Flexible

RapidBIZ™ on Red Hat OpenShift is the most flexible cloud delivered development platform available on OpenShift. Take advantage of the ease of deployment and management OpenShift provides as well as the unparalleled productivity gained when developing business applications with RapidBIZ.

RapidBIZ is available in several deployment options:

RapidBIZ Operator:

The RapidBIZ Ansible Operator is designed to work on Open Shift version 4.2 or greater with Kubernetes version 1.14 or greater. The RapidBIZ Operator uses the Ansible Playbook and the Operator Life Cycle Management (OLM).

RapidBIZ is a robust application development environment and as such, for a development purposes, many of the options; horizontal scaling, etc; listed in this document may not apply. They will CERTAINLY apply when deploying RapidBIZ applications in a large production environment.

Before Installation:

Configurations:

RapidBIZ Operator supports the AMD64 architecture.

RapidBIZ Operator also supports IBM Cloud and Google Cloud Platforms.

Cluster memory, CPU and disk requirements are best shown on the OpenShift website: https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform

Minimum requirements for one RapidBIZ container (Pod):

Memory: 1GB
CPU: 1 core
Diskspace: 10GB, dependent on what Database is used (external to cluster or within cluster) and application created in RapidBIZ by a user.
Network: 100Mbit

Recommended (typical) requirements for one RapidBIZ container (Pod):

Memory: 2GB
CPU: 4 cores
Diskspace: 50GB, dependant on what Database is used (external to cluster or within cluster) and application created in RapidBIZ by a user.
Network: 1GBit

Operator Installation:

The RapidBIZ Operator can be installed via the Operator Lifecycle Manager-- or if you don’t have the Lifecycle Manager, follow this URL:
https://github.com/operator-framework/operator-lifecycle-manager

If an OperatorHub is installed and connected to the Red Hat repository, the RapidBIZ Operator can be obtained. If you don't have an on-premise repository or you desire to have an air-gapped implementation, the RapidBIZ operator can be installed using a YAML file located at: https://www.vacava.com/rapidbiz/deploy/rapidbiz-operator-install.yaml.

From the command prompt type in:
oc create -f https://www.vacava.com/rapidbiz/deploy/rapidbiz-operator-install.yaml

To verify the Operator is installed properly, click on Installed Operators in the OpenShift Console:

Create RapidBIZ (Pod):

Dependencies:
Requires a database. MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM i, IBM DB2, Oracle, or PostgreSQL can be used. It can be an external database outside the cluster or a database within the cluster such as one installed with a Database Operator that has a Service available to be used by RapidBIZ.

Before create: You MUST have a database providing the following:

IP address or hostname
Port
User and Password
Database name to use with RapidBIZ.

Create:

In the RapidBIZ Operator the Provided API called RapidBIZ when clicking Create Instance will take you to Create RapidBIZ .yaml -- It is best to use the Edit Form on right side of screen that will provide a GUI with what is needed

To validate a successful creation of RapidBIZ via the Operator do the following steps:

Networking Routes has a name of rapidbiz-route - the Location is the URL to RapidBIZ
Click on this URL
Use the administrator user and password (what was set in the RapidBIZ Operator Form).
The default for this was admin@unknown.com with password of adminpwd.
The browser will show your Organization selection - select 'Enterprise'.

Congratulations you have successfully logged into RapidBIZ as the Enterprise Administrator.

Limitations/Restrictions:

RapidBIZ Operator, as Operator Lifecycle Manager, maintains the RapidBIZ Pods to check for failures and then will restart the Pod.
Each Pod connects to the same database, thus a database load balancer might be needed. Each Pod in the namespace is considered a separate RapidBIZ installation using the Service load balancer among the Pods.
When installing more than ONE Instance of RapidBIZ, another project is needed, and the RapidBIZ Operator MUST be installed in that project, and requires another database. (installation of the RapidBIZ Operator is on a per-project basis and is not cluster-wide.)

Storage:

There are three Persistent Volume Claims (PVC) with access mode ReadWriteOnce needed by RapidBIZ, and are created when installing the RapidBIZ Operator. The PVCs are allocated by the cluster with the file mode of File System. These are used for the current project (namespace) only.

The names of the PVCs are rapidbiz-appscripts-volume (50MB), rapidbiz-custimages-volume (20MB) and rapidbiz-enhancements-volume (10MB). If you want to access the persistent storage somewhere else, then create the three PVCs before installation (they must all be on the same node as the pods).

Storage Class ibmc-block-bronze (default class) has been used in the IBM Cloud OpenShift environment.
Storage Class standard has been used on Google Cloud with OpenShift 4.2.
Storage Class none has been used on internal OpenShift servers.

If another RapidBIZ Operator is installed in another project (namespace) the PVCs are only accessible to the project (namespace) of the installation.

Horizontal Pod Autoscaling:

By default, when using the RapidBIZ API, Horizontal Pod Autoscaling (HPA) is disabled ('absent' selection).

To enable it you must have only 1 replica of the pod set (in the RapidBIZ API).

If you already deployed from a RapidBIZ operator you will have do an edit of the .yaml since the Operator only shows the values

Select the RapidBIZ item to change (below click on Example):

Click on YAML:

Look for scalepodmin, scalepodmax, scalestate and scalepodcpu and edit the YAML saving it when done:

scalestate to 'present' to enable HPA and 'absent' to disable HPA
minimum number of pods (scalepodmin)
maximum number of pods (scalepodmax)
CPU percentage (scalepodcpu)

Route:

The RapidBIZ Operator sets up a Service set as LoadBalancer along with a Route setup where the host name is set by the cluster based on items such as the namespace and route name.

In the OpenShift console go to the section called Networking to look at the Service and Route created.

In the Route called rapidbiz-route the Location column is the host name and clicking on this will bring up the RapidBIZ login (if a pod was created).

Certificate:

To add a Certificate to the Route you must edit the YAML file for the Route called rapidbiz-route. The same steps can be used to update the certificate when needed.

See this for more info: https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/4.2/networking/routes/secured-routes.html

Custom Host Name:

To setup a custom Host Name, first check the Service called rapidbiz-service to see if an external IP has been assigned (if so copy it).
At cmd line with access to the cluster, type: oc get svc rapidbiz-service

If EXTERNAL-IP is set to <pending> you will have to obtain an IP Address from your Network Administrator to use.

Adding External IP

Edit the YAML for the Service rapidbiz-service:
- Add spec.externalIPs: 10.10.0.75
- Example shows adding ip address 10.10.0.75, make sure to use the IP address obtained from the IT person

With a valid external IP the next step is to have your DNS server map the IP address to a domain. You probably have a domain to use, but if not ask your Network Administrator to set up the domain needed for the appropriate hostname.
Change the Route YAML called rapidbiz-route in spec.host to the domain you have selected to use

The above was using a command line, below you’ll see the GUI equivalent, however, the GUI does not provide feedback as to the status of the Routing:

Before IP is set:
After IP is set:

Determine if Users are Logged into RapidBIZ:

To check if users are logged into RapidBIZ you will be using the Enterprise Administrator user account of RapidBIZ.

If you do not have the URL to the RapidBIZ application go to Networking > Routes in the OpenShift web console and look for the rapidbiz-route entry. Use the URL in the Location column. If you do not have a route setup then you will need to contact your Network Administrator.
Login to RapidBIZ after putting the URL into a browser (or clicking on it) then use the Enterprise Administrator username and password (the default is admin@unknown.com with password adminpwd).
Select the Enterprise in the organization selection.

Click on the left side menu on item called Tools.

Click on the menu item User Activity in Organization Tools.

You will see a list of users logged into RapidBIZ along with your login.

Data Encryption:

RapidBIZ can encrypt customer data within the container if the developer creates such a RapidBIZ solution (database tables with specific columns encrypted, and application data).

Additional options in RapidBIZ are a PassPhrase (prompts user when logging into RapidBIZ) is the basis of an encryption key so that NO ONE could decrypt it. The PassPhrase can only be changed by an administrator who has logged into RapidBIZ with the current PassPhrase.

RapidBIZ also supports native database encryption. This database can be external to OpenShift (JDBC, etc.) or installed in OpenShift via an Operator.

Tracking:

The RapidBIZ Operator components have labels and annotations to track of what comprises the RapidBIZ Operator solution.

Labels:

app.kubernetes.io/component=server
app.kubernetes.io/instance=rapidbiz-operator
app.kubernetes.io/managed-by=ansible
app.kubernetes.io/name=rapidbiz
name=rapidbiz-operator

Annotations:

Productid= com.vacava.rapidbiz.0.0.1
productName= Vacava RapidBIZ
productVersion=0.0.1

Roles:

The RapidBIZ Operator uses the following Ansible Roles:

Service Monitor allows get and create actions.
Pods, Service, PersistentVolumeClaims, Events, Endpoints and ServiceAccounts allow all actions
The autoscaling group HorizontalPodAutoscaler allows all actions
For apps group StatefulSets allows all access.
For apps group Deployments allows get action.

Access Limitations:

Authorization limits within RapidBIZ are controlled by User Accounts with hashed passwords with RapidBIZ user management controlling what roles a user has access to: user, developer, and/or Administrator of RapidBIZ.
Applications created in RapidBIZ can optionally require authentication (supports LDAP, SAML, RapidIBZ or custom authentication methods), or the application can allow anonymous access.
The Application Level uses a feature of RapidBIZ Application Security that handles user account login and management enabling individual screens to be secured.
Access authorization and access with OpenShift is handled by OpenShift authority/user management. The Operator itself is made available for administrators to install from the OperatorHub.

Backup/Recovery:

Backup and recovery can be accomplished via different methods depending on user needs/preferences.

In OpenShift:

To backup and restore the database used by RapidBIZ there are many database operators that have this feature to backup and restore. This would be best for the database. Now if an external database outside of the Open Shift cluster then that external database would have some sort of database backup/restore feature such as seen in MySQL and DB2.
To backup and restore Persistent Volume Claims there is nothing currently built into OpenShift. These PVCs store the RapidBIZ screen definitions, images, and enhancement functions. One developer has made a solution for this type of backup/restore at https://blog.openshift.com/how-to-backup-clone-and-migrate-persistent-volume-claims-on-openshift/. *Note: this method has not been tested with RapidBIZ. Support for PVC backup is currently being investigated for the next RapidBIZ release.
For PVCs currently the best way to backup/restore is to use the RapidBIZ export/import (handles PVCs plus the database structures from the RapidBIZ Application Level).

In RapidBIZ:

Option to export an application is available. This export will only export application database tables that make up the application plus the RapidBIZ screen definitions, application information, dataservices, images and other RapidBIZ item types.
Option to export customer type data in the database is possible.
Option to import an application is available. This import will import all the information and database table creation that makes up the RapidBIZ application into any Organization within RapidBIZ.
Option to upgrade an application is available. This upgrade uses the export file to upgrade an application tables, screens, data services, images and related features.
Option to export/import individual screens is available. Screen data can be saved on an individual screen basis if needed.
Option to connect to a GitHub development repository is possible, and push changes to/from it.

Learning/Education:

Find RapidBIZ education and reference material at https://rbuniversity.na.rapidbiz.com. (Requires valid developer login)

RapidBIZ™ README

RapidBIZ™ is a simple to use, integrated cloud development, and delivery environment that enables significant productivity and cost advantages - leveraging Docker Images provides enterprise level deployment management.

This RapidBIZ image consists of a base image from IBM called OpenLiberty which uses a base image of Red Hat ubi8. This is JUST for the RapidBIZ image and not for the RapidBIZ Operator (that is contained in the Operator itself).

Requirements:

Database: Required. A database to store the RapidBIZ product support items and created solutions by the user. Recommend to have a database with persistent storage if using a database via a Docker image.
Persistent Storage: Optional. Use the --mount tag if you want the applications created in RapidBIZ to be retained even if the image/container is removed. *This is optional and not needed, but recommended.

Environment Variables:

Required:

DATABASE_USER - RapidBIZ backend database admin user that can create/drop schemas, tables, etc.
DATABASE_PASSWORD - password for the DATABASE_USER
DATABASE_HOST - IP address or hostname of the database server

Optional:

DATABASE_TYPE - db2, mysql, mssql, as400, oracle or postgresql (defaults to mysql)
DATABASE_PORT - port of the database (defaults to 3306)
OPENLIBERTY_HTTP_PORT - port to be used for http (defaults 8080)
OPENLIBERTY_HTTPS_PORT - port to be used for https (defaults to 8443)
ADMIN_USER - Enterprise user (defaults to admin@unknown.com)
ADMIN_PASSWORD - Enterprise password (defaults to adminpwd)

Optional RapidBIZ User:

RAPIDBIZ_FIRSTNAME - User first name.
RAPIDBIZ_LASTNAME - User last name.
RAPIDBIZ_EMAIL - User email address (used as username/login to RapidBIZ)
RAPIDBIZ_PASSWORD - User password
RAPIDBIZ_ROLE - User role, admin or user.

Optional RapidBIZ License (overrides 30 day license):

RAPIDBIZ_SERVER_LICENSE - License code matching company name
RAPIDBIZ_COMPANY - Company name for server license.

EXAMPLE:

Using a mariadb image for the database and startup RapidBIZ image: docker run --name mariadb -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=87654321 -e MYSQL_USER=rapidbiz -e MYSQL_PASSWORD=12345678 -d mariadb:10.2

To get the IP address of the running mariadb container: docker inspect mariadb

Look in the result for IPAddress-- that is the IP address to use for the next step.

Note the image name-- rapidbiz80038_ubi8_min is the current level at this time on the RedHat website, check for the most recent one.

Three directories on your system must be created & named as follows for persistent storage:

appscripts
custimages
enhancements

The command to start the RapidBIZ server:

docker run -d --name myrapidbiz -e DATABASE_USER=root -e DATABASE_HOST=172.17.0.2 -e DATABASE_PASSWORD=87654321 -p 8080:8080 --mount source=appscripts,target=/opt/ol/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer/apps/cloud/appscripts
                                                --mount source=custimages,target=/opt/ol/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer/apps/cloud/custimages --mount source=enhancements,target=/opt/ol/wlp/usr/servers/defaultServer/apps/cloud/enhancements rapidbiz80038_ubi8_min

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