Deploying with containers

Getting started with containers

Docker is a state-of-the-art technology that creates, deploys, and runs applications by using containers. Packages are provided containing an application with all of the components it requires, such as libraries, specific configurations, and other dependencies, and deploy it in no time on any UNIX, Windows, and Linux on Z workstation, regardless of any different settings between the source and the target workstation.

Docker adoption ensures standardization of your workload scheduling environment and provides an easy method to replicate environments quickly in development, build, test, and production environments, speeding up the time it takes to get from build to production significantly. Install your environment using Docker to improve scalability, portability, and efficiency.

To deploy HCL Workload Automation using a Docker container, proceed as follows:

Access and download the Docker image from the entitled registry. For details about the complete procedure, see Deploying containers with Docker.
You can choose to deploy all product containers with a single command, or you can deploy each product component container individually. Start and configure the HCL Workload Automation containers. For details about the complete procedure, see Deploying containers with Docker.
More detailed technical information for each component can be found in the sample readme files:
Access the container to verify the status and run HCL Workload Automation commands. For details, see Accessing the Docker containers.

You can also use docker containers to store all the latest integrations available on Automation Hub. For further information, see the Container plug-in.

Deploying z-centric and dynamic agents on Kubernetes

To ensure a fast and responsive experience when using HCL Workload Automation for Z, you can deploy z-centric and dynamic agents on a Kubernetes cluster. Kubernetes is a portable, extensible, open-source platform for managing containerized workloads and applications.

A cloud deployment ensures access anytime anywhere and is a fast and efficient way to get up and running quickly. It also simplifies maintenance, lowers costs, provides rapid upscale and downscale, minimizes IT requirements and physical on-premises data storage.

Orchestrating your Kubernetes workload from a containerized agent optimizes allocations of resources in your cluster and reduces the chance of human errors. Find out more about the advantages of a stable containerized agent in the Orchestrating your workload on cloud from IBM Z Workload Scheduler video, available on the Workload Automation YouTube channel.

Deployment of the z-centric and dynamic agent containers on Kubernetes is supported on the following cloud provider infrastructures. For details and deployment instructions, see the HCL Workload Automation z-Centric Chart readme file.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) (Amazon EKS): The z-centric and dynamic agents are offered on the Amazon Web Services cloud. Within just a few minutes, access the product Helm chart and container images and easily launch an instance to deploy an agent with full on-premises capabilities.
Note: At agent installation completion, the AWS cluster returns a host name 77 characters long. Because in the ROUTOPTS statement the maximum allowed length for host names is 52 characters, ensure that you map the host name returned by AWS to a name no longer than 52 characters.
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS): Deploy and manage HCL Workload Automation containerized product components on the Azure AKS, a container orchestration service available on the Microsoft Azure public cloud. You can use Azure AKS to deploy and manage containers in the cluster environment.
Google GKE: Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) provides a managed environment for deploying, managing, and scaling your containerized applications using Google infrastructure. The Google GKE environment consists of multiple machines grouped together to form a cluster.
Red Hat OpenShift: The HCL Workload Automation product components can be deployed onto a Red Hat OpenShift, V4.x environment by using helm charts.