Chapter 1. Overview of Red Hat Process Automation Manager on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

You can deploy Red Hat Process Automation Manager into a Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform environment.

In this solution, components of Red Hat Process Automation Manager are deployed as separate OpenShift pods. You can scale each of the pods up and down individually to provide as few or as many containers as required for a particular component. You can use standard OpenShift methods to manage the pods and balance the load.

The following key components of Red Hat Process Automation Manager are available on OpenShift:

  • KIE Server, also known as Execution Server, is the infrastructure element that runs decision services, process applications, and other deployable assets (collectively referred to as services) . All logic of the services runs on execution servers.

    A database server is normally required for KIE Server. You can provide a database server in another OpenShift pod or configure an execution server on OpenShift to use any other database server. Alternatively, KIE Server can use an H2 database; in this case, you cannot scale the pod.

    In some templates, you can scale up a KIE Server pod to provide as many copies as required, running on the same host or different hosts. As you scale a pod up or down, all of its copies use the same database server and run the same services. OpenShift provides load balancing and a request can be handled by any of the pods.

    You can deploy a separate KIE Server pod to run a different group of services. That pod can also be scaled up or down. You can have as many separate replicated KIE Server pods as required.

  • Business Central is a web-based interactive environment used for authoring services. It also provides a management and monitoring console. You can use Business Central to develop services and deploy them to KIE Servers. You can also use Business Central to monitor the execution of processes.

    Business Central is a centralized application. However, you can configure it for high availability, where multiple pods run and share the same data.

    Business Central includes a Git repository that holds the source for the services that you develop on it. It also includes a built-in Maven repository. Depending on configuration, Business Central can place the compiled services (KJAR files) into the built-in Maven repository or (if configured) into an external Maven repository.

  • Business Central Monitoring is a web-based management and monitoring console. It can manage the deployment of services to KIE Servers and provide monitoring information, but does not include authoring capabilities. You can use this component to manage staging and production environments.
  • Smart Router is an optional layer between KIE Servers and other components that interact with them. When your environment includes many services running on different KIE Servers, Smart Router provides a single endpoint to all client applications. A client application can make a REST API call that requires any service. Smart Router automatically calls the KIE Server that can process a particular request.

You can arrange these and other components into various environment configurations within OpenShift.