IBM Cloud Pak for Data v4.7 Architect flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Cloud Pak for Data control plane

Zen provides the home page, IAM integration, and platform API. If Zen is unhealthy, the platform UI is unavailable even when individual data services are still running.

Common core services role

Common core services supply shared MongoDB, RabbitMQ, and search backing stores used by many services. Their failure affects multiple services at once, so monitor them as shared dependencies.

Service versus service instance

A service is the installed operator and images. An instance is a deployed copy with its own persistent volumes and resource requests, so capacity planning is per instance.

Production cluster topology rule

Production requires at least three master and three worker nodes spread across zones with anti-affinity. A single-zone cluster remains a single point of failure regardless of pod replicas.

RWX versus RWO storage

Shared platform services need ReadWriteMany file storage such as NFS or OCS. Block storage limited to ReadWriteOnce suits only single-pod workloads and breaks multi-replica services.

GPU node isolation

GPU nodes are needed only for NLP, speech, and foundation-model inferencing. Use taints and node selectors so ordinary workloads do not consume expensive GPU capacity.

Entitlement key requirement

The IBM entitlement key must be added to the global pull secret before installing components. Without it, component pods fail with ImagePullBackOff against the entitled registry.

Operator and instance namespaces

Operators are installed in cpd-operators and platform or service instances in cpd-instance. Keeping them separate simplifies RBAC, backup, and troubleshooting during upgrades.

cpd-cli manage install order

The order is prerequisites, platform (zen), services, then service instances. Commands are idempotent, so a failed step is retried rather than reinstalling the whole platform.

Upgrade sequencing rule

Upgrade the platform before services, never skip a required intermediate release, and confirm versions against the support matrix. Rollback means restoring the pre-upgrade backup.

Pre-upgrade backup targets

Back up MongoDB, Zen metadata, and catalog data to S3-compatible storage before upgrading. Validate the restore path, because rollback depends entirely on that backup.

Air-gapped installation approach

Mirror all images to a private registry with cpd-cli manage mirror-images, then set the image registry prefix. The entitlement key is still required at mirror time.

Install health verification

Check operand status with cpd-cli manage get-cr-status and runtime state with oc get pods. A component is not ready while its operand CR reports a non-Completed status.

External identity provider integration

Authentication is delegated to LDAP, SAML, or OIDC. The platform stores identity mappings and group-to-role assignments, not enterprise user passwords.

Layered authorization model

Access requires the intersection of platform role, service role, and resource role. Granting a platform role alone does not give access to catalog assets or project data.

Data protection rules

Watson Knowledge Catalog policies are enforced by rules. A data protection rule can deny access, mask column values, or filter rows at query time for governed assets.

Platform role definitions

Administrator manages users and services, User creates projects and instances, and Viewer has read-only UI access. These are distinct from per-service and per-resource roles.

Certificate replacement procedure

Replace the self-signed platform certificate with an enterprise CA-signed certificate using cpd-cli. Clients then trust a single CA chain across all services.

Audit export to SIEM

Platform and service audit records are exported to a SIEM through audit logging configuration. Catalog activity is recorded per asset for compliance review.

Credential storage rule

Store data source credentials in the platform credential store or an external vault. Never hardcode credentials in notebooks, job parameters, or connection strings.

Watson Query nickname behavior

A nickname is a virtual table over a remote source. Operations push down when the source supports them; cross-source joins require staging data locally.

Virtualization versus DataStage

Use virtualization for read-mostly federation without copying data. Use DataStage when transformation, cleansing, or a persisted target table is required.

Data Replication use case

Data Replication performs change data capture for near-real-time synchronization. Choose it when latency requirements are seconds to minutes, not batch ETL.

Lineage capture scope

Lineage is captured automatically for DataStage, Watson Query, and notebooks. External tools appear in lineage only after metadata import.

Discovery and metadata import

Discovery jobs profile assets, assign data classes from column names and values, and feed quality analysis. Results drive governance rules and catalog enrichment.

DataStage partitioning and skew

Partitioning method, buffering, and redistribution stages determine parallel job throughput. Skewed partitions are the most common cause of slow parallel jobs.

Watson Query tuning levers

Increase virtualizer resources, keep predicates pushdown-friendly, and pre-stage large cross-source joins. Local staging storage must be sized for those joins.

DataStage parameter sets

Parameter sets externalize connection strings and file paths so the same job runs across development, test, and production without editing job logic.

ImagePullBackOff diagnosis

ImagePullBackOff means the entitlement key or pull secret is wrong or expired. CrashLoopBackOff instead points to configuration, resource limits, or storage permissions.

Pending PVC diagnosis

A PVC stuck in Pending means no storage class satisfies the requested access mode. Inspect events and the storage class volumeBindingMode before changing the claim.

Instance not ready causes

A service instance that never becomes ready is often blocked by resource quota. Check quota and the operand CR status message before attempting a reinstall.

Evidence collection before restart

Gather oc logs, oc describe, oc get events, and cpd-cli collect-logs before restarting pods. Restarting destroys the failing state that support needs.