Upgrading Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform (Upgrading from Version 3.5 to Version 4.6)

If you are running an unsupported version of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, you must upgrade your cluster to a supported version of Red Hat OpenShift before you upgrade to IBM Cloud Pak® for Data Version 4.6.

Upgrade phase
You are not here. Setting up a client workstation
You are not here. Collecting required information
You are here icon. Preparing your cluster
You are not here. Upgrading the Cloud Pak for Data platform and services
Who needs to complete this task?
The primary cluster administrator should upgrade the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform cluster.
When do you need to complete this task?
You must upgrade Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform if you are running an unsupported version.

For information about supported versions of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, see Software requirements.

Upgrading from OpenShift Version 3.11

You cannot upgrade from OpenShift Version 3.11 to OpenShift Version 4.x.

To move from Version 3.11 to Version 4.x:

  1. Install a supported version of OpenShift Version 4.x on a separate cluster. For installation options, see Installing Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform
    Important: OpenShift Version 4.8 is the only version of OpenShift that is supported by both IBM Cloud Pak for Data Version 3.5 and 4.6.
  2. Migrate your existing installation to the new cluster.

Upgrading from OpenShift Version 4.5

Version 4.8
To upgrade from OpenShift Version 4.5 to OpenShift Version 4.8, see Updating a cluster within a minor version using the command-line interface (CLI) in the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform documentation.
Important: OpenShift Version 4.8 is the only version of OpenShift that is supported by both IBM Cloud Pak for Data Version 3.5 and 4.6.

Tips for a successful OpenShift upgrade

If you are able to upgrade OpenShift in place, keep the following tips in mind:

Quiesce Cloud Pak for Data services
Before you upgrade your cluster, back up your IBM Cloud Pak for Data installation by Backing up the Cloud Pak for Data file system to a local repository or object store. When you run this backup process, the services are suspended (quiesced). This will reduce the number of failovers that occur for Cloud Pak for Data services.

After upgrade completes, restore Cloud Pak for Data by Restoring the Cloud Pak for Data file system from a local repository or object store.

Upgrade OpenShift one host at a time
When you upgrade your cluster one host at a time, it allows the processes that are running on the target host to migrate to another host. Use the maxUnavailable field in the machine configuration pool to limit the number of nodes that are unavailable at any given time. For details, see Updating a cluster within a minor version by using the CLI in the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform documentation.

The cluster must have capacity equal to at least one full host. This enables the cluster to fail over all processes from the target host. However, you might want to ensure that you have additional capacity as a buffer.

Tip: If the version of OpenShift that you are running supports a canary rollout strategy, consider performing an canary rollout, which enables you to perform a controlled update of the worker nodes on the cluster.

What's next

Now that you've upgraded Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, you are ready to complete Upgrading shared persistent storage.