provide your SSH key for SSH Keys or leave the default None. For more information on SSH keys, see About SSH keys.
  10. Check your Operating System - Select Red Hat for Vendor and 8.x - Minimal (64 bit) - HVM for Version.
  11. Leave the default values for all the other entry fields.
  12. In the Summary pane on the left, check the Third-Party Service Agreements and click Create.

Your Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud cluster and your virtual server should be available in about 15 minutes.

Preparing the jump host

Before setting up the Red Hat® OpenShift® on IBM Cloud® cluster on which SAP Data Intelligence will be deployed, you need to prepare your jump host.

If you have created the jump server following the steps listed above, you first should update the operating system to the latest level, and then restart the virtual server instance.

  1. upade the OS

    sudo dnf update       # press 'y' when prompted

  2. reboot

    sudo reboot

Before you begin

It's recommended you become familiar with the Managing your IBM Cloud accounts. Your IBM Cloud user ID must at least have the cluster Administrator role.

Install and verify the Command Line Interfaces (CLIs) for both, IBM Cloud and Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud

Use the following commands to download and install the CLIs you use to configure the connection between your Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud cluster and your jump host.

  1. Login to the jump host and install the IBM Cloud CLI ibmcloud.

    curl -fsSL https://clis.cloud.ibm.com/install/linux | sudo sh

    For more information on IBM Cloud CLI, see Getting started with the IBM Cloud CLI.

  2. Download and install the Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud 4.8.x CLI oc and the related Kubernetes command line tool kubectl.

    If not yet available, install wget.

    sudo dnf install wget

    Download the stable version Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud 4.8.x CLI.

    sudo wget https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/x86_64/clients/ocp/stable-4.8/openshift-client-linux.tar.gz

    Unpack the tar file that contains the Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud client (oc) and the Kubernetes command line tool (kubectl).

    tar -zxf openshift-client-linux.tar.gz

    Set the executable attribute - if necessary.

    $ chmod +x oc
$ chmod +x kubectl

    Move both files to the local executables directory.

    $ sudo mv oc /usr/local/bin
$ sudo mv kubectl /usr/local/bin

  3. Verify the installation of the IBM Cloud CLI.

    ibmcloud dev -v

    Example output:

    ibmcloud dev version 2.12.0

  4. Verify oc.

    oc version --client

    Example output:

    Client Version: 4.8.39

  5. Verify kubectl.

    kubectl version --client

    Example output:

    Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"21", GitVersion:"v0.21.0-beta.1", ...

Install and verify Docker

  1. Install Docker CLI emulator powered by podman.

    sudo dnf install podman-docker       # press 'y' when prompted

    Docker daemon is no longer available on Red Hat 8.

  2. Verify the Docker CLI emulator.

    podman version

    Example output:

    Client:       Podman Engine
Version:      4.0.2
API Version:  4.0.2
Go Version:   go1.17.7

Built:      Tue Apr 19 05:16:32 2022
OS/Arch:    linux/amd64

Store your login credentials and create a working directory on your jump host

  1. Log in to IBM Cloud for the first time.

    Refer to Configure your environment to learn more about the login command ibmcloud and the --sso parameter.

    ibmcloud login [--sso]        # select the appropriate region, e.g. us-south

  2. Create the API key file.

    Create an IBM Cloud API key file. The command is:

    ibmcloud iam api-key-create <APIKeyName> -d <description> --file <APIKeyFilename>

    The API key file will be stored in your current directory. 

    $ ibmcloud iam api-key-create sdi-apikey-admin -d "API Key for managing the SAP Data Intelligence cluster" --file APIKey4sdi_file

  3. Logout again after this initial step.

    ibmcloud logout

  4. Create a working directory

    Choose a meaningful file path where you will copy the SAP installation files to and where you will launch the installer that will create log files.

    mkdir -p ~/sap/install

Creating a new Container Registry namespace.

  1. Log in to IBM Cloud using the API key file that you have created during the previous step.

    The command is ibmcloud login --apikey @<APIKeyFilename>.

    ibmcloud login --apikey @~/APIKey4sdi_file

  2. Install the Red Hat® OpenShift® on IBM Cloud® Container Registry and the container services plug-ins.

    $ ibmcloud plugin install container-registry
$ ibmcloud plugin install container-service

  3. For this example, the namespace name is sap_di_cr, which is an acronym for SAP Data Intelligence - Container Registry - OpenShift.

    $ ibmcloud cr login

$ ibmcloud cr namespace-add sap_di_cr

  4. Verify that the namespace is created.

    ibmcloud cr namespace-list

Accessing the Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud cluster

After logging in to the jump host you must complete the following steps before you can work with your cluster.

  1. Determine the cluster ID on which you want to install SAP Data Intelligence.

    ibmcloud oc cluster ls

    Name                ID                     State    Created        Workers   ...
sap-di32-cluster    bm****************kg   normal   1 days ago     3         ...
...

  2. Download the Kubernetes configuration files and certificates to connect the jump host to your cluster - copy the cluster name from the previous step.

    ibmcloud oc cluster config --admin --cluster sap-di32-cluster

  3. Logout of IBM Cloud.

    ibmcloud logout

You have created a Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud cluster, prepared the jump host and are now ready to prepare and install SAP Data Intelligence.

Next Step