Installing on OpenShift Container Platform

The following sections provide instructions about installing Event Streams on the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform. The instructions are based on using the OpenShift Container Platform web console and oc command-line utility.

Event Streams can also be installed as part of IBM Cloud Pak for Integration.

Overview

Event Streams is an operator-based release and uses custom resources to define your Event Streams configurations. The Event Streams operator uses the custom resources to deploy and manage the entire lifecycle of your Event Streams instances. Custom resources are presented as YAML configuration documents that define instances of the EventStreams custom resource type.

Installing Event Streams has two phases:

Install the Event Streams operator: this will deploy the operator that will install and manage your Event Streams instances.
Install one or more instances of Event Streams by using the operator.

Before you begin

Ensure you have set up your environment according to the prerequisites, including setting up your OpenShift Container Platform.
If you want to authenticate with Keycloak, ensure you have IBM Cloud Pak for Integration 2023.4.1 (operator version 7.2.0) or later installed, including the required dependencies.
Ensure you have planned for your installation, such as preparing for persistent storage, considering security options, and considering adding resilience through multiple availability zones.
Obtain the connection details for your OpenShift Container Platform cluster from your administrator.
The Event Streams UI includes dashboards for monitoring Kafka health and topic health. To provide metrics for these dashboards, ensure you enable the OpenShift Container Platform monitoring stack as described in the IBM Cloud Pak for Integration documentation.

In addition, to provide metrics about topic health, enable the Kafka Proxy.
In addition, for services offered by IBM Cloud Pak foundational services, ensure you have a supported version of the foundational services installed.

Create a project (namespace)

Create a namespace into which the Event Streams instance will be installed by creating a project. When you create a project, a namespace with the same name is also created.

Ensure you use a namespace that is dedicated to a single instance of Event Streams. This is required because Event Streams uses network security policies to restrict network connections between its internal components. A single namespace per instance also allows for finer control of user accesses.

Important: Do not use any of the default or system namespaces to install an instance of Event Streams (some examples of these are: default, kube-system, kube-public, and openshift-operators).

Creating a project by using the web console

Log in to the OpenShift Container Platform web console using your login credentials.
Expand the Home dropdown and select Projects to open the Projects panel.
Click Create Project.
Enter a new project name in the Name field, and optionally, a display name in the Display Name field, and a description in the Description field.
Click Create.

Creating a project by using the CLI

Log in to your Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform as a cluster administrator by using the oc CLI (oc login).
Run the following command to create a new project:
```
oc new-project <project_name> --description="<description>" --display-name="<display_name>"
```
Where description and display-name are optional flags to set a description and custom descriptive name for your project.
Ensure you are using the project you created by selecting it as follows:
```
oc project <new-project-name>
```
The following message is displayed if successful:
```
Now using project "<new-project-name>" on server "https://<OpenShift-host>:6443".
```

Choose the operator installation mode

Before installing the Event Streams operator, decide if you want the operator to:

Manage instances of Event Streams in any namespace.

To use this option, select All namespaces on the cluster (default) later. The operator will be deployed into the system namespace openshift-operators, and will be able to manage instances of Event Streams in any namespace.
Only manage instances of Event Streams in a single namespace.

To use this option, select A specific namespace on the cluster later. The operator will be deployed into the specified namespace, and will not be able to manage instances of Event Streams in any other namespace.

Important: When multiple Event Streams operators are installed on the same cluster, all the operators share the same custom resource definitions (CRDs). Do not install a previous version of the Event Streams operator if a later version is already installed on the same cluster.

Creating an image pull secret

Before installing an Event Streams instance, create an image pull secret called ibm-entitlement-key in the namespace where you want to create an instance of Event Streams. The secret enables container images to be pulled from the registry.

Obtain an entitlement key from the IBM Container software library.
Create the secret in the namespace that will be used to deploy an instance of Event Streams as follows.

Name the secret ibm-entitlement-key, use cp as the username, your entitlement key as the password, and cp.icr.io as the docker server:
```
oc create secret docker-registry ibm-entitlement-key --docker-username=cp --docker-password="<your-entitlement-key>" --docker-server="cp.icr.io" -n <target-namespace>
```

Note: If you do not create the required secret, pods will fail to start with ImagePullBackOff errors. In this case, ensure the secret is created and allow the pod to restart.

Decide version control and catalog source

Before you can install the required IBM operators, make them available for installation by adding the catalog sources to your cluster. Selecting how the catalog source is added will determine the versions you receive.

Consider how you want to control your deployments, whether you want to install specific versions, and how you want to receive updates.

Latest versions: You can install the latest versions of all operators from the IBM Operator Catalog as described in adding latest versions. This means that every deployment will always have the latest versions made available, and you cannot specify which version is installed. In addition, upgrades to the latest versions are automatic and provided when they become available. This path is more suitable for development or proof of concept deployments.
Specific versions: You can control the version of the operator and instances that are installed by downloading specific Container Application Software for Enterprises (CASE) files as described in adding specific versions. This means you can specify the version you deploy, and only receive updates when you take action manually to do so. This is often required in production environments where the deployment of any version might require it to go through a process of validation and verification before it can be pushed to production use.

Adding latest versions

Important: Use this method of installation only if you want your deployments to always have the latest version and if you want upgrades to always be automatic.

Before you can install the Event Streams operator and use it to create instances of Event Streams, you must have the IBM Operator Catalog available in your cluster.

If you already have the IBM Operator Catalog available, you can continue to installing the Event Streams operator.

If you are installing Event Streams as the first IBM product in your cluster, complete the following steps:

To make the Event Streams operator and optional foundational services dependencies available in the OpenShift OperatorHub catalog, create the following YAML files and apply them as follows.

To add the IBM Operator Catalog:

Create a file for the IBM Operator Catalog source with the following content, and save as ibm_catalogsource.yaml:
```
apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: CatalogSource
metadata:
   name: ibm-operator-catalog
   namespace: openshift-marketplace
   labels:
     backup.eventstreams.ibm.com/component: catalogsource
spec:
   displayName: "IBM Operator Catalog"
   publisher: IBM
   sourceType: grpc
   image: icr.io/cpopen/ibm-operator-catalog
   updateStrategy:
     registryPoll:
       interval: 45m
```
Automatic updates of your IBM Operator Catalog can be disabled by removing the polling attribute, spec.updateStrategy.registryPoll. To disable automatic updates, remove the following parameters in the IBM Operator Catalog source YAML under the spec field:
```
   updateStrategy:
     registryPoll:
       interval: 45m
```
Important: Other factors such as Subscription might enable the automatic updates of your deployments. For tight version control of your operators or to install a fixed version, add specific versions of the CASE bundle, and install the operators by using the CLI.
In the OpenShift web console, select the Import YAML option (+) on the upper right.
Paste the IBM Operator Catalog source YAML in the YAML editor. You can also drag the YAML files into the editor.
Select Create.

Alternatively, you can add the catalog source through the CLI by running the following commands:

Log in to your Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform as a cluster administrator by using the oc CLI (oc login).
Apply the source by using the following command:
```
oc apply -f ibm_catalogsource.yaml
```

The IBM Operator Catalog source is added to the OperatorHub catalog, making the Event Streams operator available to install.

Adding specific versions

Important: Use this method if you want to install specific versions and do not want to automatically receive upgrades or have the latest versions made available immediately.

Before you can install the required operator versions and use them to create instances of Event Streams, make their catalog source available in your cluster as described in the following sections.

Note: This procedure must be performed by using the CLI.

Before you begin, ensure that you have the following set up for your environment:
- The OpenShift Container Platform CLI (oc) installed.
- The IBM Catalog Management Plug-in for IBM Cloud Paks (ibm-pak) installed. After installing the plug-in, you can run oc ibm-pak commands against the cluster. Run the following command to confirm that ibm-pak is installed:
```
oc ibm-pak --help
```
Run the following command to download, validate, and extract the Event Streams CASE.
```
oc ibm-pak get ibm-eventstreams --version <case-version>
```
Generate mirror manifests by running the following command:
```
oc ibm-pak generate mirror-manifests ibm-eventstreams icr.io
```
Note: To filter for a specific image group, add the parameter --filter <image_group> to the previous command.

The previous command generates the following files based on the target (internal) registry provided:
- catalog-sources.yaml
- catalog-sources-linux-<arch>.yaml (if there are architecture specific catalog sources)
- image-content-source-policy.yaml
- images-mapping.txt
Apply the catalog sources for the operator to the cluster by running the following command:
```
oc apply -f ~/.ibm-pak/data/mirror/ibm-eventstreams/<case-version>/catalog-sources.yaml
```
Where <case-version> is the case version.

This adds the catalog source for the Event Streams making the operator available to install. You can install the operator by using the OpenShift web console or the CLI.

Install the Event Streams operator

Ensure you have considered the Event Streams operator requirements, including resource requirements and the required cluster-scoped permissions.

Installing by using the web console

Important: To install the operators by using the OpenShift web console, you must add the operators to the OperatorHub catalog. OperatorHub updates your operators automatically when a latest version is available. This might not be suitable for some production environments. For production environments that require manual updates and version control, add specific version, and then install the Event Streams operator by using the CLI.

To install the operator by using the OpenShift Container Platform web console, complete the following steps:

Log in to the OpenShift Container Platform web console using your login credentials.
Expand the Operators dropdown and select OperatorHub to open the OperatorHub dashboard.
Select the project you want to deploy the Event Streams instance in.
In the All Items search box enter Event Streams to locate the operator title.
Click the Event Streams tile to open the install side panel.
Click the Install button to open the Create Operator Subscription dashboard.
Select the chosen installation mode that suits your requirements. If the installation mode is A specific namespace on the cluster, select the target namespace you created previously.
Click Install to begin the installation.

The installation can take a few minutes to complete.

Important: Only install one Event Streams operator on a cluster.

Installing by using the command line

To install the operator by using the OpenShift Container Platform command line, complete the following steps:

Change to the namespace (project) where you want to install the operator. For command line installations, this sets the chosen installation mode for the operator:
- Change to the system namespace openshift-operators if you are installing the operator to be able to manage instances in all namespaces.
- Change to the custom namespace if you are installing the operator for use in a specific namespace only.
```
oc project <target-namespace>
```
Check whether there is an existing OperatorGroup in your target namespace:
```
oc get OperatorGroup
```
If there is an existing OperatorGroup, continue to the next step to create a Subscription.

If there is no OperatorGroup, create one as follows:

a. Create a YAML file with the following content, replacing <target-namespace> with your namespace:
```
apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1
kind: OperatorGroup
metadata:
  name: ibm-eventautomation-operatorgroup
  namespace: <target-namespace>
spec:
  targetNamespaces:
    - <target-namespace>
```
b. Save the file as operator-group.yaml.

c. Run the following command:
```
oc apply -f operator-group.yaml
```
Create a Subscription for the Event Streams operator as follows:

a. Create a YAML file similar to the following example:
```
apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: ibm-eventstreams
  namespace: <target-namespace>
  labels:
    backup.eventstreams.ibm.com/component: subscription
spec:
  channel: <current_channel>
  name: ibm-eventstreams
  source: <catalog-source-name>
  sourceNamespace: openshift-marketplace
```
Where:
- <target-namespace> is the namespace where you want to install Event Streams (openshift-operators if you are installing in all namespaces, or a custom name if you are installing in a specific namespace).
- <current_channel> is the operator channel for the release you want to install (see the support matrix).
- <catalog-source-name> is the name of the catalog source that was created for this operator. This is ibm-eventstreams when installing a specific version by using a CASE bundle, or ibm-operator-catalog if the source is the IBM Operator Catalog.
b. Save the file as subscription.yaml.

c. Run the following command:
```
oc apply -f subscription.yaml
```

Checking the operator status

You can view the status of the installed operator as follows.

To see the installed operator and check its status by using the web console, complete the following steps:
1. Log in to the OpenShift Container Platform web console using your login credentials.
2. Expand the Operators dropdown and select Installed Operators to open the Installed Operators page.
3. Expand the Project dropdown and select the project the instance is installed in. Click the operator called IBM Event Streams managing the project.
4. Scroll down to the ClusterServiceVersion details section of the page.
5. Check the Status field. After the operator is successfully installed, this will change to Succeeded.
In addition to the status, information about key events that occur can be viewed under the Conditions section of the same page. After a successful installation, a condition with the following message is displayed: install strategy completed with no errors.
To check the status of the installed operator by using the command line:
```
oc get csv
```
The command returns a list of installed operators. The installation is successful if the value in the PHASE column for your Event Streams operator is Succeeded.

Note: If the operator is installed into a specific namespace, then it will only appear under the associated project. If the operator is installed for all namespaces, then it will appear under any selected project. If the operator is installed for all namespaces and you select all projects from the Project drop down, the operator will be shown multiple times in the resulting list, once for each project.

When the Event Streams operator is installed, the following additional operators will appear in the installed operator list:

Operand Deployment Lifecycle Manager.
IBM Common Service Operator.

Scaling the operator for high availability

High availability (HA) is the elimination of single points of failure in an environment. In addition to setting up your Kafka brokers for high availability, you can also set the number of the Event Streams operator replicas to enable more resilience.

By increasing the number of replicas to a value greater than 1, you can ensure that the Event Streams operator continues to function in a wider range of outage scenarios. To ensure uptime in failure situations, the management of your Event Streams is delegated to the other available operator pods.

To increase the number replicas, edit the replicas in the ClusterServiceVersion object manually or by running the following command:

oc patch csv -n <NAMESPACE> ibm-eventstreams.v<CSV_VERSION> -p '[{"op":"replace","path":"/spec/install/spec/deployments/0/spec/replicas","value":3}]' --type json

Technology Preview feature: KRaft

Technology Preview features are available to evaluate potential upcoming features. Such features are intended for testing purposes only and not for production use. IBM does not support these features, but might help with any issues raised against them. IBM welcomes feedback on Technology Preview features to improve them. As the features are still under development, functions and interfaces can change, and it might not be possible to upgrade when updated versions become available.

IBM offers no guarantee that Technology Preview features will be part of upcoming releases and as such become fully supported.

Event Streams version 11.1.5 and later includes Apache Kafka Raft (KRaft) as a Technology Preview feature. KRaft replaces ZooKeeper for managing metadata, moving the overall handling of metadata into Kafka itself.

When the UseKRaft and KafkaNodePools feature gates are enabled, the Kafka cluster is deployed without ZooKeeper. The spec.strimziOverrides.zookeeper properties in the EventStreams custom resource will be ignored, but still need to be present. The UseKRaft and KafkaNodePools feature gates provide an API that configure Kafka cluster nodes and their roles. The API is still in development and is expected to change before the KRaft mode is production-ready.

Limitations

The KRaft mode in Event Streams has the following limitations:

Moving existing Kafka clusters deployed with ZooKeeper to use KRaft, or the other way around, is not supported.
Upgrading your Apache Kafka or Event Streams operator version, or reverting either one to an earlier version is not supported. To do so, you delete the cluster, upgrade the operator, and deploy a new Kafka cluster.
The Topic Operator is not supported. The spec.entityOperator.topicOperator property must be removed from the Kafka custom resource.
JBOD storage is not supported. You can use type: jbod for storage, but the JBOD array can contain only one disk.
Geo-replication is not supported.

Enabling KRaft

To enable KRaft, ensure you enable the UseKRaft and KafkaNodePools feature gate. After the Event Streams operator is installed and created, edit your ClusterServiceVersion object on the OpenShift Container Platform by running the following command:

Note: This command requires the yq YAML parsing and editing tool.

kubectl get csv -n <namespace> ibm-eventstreams.v<operator_version> -oyaml | yq e "(.spec.install.spec.deployments[0].spec.template.spec.containers[0].env[] | select(.name==\"STRIMZI_FEATURE_GATES\")) .value=\"+UseKRaft,+KafkaNodePools\"" | oc apply -f -

Alternatively, you can edit the ClusterServiceVersion in the OpenShift Container Platform web console by locating the STRIMZI_FEATURE_GATES environmental variable and editing it to have the value of +UseKRaft,+KafkaNodePools as follows:

                      - name: STRIMZI_FEATURE_GATES
                        value: '+UseKRaft,+KafkaNodePools'

Install an Event Streams instance

Instances of Event Streams can be created after the Event Streams operator is installed. If the operator was installed into a specific namespace, then it can only be used to manage instances of Event Streams in that namespace. If the operator was installed for all namespaces, then it can be used to manage instances of Event Streams in any namespace, including those created after the operator was deployed.

When installing an instance of Event Streams, ensure you are using a namespace that an operator is managing.

Installing an instance by using the web console

To install an Event Streams instance through the OpenShift Container Platform web console, do the following:

Log in to the OpenShift Container Platform web console using your login credentials.
Expand the Operators dropdown and select Installed Operators to open the Installed Operators page.
Expand the Project dropdown and select the project the instance is installed in. Click the operator called IBM Event Streams managing the project.

Note: If the operator is not shown, it is either not installed or not available for the selected namespace.
In the Operator Details dashboard, click the Event Streams tab.
Click the Create EventStreams button to open the Create EventStreams panel. You can use this panel to define an EventStreams custom resource.

From here you can install by using the form view. For more advanced configurations or to install one of the samples, see installing by using the YAML view.

Installing by using the form view

To configure an EventStreams custom resource, do the following:

Enter a name for the instance in the Name field.
Click the license accept toggle to set it to True.
Ensure that the correct values for Product License and Product Use are selected from the drop-down lists. These values are used for metering purposes and could result in inaccurate charging and auditing if set incorrectly. For more information about the available options, see the licensing reference.
Optional: You can configure other components such as Kafka, ZooKeeper, and Security to suit your requirements.
Scroll down and click the Create button at the bottom of the page to deploy the Event Streams instance.
Wait for the installation to complete.
You can now verify your installation and consider other post-installation tasks.

Installing by using the YAML view

Alternatively, you can configure the EventStreams custom resource by editing YAML documents. To do this, click the Edit YAML tab.

A number of sample configurations are provided on which you can base your deployment. These range from smaller deployments for non-production development or general experimentation to large scale clusters ready to handle a production workload. Alternatively, a pre-configured YAML file containing the custom resource sample can be dragged and dropped onto this screen to apply the configuration.

To view the samples, do the following:

Select the Samples tab to show the available sample configurations.
Click the Try it link under any of the samples to open the configuration in the Create EventStreams panel.

More information about these samples is available in the planning section. You can base your deployment on the sample that most closely reflects your requirements and apply customizations on top as required.

When modifying the sample configuration, the updated document can be exported from the Create EventStreams panel by clicking the Download button and re-imported by dragging the resulting file back into the window.

Important: Ensure that the spec.license.accept field in the custom resource YAML is set to true, and that the correct values are selected for the spec.license.license and spec.license.use fields before deploying the Event Streams instance. These values are used for metering purposes and could result in inaccurate charging and auditing if set incorrectly. For more information about the available options, see the licensing reference.

Note: If experimenting with Event Streams for the first time, the Lightweight without security sample is the smallest and simplest example that can be used to create an experimental deployment. For the smallest production setup, use the Minimal production sample configuration.

To deploy an Event Streams instance, use the following steps:

Complete any changes to the sample configuration in the Create EventStreams panel.
Click Create to begin the installation process.
Wait for the installation to complete.
You can now verify your installation and consider other post-installation tasks.

Installing an instance by using the CLI

To install an instance of Event Streams from the command-line, you must first prepare an EventStreams custom resource configuration in a YAML file.

A number of sample configuration files are available in GitHub, where you can select the GitHub tag for your Event Streams version to access the correct samples, and then go to /cr-examples/eventstreams/openshift to access the OpenShift samples.

The sample configurations range from smaller deployments for non-production development or general experimentation to large scale clusters ready to handle a production workload.

To deploy an Event Streams instance, run the following commands:

Set the project where your EventStreams custom resource will be deployed in:
```
oc project <project-name>
```

Apply the configured EventStreams custom resource:

oc apply -f <custom-resource-file-path>

For example:

oc apply -f development.yaml

Wait for the installation to complete.
You can now verify your installation and consider other post-installation tasks.