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Log 9 🛫

· 3 min read

Objective​

Deploy watsonx.ai on self-managed AWS infrastructure for customer software evaluation

Milestones​

  1. Deploy and configuration of boot node to establish a beach-head into the customer AWS environment
    • Complete
  2. Deploy OCP using the documented UPI installation steps
    • In progress
  3. Install Cloud Pak for Data
  4. Deploy and configure watsonx.ai on self-managed AWS infrastructure

Today's Accomplishments​

  • Configuration of the boot node
    • Installation of prerequisite software onto the boot node
    • Created and started local registry
    • Generated CA certrificate for PKI architecture
  • Completion of step 1 of 2 of the deployment script

Lessons Learned​

  • Storage insufficient on the bootnode for downloaded images, 400gb minimum required
    • Mitigation: We increased the boot disk size to 500 gig via the AWS console for the EC2 instance. We then grew the disk and grew the filesystem
    • This needs to be added as a prereq
  • There was a constraint in the sg-lb-template.yaml requiring subnets sized from /16 o /24. We removed that constraint
  • Edited bootstrap-template.yaml line 91 to remove the wrong key name. (artifact from testing)
  • Software Evaluation process - define and build internal documentation - TBD
  • Documentation updates
    • Parameter definitions - making them more descriptive
  • Validation checks
    • Creating a validation process before runniing any scripts/installs checking for prerequisites

Decisions and Action Items (DAI)​

  • AWS CLI had a previous installation. Had to manually remove that installation and re-run the aws cli install command.
  • We decided to run the installation as root user. Root user needed to have the /usr/local/bin added to the PATH. Did this manually on the fly with an export command.
  • Customer security to approve selected AMI for coreOS
    • The AMI for CoreOS is a public AMI. The customer security team needs to copy it into the dev account as public AMI's are blocked in this environment

Next Steps​

  • License and configure Cloud Pak for Data
    • Cloud Pak Considerations
      • Security scans needed on container images
      • Customer has no OpenShift experience
      • Customer requires on-prem, offline install
      • Customer uses their own container registry that might introduce extra effort or compatability issues
      • Version compatibility with OpenShift (e.g. 4.10 required and customer has 4.11)
      • Supported storage not available
      • Multiple cloudpaks on the same cluster
      • custom connections to data sources not supported OOTB
      • AWS-specific: IAM users required for install/deploy and are not allowed
      • OpenShift specific: CoreOS requirement for control nodes
      • Automatic updating of Cloud Pak, this can interrupt engagements (solution is to always remove update polling from operators)
  • Deploy watsonx.ai