As I mentioned in my previous article , I decided to start writing technical articles about some of the IBM products I work with.
This is second article for me and it is about the IBM Content Navigator and Red hat OpenShift.
What is IBM Content Navigator?
IBM Content Navigator (ICN) is a web-based content management client that provides an end-user interface for several IBM content management products, including:
IBM FileNet P8
IBM Content Manager
IBM Content Manager OnDemand
In a typical IBM FileNet environment, Content Navigator provides the web-based user interface through which users can access documents, folders, searches, workflows, and other content management capabilities.
For more information about the IBM Content Navigator, see the IBM documentation.
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/content-navigator/3.2.0
Create a Project in OpenShift for IBM Content Navigator
In the my first article i created the project which name is bbs-filenet.
In this environment, IBM FileNet Content Manager and IBM Content Navigator use the same OpenShift project.
If you would like to see how the OpenShift project and IBM FileNet Content Manager environment were initially created, please see my previous article:
Since we already have an OpenShift project for IBM FileNet Content Manager, we can deploy IBM Content Navigator into the same project.
Another important point is that there is no need to install a separate operator specifically for IBM Content Navigator. The existing FileNet Content Manager operator and Custom Resource can be used to configure the Content Navigator deployment.
Custom Resource Definition (CRD) File
When deploying IBM Content Navigator on Red Hat OpenShift, we use a Custom Resource (CR) YAML file.
In this deployment, I use the same CR file that was previously used to deploy IBM FileNet Content Manager. I only add and modify the required configuration parameters for IBM Content Navigator.
The sample CR file is shown below.
I will also attach the complete CR file to this article:
ibm_fncm_article_with_navigator.yaml
Because IBM FileNet Content Manager has already been deployed in this OpenShift cluster, I configure the optional components as follows:
content_optional_components:
cmis: false
css: false
es: false
tm: false
cpe: true
graphql: false
ban: true
cpe: true keeps the Content Platform Engine configuration enabled.
ban: true enables the Business Automation Navigator component used by IBM Content Navigator.
The other optional components are disabled because they are not required for this particular deployment.
After the deployment, IBM Content Navigator can be accessed through the following URL
For this environment, I configured the following hostname:
The relevant configuration is:
navigator_configuration:
ban_secret_name: ibm-ban-secret
hostname: navigator.bbsopenshift.com
replica_count: 1
The important parameters are:
ban_secret_name and hostname
ban_secret_name: ibm-ban-secret
This specifies the OpenShift Secret that contains the sensitive configuration information required by IBM Content Navigator.
hostname: navigator.bbsopenshift.com
This defines the hostname used to access IBM Content Navigator
One of the most important differences between the initial FileNet deployment and this Content Navigator deployment is the sc_content_initialization parameter.
In the initial FileNet Content Manager deployment, I used sc_content_initialization: true
This is required when the FileNet Content Services infrastructure is being initialized for the first time.
However, in this deployment, FileNet Content Manager has already been installed and initialized on the OpenShift cluster.
Therefore, there is no need to initialize the Content Services infrastructure again.
For this reason, I set sc_content_initialization: false
Storage Class:
As shown in the screenshot below, there is the same managed-nfs-storage in Storage Class for IBM FileNet Content Manager and IBM ICN
Secrets:
ibm-ban-secret : The ibm-ban-secret is a required secret that stores sensitive credentials and database login information for an IBM ICN container deployment.
For more information, see the IBM documentation below:
Persistent volumes and persistent volume claims (PV and PVC)
In this deployment, I did not manually create static Persistent Volumes (PVs) and Persistent Volume Claims (PVCs).
Instead, the existing storage configuration and dynamic provisioning mechanism were used.
For a production environment, however, you should design persistent storage according to your organization’s storage architecture, availability requirements, backup strategy, and OpenShift storage capabilities.
As shown in the screenshots below, if the claim column in the PV starts with icn, we see IBM ICN, and if it starts with cpe, we see FileNet Content Manager (FNCM) PVs.
Likewise if the name column in the PVC starts with icn, we see IBM ICN, and if it starts with cpe, we see FileNet Content Manager (FNCM) PVCs.
As shown in the command below, you can see the PV and PVC in the terminal only for bbs-filenet project. Additionally I prefer using terminal commands to view PV and PVCs in the OpenShift interface.
oc get pv -n bbs-filenet:
oc get pvc -n bbs-filenet :
In conclusion, we apply the CR file to deploy IBM ICN on the OpenShift cluster using the following command from the bastion host. The deployment takes approximately 10 -15 minutes in our environment. Additionally It depend on the your environment . I mean that it depends on OCP Cluster performance, CPU and memory , storage performce, database and network connectivity
Therefore, your deployment time may be different.
oc apply -f ibm_fncm_article_with_navigator.yaml
When deploying the IBM ICN , you can see the operator, pod, deployment and routes
During the deployment, you can monitor the resources created by the operator , and pods with below commands.
Deployments:
oc get deployments -n bbs-filenet
Pod :
oc get pods -n bbs-filenet
Services:
oc get svc -n bbs-filenet
Route:
oc get routes -n bbs-filenet
Finally IBM ICN screens are below
The complete CR file used in this article is available here ibm_fncm_article_with_navigator.yaml
What’s Next?
In my upcoming articles, I plan to cover:
· SSL/TLS configuration for IBM FileNet Content Manager
· Static PV and PVC configuration on OpenShift for IBM FileNet File Storage and Advanced Storage Area
· IBM watsonx integration
· Additional OpenShift administration and troubleshooting topics
If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me.