Upgrading Custom Edition online

You can upgrade Custom Edition online by using the kubectl plug-in.

The Instana kubectl plug-in and the Instana Enterprise operator are always released together. The Instana backend updates are independent of the Instana Enterprise operator releases.

You can use the Instana kubectl plug-in to check the supported Instana backend versions and update the backend as required.

For release-specific requirements for upgrade, see Upgrade notes.

Prerequisites

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Make sure that the following prerequisites are met before you upgrade Instana:

The cluster has adequate capacity. If the cluster is nearing its request capacity, add an extra node to avoid the pods stuck in Pending status.
The Elasticsearch nodes have sufficient disk space. If the disk usage exceeds 80%, the Elasticsearch nodes automatically switch to read-only mode, which can cause the upgrade to hang or fail silently.

Procedure

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To upgrade Custom Edition online, complete the following steps:

Check whether the data store versions are compatible with the Instana version that you want to upgrade to. For data store versions, see Upgrading third-party data store operators.
If your data store version is not compatible, upgrade the data stores. For upgrading data stores, see Upgrading third-party data store operators.
- Optional: Upgrade BeeInstana, see .Updating the BeeInstana on Kubernetes.
Upgrade Instana Enterprise operator.
1. Install the target version of the Instana kubectl plug-in. The Instana kubectl plug-in and the Instana Enterprise Operator are versioned together, so install the plug-in version that matches the version of the Operator you are installing. For more information, see Installing the Instana kubectl plug-in.
2. Upgrade the operator where the new operator is applied with a default Instana backend version. See Applying Manifests directly.
  - Make sure that you apply or generate new YAML manifests. Do not update the image version in the existing YAML manifests directly. If you update the image version in the existing YAML manifests, then you might miss the CustomResourceDefinition (CRD) updates, or other changes that can lead to unpredictable errors.
  - To upgrade to a specific version, you might require to do some extra actions, see upgrade notes. When you skip a release, make sure that you consider the upgrade notes (including upgrade notes for the skipped version and the target version).
Upgrade Instana backend:

Note: Build 1.0.0 and later, you can upgrade the Instana backend when new versions are released. All commands have an optional --download-key flag. If you do not specify the flag, the download key of the existing installation is used.
1. Find the available Instana backend versions that are compatible with the installed Custom Edition.
```
kubectl-instana versions identify 
 
```
2. Update the backend version. Complete one of the following steps.
  - Select a version to upgrade:
```
kubectl-instana versions update 
 
```
    All supported upgrade versions are displayed. You can select a version.
  - Specify a version to upgrade:
```
kubectl-instana versions update --instana-version 3.xxx.xxx-0
 
```
    Alternatively, you can configure the backend version that you want to upgrade to in the core spec and apply the spec as shown in the following example.
```
...
spec:
  imageConfig:
    tag: 3.xxx.xxx-0
...
 
```
3. Verify the Instana backend upgrade:
```
kubectl get core -n instana-core
 
```
```
kubectl get units -n instana-units
 
```