Overview

Quantum Fabric has multiple components, such as Identity, Integration, and Engagement Services. These features can be accessed through a common, centralized Quantum Fabric Console. This document helps you install and configure Quantum Fabric (Console, Identity Services, Integration Services, and Engagement Services) on Azure Cloud. For more information about Quantum Fabric, refer to Quantum Fabric User Guide.

Quantum Fabric Containers on Azure Solution is designed to facilitate Quantum Fabric on Azure for Non-Production and Production needs. This setup occurs with minimal manual intervention and leverages the following technologies:

  • Docker - To package different components as portable container images (with all the required binaries and libs)
  • Kubernetes - To orchestrate and maintain all these running containers. It will also have features like auto-scaling, secrets, deployment upgrades and rollbacks.
  • Azure - For provisioning of the underlying infrastructure.

The Quantum Fabric Containers on Azure Solution has the following features:

  • Creates a multi-layer architecture along with the Application Gateway in a Virtual Network making it secure.
  • Supports options to configure a custom DNS name, SSL cert support for secure communication, and includes Jumpbox for DevOps activities.
IMPORTANT:
  • This guide covers installation of Quantum Fabric V9 SP1 and later versions. For earlier versions, refer to Quantum Fabric V9 on Azure.
  • For V9 SP1 and later versions, the installation process creates a dedicated cluster for Integration, which is called the INT cluster. The remaining Fabric components are present in a single cluster, which is called the SHARED cluster.
  • For versions V9 ServicePack 5 or later, containers for the Fabric components run on the Red Hat Universal Base Image (UBI).
  • For versions V9 ServicePack 4 or earlier, containers for the Fabric components run on a Debian image.

Overview for the Production and Non-Production Installations

There are two installation modes, Production and Non-Production. The Production mode is equipped to handle Production level traffic and Non-Production mode is for testing purposes.

During the installation you would be prompted to choose between the installation of a Production instance or a Non-Production instance. In general, for a given Azure subscription an organization installs one Production instance and multiple Non-Production instances (for example, Dev, QA, and UAT). For more information, refer to the following sections.

Production Mode

When you setup a Production account each installation is treated as a fresh installation where both the Shared cluster and the Integration cluster are created again.

Non-Production Mode

In a given Azure subscription, when you install a Non-Production instance, a complete Quantum Fabric instance is created with both the clusters (Shared and Integration) for the first Non-Production installation.

For every subsequent installation of a non-production instance such as Dev, QA, or UAT, only the Integration (INT) cluster gets created again, while the rest of the Fabric components are shared for all the Non-Production instances within the same subscription. This integration instance is registered with the existing Fabric console created as part of the first installation.

NOTE: In case of a Non-Production setup the information about the shared resources (which are required for installing the new environments) is stored as installation metadata in Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Key Vault.