Provide a supported configuration option to customize the NGINX keepalive_timeout for ODM Decision Server Runtime ZenExtension in IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation.

Environment

• IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation (CP4BA) 24.0.1
• Operational Decision Manager (ODM) deployed on Red Hat OpenShift
• Decision Server Runtime (DSR) exposed through the CP4BA Zen Front Door (NGINX)
• ZenExtension resource automatically generated and managed by the ICP4AOperationalDecisionManager operator

Example of the generated configuration:

apiVersion: zen.cpd.ibm.com/v1
kind: ZenExtension
...
spec:
  upstream.conf: |-
    upstream decisionserverruntime-upstream {
      least_conn;
      keepalive 1000;
      keepalive_timeout 30s;
      keepalive_requests 500;
      server icp4adeploy-odm-decisionserverruntime:9443;
    }

Issue

Customers experiencing intermittent timeout or connection issues with applications consuming ODM Decision Server Runtime have identified that reducing the NGINX upstream keepalive_timeout from the default 30 seconds to 20 seconds resolves the issue in their environment.

However, the ZenExtension resource is generated and owned by the ICP4AOperationalDecisionManager operator. Any manual modification to the generated upstream.conf is overwritten during normal operator reconciliation events, including operator restarts, reconciliation cycles, upgrades, or other platform changes. As a result, the customization cannot be maintained in a supported or upgrade-safe manner.

Currently, there is no documented or supported mechanism to configure the keepalive_timeout value through the ICP4AOperationalDecisionManager Custom Resource, a ConfigMap, an operator parameter, or another persistent customization method.

Enhancement Request

Provide a supported mechanism to configure NGINX upstream connection parameters, including keepalive_timeout, for ODM Decision Server Runtime. The configuration should:

Allow administrators to specify a custom keepalive_timeout value (for example, 20 seconds).

Be configurable through a supported interface such as the ICP4AOperationalDecisionManager Custom Resource, a dedicated configuration section, ConfigMap, or another operator-supported override.

Persist across operator reconciliation, pod recreation, platform upgrades, and CP4BA version upgrades.

Be documented as a supported customization.

This enhancement would enable customers to tune upstream connection behavior to match their network infrastructure (such as external load balancers, proxies, or firewalls with shorter idle connection timeouts) without relying on unsupported manual modifications that are lost during reconciliation.