Deploy Pega Platform™ on a Red Hat OpenShift container platform cluster using a PostgreSQL database. The following procedures are written for any level of user, from a system administrator to a development engineer who is interested in learning how to install and deploy Pega Platform onto an OpenShift cluster.
Pega helps enterprises and agencies quickly build business apps that deliver the outcomes and end-to-end customer experiences that you need. Use the procedures in this guide, to install and deploy Pega software onto an OpenShift cluster without much experience in either OpenShift configurations or Pega Platform deployments.
Create a deployment of Pega Platform on which you can implement a scalable Pega application in a OpenShift cluster using Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform (Self Managed). You can use this deployment for a Pega Platform development environment. By completing these procedures, you deploy Pega Platform on a OpenShift cluster with a PostgreSQL database instance.
Pegasystems supports deployment of Pega Platform using OpenShift Container Platform as a self managed solution. Managed solutions, other OpenShift products, and the IBM Cloud are not currently supported.
Use Kubernetes tools and the customized orchestration tools and Docker images to orchestrate a deployment in a OpenShift cluster that you create for the deployment:
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Prepare your local system:
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To prepare a local Linux system, install required applications and configuration files - Preparing your local Linux system – 45 minutes.
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To prepare a local Windows system, install required applications and configuration files - Preparing your local Windows 10 system – 45 minutes.
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Create a cluster using your preferred cloud resources and install Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform (Self Managed) on the cluster. For details, see OpenShift Documentation.
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Customize two configuration files with which you configure your OpenShift cluster to run Pega in a web application cluster and run backing services, including search, in a Pega search and reporting service cluster. In this section, you will use the command-line tools, kubectl and Helm, to install and then deploy Pega Platform onto your existing OpenShift cluster - Deploying Pega Platform using Helm charts – 90 minutes.
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Configure your network connections in the DNS management zone of your choice so you can log in to Pega Platform - Logging in to Pega Platform – 10 minutes.
To understand how Pega maps Kubernetes objects with Pega applications and services, see Understanding the Pega deployment architecture.
This guide assumes:
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You have a basic familiarity with running commands from a Windows 10 PowerShell with Administrator privileges or a Linux command prompt with root privileges.
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You use open source packaging tools on Windows or Linux to install applications onto your local system.
The following account, resources, and application versions are required for use in this document:
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An account with a payment method set up to pay for the cloud infrastructure resources you create and appropriate account permissions and knowledge to:
- Select an appropriate location to deploy your database resource and OpenShift cluster. The cluster and PostgreSQL database into which you install Pega Platform must be in the same location.
- Create an Openshift cluster or use an existing cluster you can access.
- Create an SQL instance using a cloud resource that is accessible to the pods in the Openshift deployment using a supported database. For support details, see URL and Driver Class.
You are responsible for any financial costs incurred for your cloud infrastructure resources.
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Pega Platform 8.6 or later, which supports the latest Pega software feature support, including the Search and Reporting Service (SRS).
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Pega Docker images – your deployment requires the use of several Docker images that you download and make available in a private Docker registry. For step-by-step details, see Downloading and managing Pega Platform docker images (linux) or Downloading and managing Pega Platform docker images (windows).
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Helm 3.0 or later. Helm is only required to use the Helm charts and not to use the Kubernetes Yaml examples directly. For more information, see the Helm documentation portal.
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kubectl – the Kubernetes command-line tool that you use to connect to and manage your Kubernetes resources.
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openshift-cli - the OpenShift command-line tool that you use to connect to your OpenShift cluster.
There are multiple ways of creating an Openshift cluster. For an overview, see OpenShift Container Platform installation overview.
Pega Platform deployments on OpenShift require you to install Pega Platform software in an SQL database. After you create an SQL instance that is available to your OpenShift cluster, you must create a PostgreSQL database in which to install Pega Platform. When you are finished, you will need the database name and the SQL instance IP address that you create in this procedure in order to add this information to your pega.yaml Helm chart.
Create an SQL instance that is available to your OpenShift cluster. In this example, the SQL instance is created in GCP; however, you can create or use any database resource that is available to the OpenShift cluster.
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Use a web browser to log in to https://cloud.google.com/ and navigate to your Console in the upper right corner.
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In your Google Cloud Platform console, use the Navigation Menu to go to Storage grouping and select SQL.
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On the SQL page, click +Create Instance.
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On the Choose your database engine window, click Choose PostgreSQL.
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On the Create PostgreSQL instance page, add details to the following required fields for this database server:
a. Instance ID, enter a database server ID. (demo-runbook-sql1)
b. Default user password, enter a “postgres” user password.
c. Select an appropriate Region and Zone for your database server. Select the same zone or region that you used to create your OpenShift cluster.
d. Database version, select PostgreSQL 11 or 12.
e. Configuration options > Connectivity, select Public IP, click + Add Network, enter a Name and Network of one or more IP addresses to allow access to this PostgreSQL database, and click Done.
As a best practice, add the following IP addresses: your local system from where you install helm, the worker nodes of the cluster. One method for finding the IP address for worker nodes of the cluster is to view the nodes in your OpenShift cluster with kubectl command-line tool and then use the command options,
kubectl describe nodes | grep ExternalIP. -
In Configuration options > Machine type and storage:
a. Machine type, select n1-highmem-2 (2 vCPU Cores and 13 GB Memory).
b. Network throughput, select SSD (Recommended).
c. Storage capacity, enter 20 GB and select Enable automatic storage increases.
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Configure the remaining setting using the default values:
a. Auto backups and high availability - select an automated backup time.
b. Flags - no flags are required.
c. For Maintenance - any preference is supported.
d. Labels, no labels are required. Labels can help clarify billing details for your OpenShift resources.
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Click Create.
A deployment progress page displays the status of your deployment until it is complete, which takes up to 5 minutes. When complete, the GCP UI displays all of the SQL resources in your account, which includes your newly created SQL instance:
Create a PostgreSQL database in your new SQL instance for the Pega Platform installation. Use the database editing tool of your choice to log into your SQL instance and create this new PostgreSQL database. The following example was completed using pgAdmin 4.
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Log into your SQL instance.
You can find your access information and login credentials, by selecting the SQL instance in the GCP console.
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In the database editor tool, navigate to Databases and create a new database.
No additional configuration is required.
With your SQL service IP address and your new database name, you are ready to continue to the next section.
To deploy Pega Platform by using Helm, customize the backing-services.yaml and pega.yaml Helm chart that hold the specific settings for your deployment needs and then run a series of Helm commands to complete the deployment.
An installation with deployment will take about 90 minutes total, because a Pega Platform installation in your PostgreSQL database takes up to an hour.
Pega maintains a repository of Helm charts that are required to deploy Pega Platform using Helm, including a generic version of the following charts. After you add the repository to your local system, you can customize these Pega configuration files for your Pega Platform deployment:
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pega/pega - Use this chart to set customization parameters for your deployment. You will modify this chart later in the deployment tasks.
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pega/backingservices - Use this chart to set customization parameters for the Pega-provided Search and Reporting Service (SRS) your deployment. You will modify this chart later in the deployment tasks.
To customize these files, you must download them from the source github repository to your local system, edit them with a text editor, and then save them to your local system using the same filename.
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To add the Pega repository to your Helm installation, enter:
$ helm repo add pega https://pegasystems.github.io/pega-helm-charts -
To verify the new repository, you can search it by entering:
$ helm search repo pega
NAME CHART VERSION APP VERSION DESCRIPTION
pega/pega 1.6.1 Helm chart to configure required installation and deployment configuration settings in your environment for your deployment.
pega/addons 1.6.1 1.0 Helm chart to configure supporting services and tools in your environment for your deployment.
pega/backingservices 1.6.1 Helm Chart to provision the latest Search and Reporting Service (SRS) for your Pega Infinity deploymentThe addons charts is not required for OpenShift deployments of Pega Platform. Use of the backingservices chart is optional, but recommended for delivering your ElasticSearch service for Pega Infinity 8.6 and later.
Updating the backingservices.yaml Helm chart values for the SRS (Supported when installing or upgrading to Pega Infinity 8.6 and later)
To configure the parameters in the backingservices.yaml file, download the file in the charts/backingservices folder, edit it with a text editor, and then save it to your local system using the same filename.
Configure the following parameters so the backingservices.yaml Helm chart matches your Elastic resources in these areas:
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Your docker registry credentials.
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Your deployment name with which the deployment appends the names of your SRS pods.
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Your Pega-provided SRS Docker image in the repository to which you pushed the image.
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Your choice to enable either:
- An ElasticSearch service that is defined at ElasticSearch Helm Chart which the SRS can provide to your deployment.
- Your ElasticSearch cluster for which you specify the required authentication details.
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Add additional, recommended environmental variables for ElasticSearch basic authentication. For details, see Examples/openshift.
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Three additional parameters that ElasticSearch recommends for OpenShift deployments.
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To download the backingservices.yaml Helm chart to the <local filepath>\openshift-demo, enter:
$ helm inspect values pega/backingservices > <local filepath>/openshift-demo/backingservices.yaml -
Use a text editor to open the backingservices.yaml file and update the following parameters in the chart based on your OpenShift requirements:
| Chart parameter name | Purpose | Your setting |
|---|---|---|
| global.imageCredentials.registry: username: password: | Include the URL of your Docker registry along with the registry “username” and “password” credentials. |
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| srs.enabled: | Enable the SRS to provision an internal ElasticSearch service within the SRS cluster that is defined at ElasticSearch Helm Chart. | enabled: "true" |
| srs.deploymentName: | Specify unique name for the deployment based on org app and/or SRS applicable environment name. | deploymentName: "acme-demo-dev-srs" |
| srs.srsRuntime.srsImage: | Specify the Pega-provided SRS Docker image that you downloaded and pushed to your Docker registry. | srs.srsRuntime.srsImage: "<Registry host name:Port>my-pega-srs:<srs-version>". For <srs-version> tag details, see SRS Version compatibility matrix. |
| srs.srsStorage.provisionInternalESCluster: | Enabled by default to provision an Elasticsearch cluster. |
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| srs.srsStorage.domain: port: protocol: basicAuthentication: awsIAM: requireInternetAccess: | Disabled by default. Enable only when srs.srsStorage.provisionInternalESCluster is false and you want to configure SRS to use an existing, externally provisioned ElasticSearch cluster. For an ElasticSearch cluster secured with Basic Authentication, use srs.srsStorage.basicAuthentication section to provide access credentials. For an AWS ElasticSearch cluster secured with IAM role based authentication, use srs.srsStorage.awsIAM section to set the aws region where AWS ElasticSearch cluster is hosted. For unsecured managed ElasticSearch cluster do not configure these options. |
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elasticsearch:
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To run an internal ElasticSearch service (within your deployment), specify details for both the ElasticSearch security configuration and a cluster disk volume size. While the security pack should be enabled, the transport configuration should match whether an SSL certificate is available; by default it is enabled. For the disk volume size, the default is 30Gi; set this value to at least three times the size of your estimated search data size. |
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Additional OpenShift-required parameters:
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Manually add ElasticSearch-recommended parameters to ensure that your SRS pods do not have a RunAsUser parameter and do not require an initialization container. For details, see Examples/OpenShift. |
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Save the file.
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To use an internal Elasticsearch cluster (srs.srsStorage.provisionInternalESCluster:true) for your deployment, you must run
$ make es-prerequisite NAMESPACE=<NAMESPACE_USED_FOR_DEPLOYMENT>.
The Pega deployment model supports advanced configurations to fit most existing clients' needs. If you are a Pega client and have known, required customizations for your deployment and you already use the following files to add your known customizations, you can copy those configurations into the configuration files Pega added for this purpose in the pega-helm-charts repository folder, pega-helm-charts/charts/pega/config/deploy:
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context.xml: add additional required data sources
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prlog4j2.xml: modify your logging configuration, if required
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prconfig.xml: adjust the standard Pega Platform configuration with known, required settings
Make these changes before you begin deploying Pega Platform using Helm charts.
To configure the parameters in the pega.yaml Helm, download the file in the charts/pega folder, edit it with a text editor, and then save it to your local system using the same filename.
Configure the following parameters so the pega.yaml Helm chart matches your deployment resources in these areas:
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Specify that this is an OpenShift deployment.
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Specify to deploy your configuration to ensure that when you invoke this helm configuration file, it invokes a deployment, not an install or update.
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Credentials for your DockerHub account in order to access the required Docker images.
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Access your SQL database (in this example one configured in GCP).
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Access your ElasticSearch service (For 8.6 and later, Pega recommends deploying your service using an SRS cluster).
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Install the version of Pega Platform that you built into your Docker installation image.
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Specify host names for your web and stream tiers.
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To download the pega.yaml Helm chart to the <local filepath>/openshift-demo, enter:
$ helm inspect values pega/pega > /<local filepath>/openshift-demo/pega.yamlYou can compare this file to the Pega-provided example Pega helm chart that was used to test an OpenShift deployment, pega-openshift.yaml to help you see what parameters can be further customized for your OpenShift cluster.
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Use a text editor to open the pega.yaml file and update the following parameters in the chart based on your OpenShift requirements:
| Chart parameter name | Purpose | Your setting |
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| provider: | Specify a OpenShift deployment. | provider:"openshift" |
| actions.execute: | Specify a “deploy” deployment type. | execute: "deploy" |
| Jdbc.url: | Specify the database IP address and database name for your Pega Platform installation. |
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| Jdbc.driverClass: | Specify the driver class for a PostgreSQL database. | driverClass: "org.postgresql.Driver" |
| Jdbc.dbType: | Specify PostgreSQL database type. | dbType: "postgres” |
| Jdbc.driverUri: | Specify the database driver Pega Platform uses during the deployment. |
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| Jdbc: username: password: | Set the security credentials for your database server to allow installation of Pega Platform into your database. |
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| jdbc.rulesSchema: jdbc.dataSchema: | Set the names of both your rules and the data schema to the values that Pega Platform uses for these two schemas. | rulesSchema: "rules" dataSchema: "data" |
| docker.registry.url: username: password: | Include the URL of your Docker registry along with the registry “username” and “password” credentials. |
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| docker.pega.image: | Specify the Pega-provided Pega image you downloaded and pushed to your Docker registry. |
Image: "<Registry host name:Port>/my-pega:<Pega Platform version>" |
| tier.name: ”web” tier.ingress.domain: | Set a host name for the pega-web service of the DNS zone. Pega supports specifying certificates for an ingress using the same methods that OpenShift supports. Note that if you configure both secrets and pre-shared certificates on the ingress, the load balancer ignores the secrets and uses the list of pre-shared certificates. For details, see Using multiple SSL certificates in HTTP(s) load balancing with Ingress. |
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| tier.name: ”stream” tier.ingress.domain: | Set the host name for the pega-stream service of the DNS zone. |
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| pegasearch: | For Pega Platform 8.6 and later, Pega recommends using the chart 'backingservices' to enable Pega SRS. To deploy this service, you must configure your SRS cluster using the backingservices Helm charts and provide the SRS URL for your Pega Infinity deployment. |
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| installer.image: | Specify the Docker installer image for installing Pega Platform that you pushed to your Docker registry. |
Image: "<Registry host name:Port>/my-pega-installer:<Pega Platform version>" |
| installer. adminPassword: | Specify an initial administrator@pega.com password for your installation. This will need to be changed at first login. The adminPassword value cannot start with "@". | adminPassword: "<initial password>" |
- Save the file.
A Helm installation and a Pega Platform installation are separate processes. The Helm install command uses Helm to install your deployment as directed in the Helm charts, one in the charts\addons folder and one in the charts\pega folder.
In this document, you specify that the Helm chart always “deploys” by using the setting, actions.execute: “deploy”. In the following tasks, you overwrite this function on your initial Helm install by specifying --set global.actions.execute:install-deploy, which invokes an installation of Pega Platform using your installation Docker image and then
automatically followed by a deploy. In subsequent Helm deployments, you should not use the override argument, --set global.actions.execute=, since Pega Platform is already installed in your database.
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Open a Linux bash shell and change the location to the top folder of your openshift-demo directory that you created in Preparing your local Linux system.
$ cd /home/<local filepath>/openshift-demo -
To use the oc command to establish authentication with your OpenShift cluster, login to your cluster, specifying the cluster IP address:
$ oc login (https:<cluster-IP-address>:<port>) Login successful.
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To view the nodes in your OpenShift cluster, including cluster names and status, enter:
$ oc get nodes
NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION
os-runbook-zcbxd-master-0 Ready master 47h v1.20.0+87cc9a4
os-runbook-zcbxd-master-1 Ready master 47h v1.20.0+87cc9a4
os-runbook-zcbxd-master-2 Ready master 47h v1.20.0+87cc9a4
os-runbook-zcbxd-worker-b-d8tsq Ready worker 47h v1.20.0+87cc9a4
os-runbook-zcbxd-worker-c-5jlct Ready worker 47h v1.20.0+87cc9a4
os-runbook-zcbxd-worker-d-rmrsz Ready worker 47h v1.20.0+87cc9a4- To create namespaces in preparation for the pega.yaml and backingservices.yaml deployments, enter:
$ kubectl create namespace mypega-openshift-demo- For Pega Platform 8.6 and later installations, to install the backingservices chart that you updated in [Updating the backingservices.yaml Helm chart values (Supported when installing or upgrading to Pega Infinity 8.6 and later)](#Updating the backingservices.yaml Helm chart values (Supported when installing or upgrading to Pega Infinity 8.6 and later)), enter:
$ helm install backingservices pega/backingservices --namespace mypega-openshift-demo --values backingservices.yaml
NAME: backingservices
LAST DEPLOYED: Fri Jul 16 15:31:58 2021
NAMESPACE: mypega-openshift-demo
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1The mypega-openshift-demo namespace used for pega deployment can also be used for backingservice deployment that you configured in backingservices.yaml helm chart.
- To deploy Pega Platform for the first time by specifying to install Pega Platform into the database specified in the Helm chart when you install the pega.yaml Helm chart, enter:
$ helm install mypega-openshift-demo pega/pega --namespace mypega-openshift-demo --values pega.yaml --set global.actions.execute=install-deploy
NAME: mypega-openshift-demo
LAST DEPLOYED: Fri Jan 3 19:00:19 2020
NAMESPACE: mypega-openshift-demo
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
TEST SUITE: NoneFor subsequent Helm installs, use the command helm install mypega-openshift-demo pega/pega --namespace mypega-openshift-demo to deploy Pega Platform and avoid another Pega Platform installation.
A successful Pega deployment immediately returns details that show progress for your mypega-openshift-demo deployment.
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Refer to your OpenShift dashboard to follow the progress of or troubleshoot an installation. For subsequent deployments, you do not need to do this. Initially, while the resources make requests to complete the configuration, you will see red warnings while the configuration is finishing, which is expected behavior.
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To view the final deployment in the Kubernetes dashboard after about 15 minutes, refresh the
mypega-openshift-demonamespace pods.
A successful deployment will not show errors across any various workloads.
After you complete your deployment, as a best practice, associate the host name of the pega-web tier ingress with the IP address that the deployment load balancer assigned to the tier during deployment. The host name of the pega-web tier ingress used in this demo, openshift.web.dev.pega.io, is set in the pega.yaml file in the following lines:
tier:
- name: "web"
service:
# Enter the domain name to access web nodes via a load balancer.
# e.g. web.mypega.example.com
domain: "**openshift.web.dev.pega.io**"To log in to Pega Platform with this host name, assign the host name with the same IP address that the deployment load balancer assigned to the web tier. This final step ensures that you can log in to Pega Platform with your host name, on which you can independently manage security protocols that match your networking infrastructure standards.
You can view the networking endpoints associated with your OpenShift deployment by using the OpenShift dashboard. From the Navigation menu, go to the Networking > Routes and in the pega-web page, in the Router canonical hostname area, you can see the pega-web tier ingress host name that Openshift creates based on the pega-web tier ingress host domain name that you set in the pega.yaml file.
To manually associate the host name of the pega-web tier ingress with the tier endpoint, use the DNS lookup management system of your choice. As an example, if your organization has a GCP Cloud DNS that is configured to manage your DNS lookups, create a record set that specifies the pega-web tier the host name and add the IP address of the pega-web tier.
For GCP Cloud DNS documentation details, see Quickstart.
For details from Openshift to use this generated canonical hostname, click the link, "Do you need to set up custom DNS?"
With the ingress host name name associated with this IP address in your DNS service, you can log in to Pega Platform with a web browser using the URL: http://\<pega-web tier ingress host name>/prweb.
