Upgrading Watson Assistant from Version 4.0 to Version 4.6

A project administrator can upgrade Watson Assistant from Cloud Pak for Data Version 4.0 to Version 4.6.

Important: To complete this task, you must be running Watson Assistant Version 4.0.2 or later. (Version 4.0.2 was released with Cloud Pak for Data Version 4.0 Refresh 2.)
Supported upgrade paths
If you are running Watson Assistant Version 4.0.2 or later, you can upgrade to Versions 4.6.0 - 4.6.2.
Unsupported upgrade paths
You cannot upgrade from Version 4.0 to Version 4.6.3 or later. You must upgrade to 4.6.2 before you upgrade to 4.6.3 or later.
What permissions do you need to complete this task?
The permissions that you need depend on which tasks you must complete:
  • To update the Watson Assistant operators, you must have the appropriate permissions to create operators and you must be an administrator of the project where the Cloud Pak for Data operators are installed. This project is identified by the ${PROJECT_CPD_OPS} environment variable.
  • To upgrade Watson Assistant, you must be an administrator of the project where Watson Assistant is installed. This project is identified by the ${PROJECT_CPD_INSTANCE} environment variable.
When do you need to complete this task?
If you didn't upgrade Watson Assistant when you upgraded the platform, you can complete this task to upgrade your existing Watson Assistant installation.

If you want to upgrade all of the Cloud Pak for Data components at the same time, follow the process in Upgrading the platform and services instead.

Important: All of the Cloud Pak for Data components in a deployment must be installed at the same release.

Information you need to complete this task

Review the following information before you upgrade Watson Assistant:

Environment variables
The commands in this task use environment variables so that you can run the commands exactly as written.
  • If you don't have the script that defines the environment variables, see Setting up installation environment variables.
  • To use the environment variables from the script, you must source the environment variables before you run the commands in this task, for example:
    source ./cpd_vars.sh
Installation location
Watson Assistant is installed in the same project (namespace) as the Cloud Pak for Data control plane. This project is identified by the ${PROJECT_CPD_INSTANCE} environment variable.
Common core services
Watson Assistant requires the Cloud Pak for Data common core services.

If the common core services are not at the required version for the release, the common core services will be automatically upgraded when you upgrade Watson Assistant. This increases the amount of time the upgrade takes to complete.

Storage requirements
You must tell Watson Assistant what storage you use in your existing installation. You cannot change the storage that is associated with Watson Assistant during an upgrade. Ensure that the environment variables point to the correct storage classes for your environment.

Before you begin

This task assumes that the following prerequisites are met:

Prerequisite Where to find more information
The cluster meets the minimum requirements for Watson Assistant. If this task is not complete, see System requirements.
The workstation from which you will run the upgrade is set up as a client workstation and includes the following command-line interfaces:
  • Cloud Pak for Data CLI: cpd-cli
  • OpenShift® CLI: oc
 If this task is not complete, see Setting up a client workstation.
The Cloud Pak for Data control plane is upgraded. If this task is not complete, see Upgrading the platform and services.
For environments that use a private container registry, such as air-gapped environments, the Watson Assistant software images are mirrored to the private container registry. If this task is not complete, see Mirroring images to a private container registry.

Procedure

Complete the following tasks to upgrade Watson Assistant:

  1. Backing up your data
  2. Logging in to the cluster
  3. Updating the operator
  4. Recreating the Model Train service
  5. Removing temporary patches
  6. Specifying configuration options
  7. Upgrading the service
  8. Validating the upgrade
  9. Cleaning up resources
  10. What to do next

Logging in to the cluster

To run cpd-cli manage commands, you must log in to the cluster.

To log in to the cluster:

  1. Run the cpd-cli manage login-to-ocp command to log in to the cluster as a user with sufficient permissions to complete this task. For example:
    cpd-cli manage login-to-ocp \
--username=${OCP_USERNAME} \
--password=${OCP_PASSWORD} \
--server=${OCP_URL}
    Tip: The login-to-ocp command takes the same input as the oc login command. Run oc login --help for details.

Updating the operator

The Watson Assistant operator simplifies the process of managing the Watson Assistant service on Red Hat® OpenShift Container Platform.

To upgrade Watson Assistant, ensure that all of the Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM) objects in the ${PROJECT_CPD_OPS} project, such as the catalog sources and subscriptions, are upgraded to the appropriate release. All of the OLM objects must be at the same release.

Who needs to complete this task?
You must be a cluster administrator (or a user with the appropriate permissions to install operators) to create the OLM objects.
When do you need to complete this task?
Complete this task only if the OLM artifacts have not been updated for the current release using the cpd-cli manage apply-olm command with the --upgrade=true option.

It is not necessary to run this command multiple times for each service that you plan to upgrade. If you complete this task and the OLM artifacts already exist on the cluster, the cpd-cli will recreate the OLM objects for all of the existing components in the ${PROJECT_CPD_OPS} project.

To update the operator:

  1. Update the OLM objects:
    cpd-cli manage apply-olm \
--release=${VERSION} \
--cpd_operator_ns=${PROJECT_CPD_OPS} \
--upgrade=true
    • If the command succeeds, it returns [SUCCESS]... The apply-olm command ran successfully.
    • If the command fails, it returns [ERROR] and includes information about the cause of the failure.

What to do next: Upgrade the Watson Assistant service.

Recreating the Model Train service

You must delete the old Model Train service to create a new one for Watson Assistant 4.6:

  1. Export the name of your Watson Assistant instance as an environment variable:
    export INSTANCE=`oc get wa -n ${PROJECT_CPD_INSTANCE} |grep -v NAME| awk '{print $1}'`
  2. Recreate the Model Train service: 
    oc delete modeltraindynamicworkflows.modeltrain.ibm.com ${INSTANCE}-dwf
oc delete pvc -l release=${INSTANCE}-dwf-ibm-mt-dwf-rabbitmq 
oc delete deploy ${INSTANCE}-clu-training-${INSTANCE}-dwf
oc delete secret/${INSTANCE}-clu-training-secret job/${INSTANCE}-clu-training-create secret/${INSTANCE}-dwf-ibm-mt-dwf-server-tls-secret secret/${INSTANCE}-dwf-ibm-mt-dwf-client-tls-secret

Removing temporary patches

Prior to upgrading, you must remove all temporary patches from the previous release:

  1. Export variables:
    export PROJECTNAME=<namespace where WA is installed> # Your namespace for WA and CP4D
export INSTANCENAME=<Watson Assistant Instance name> # Normally "wa"
  2. List the temporary patches:
    oc get temporarypatch -n $PROJECTNAME
  3. Export variable for patch name:
    export PATCHNAME=<name of the patch to delete>
  4. Delete the temporary patch:
    oc delete temporarypatch $PATCHNAME -n $PROJECTNAME &
  5. Patch the finalizer lines:
    oc patch temporarypatch $PATCHNAME  -n $PROJECTNAME --type=merge -p '{"metadata": {"finalizers":null}}'
  6. Remove temp patch annotations from the CRs:
    oc annotate watsonassistants.assistant.watson.ibm.com $INSTANCENAME oppy.ibm.com/temporary-patches-
oc annotate watsonassistantstores.assistant.watson.ibm.com $INSTANCENAME oppy.ibm.com/temporary-patches-
oc annotate watsonassistantintegrations.assistant.watson.ibm.com $INSTANCENAME oppy.ibm.com/temporary-patches-
oc annotate watsonassistantclu.assistant.watson.ibm.com $INSTANCENAME oppy.ibm.com/temporary-patches-
oc annotate watsonassistantanalytics.assistant.watson.ibm.com $INSTANCENAME oppy.ibm.com/temporary-patches-
oc annotate watsonassistantrecommends.assistant.watson.ibm.com $INSTANCENAME oppy.ibm.com/temporary-patches-
oc annotate watsonassistantdialog.assistant.watson.ibm.com $INSTANCENAME oppy.ibm.com/temporary-patches-
oc annotate watsonassistantui.assistant.watson.ibm.com $INSTANCENAME oppy.ibm.com/temporary-patches-
  7. Verify that the temporary patch you deleted is gone:
    oc get temporarypatch -n $PROJECTNAME

Specifying configuration options

When you upgrade the service, you must configure the same options that were used for your previous deployment.

You might need to configure the following options to upgrade:
  • watson_assistant_size
  • watson_assistant_languages
  • watson_assistant_bigpv
  • watson_assistant_analytics_enabled
If you're not sure which options you have, check the configuration. From the existing cluster, run the following command to get the current Watson Assistant custom resource specification:
oc get WatsonAssistant ${INSTANCE} -o jsonpath='{.spec}{"\n"}'

To specify these installation options:

  1. Create a file called install-options.yml in the work directory (cpd-cli-workspace/olm-utils-workspace/work).
  2. Edit the YAML file to include the same configuration options that were used for your 4.0 deployment. An example install-options.yml file might look like:
    watson_assistant_size: Starter     # Choose your deployment size. The options are Starter, Production, or large.
watson_assistant_languages:
- en     # Do not remove or comment out English
- es     # Add support for Spanish
#- fr
#- pt-br
#- it
#- ja
#- de
#- ko
#- ar
#- nl
#- zh-tw
#- zh-cn  
#- cs
watson_assistant_bigpv: true
watson_assistant_analytics_enabled: false     # Set false to disable Analytics or true to enable Analytics
    Tip: You can use the same file to provide input for multiple components. Each setting name is prefixed with the component name.
When you upgrade Watson Assistant, include the --param-file=/tmp/work/install-options.yml option in the command.

Upgrading the service

After the Watson Assistant operator is updated, you can upgrade Watson Assistant.

Who needs to complete this task?
You must be an administrator of the project where Watson Assistant is installed.
When do you need to complete this task?
Complete this task for each instance of Watson Assistant that is associated with an instance of Cloud Pak for Data Version 4.6.
Remember: To specify advanced configuration options for Watson Assistant, add the following line before the --license_acceptance entry:
--param-file=/tmp/work/install-options.yml \

To upgrade the service:

  1. Update the custom resource for Watson Assistant.

    The command that you run depends on the storage on your cluster:

    Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation storage

    Run the following command to update the custom resource.

    cpd-cli manage apply-cr \
--components=watson_assistant \
--release=${VERSION} \
--cpd_instance_ns=${PROJECT_CPD_INSTANCE} \
--block_storage_class=${STG_CLASS_BLOCK} \
--file_storage_class=${STG_CLASS_FILE} \
--license_acceptance=true \
--upgrade=true
    IBM Storage Scale Container Native storage

    Run the following command to update the custom resource.

    Remember: When you use IBM Storage Scale Container Native storage, both ${STG_CLASS_BLOCK} and ${STG_CLASS_FILE} point to the same storage class.
    cpd-cli manage apply-cr \
--components=watson_assistant \
--release=${VERSION} \
--cpd_instance_ns=${PROJECT_CPD_INSTANCE} \
--block_storage_class=${STG_CLASS_BLOCK} \
--file_storage_class=${STG_CLASS_FILE} \
--license_acceptance=true \
--upgrade=true
    Portworx storage

    Run the following command to update the custom resource.

    cpd-cli manage apply-cr \
--components=watson_assistant \
--release=${VERSION} \
--cpd_instance_ns=${PROJECT_CPD_INSTANCE} \
--storage_vendor=portworx \
--license_acceptance=true \
--upgrade=true
    IBM Cloud with IBM Cloud File Storage and IBM Cloud Block Storage

    Run the following command to update the custom resource.

    cpd-cli manage apply-cr \
--components=watson_assistant \
--release=${VERSION} \
--cpd_instance_ns=${PROJECT_CPD_INSTANCE} \
--block_storage_class=${STG_CLASS_BLOCK} \
--file_storage_class=${STG_CLASS_FILE} \
--license_acceptance=true \
--upgrade=true

Validating the upgrade

Watson Assistant is upgraded when the apply-cr command returns [SUCCESS]... The apply-cr command ran successfully.

However, you can optionally run the cpd-cli manage get-cr-status command if you want to confirm that the custom resource status is Completed:

cpd-cli manage get-cr-status \
--cpd_instance_ns=${PROJECT_CPD_INSTANCE} \
--components=watson_assistant

Cleaning up resources

Who needs to complete this task?
You must be an administrator of the project where Watson Assistant is installed.
When do you need to complete this task?
Complete this task to clean up resources after you upgrade Watson Assistant.

To delete remaining resources:

  1. Delete the Store Cronjob as a cleanup process:
    oc delete ${INSTANCE}-store-cronjob
    Verify that the job deleted successfully:
    oc get cronjob -n ${PROJECT_CPD_INSTANCE}
    After a few minutes, a new job with the same name should reappear.
  2. In rare cases, if the dockerRegistryPrefix: value was set in the Watson Assistant custom resource, the ${INSTANCE}-clu-training-create job might not complete successfully. In this case, run the following command to create a Docker secret. When you run the command, replace {docker-registry-server}, {docker-username}, {docker-password}, and {docker-email} with your Docker information:
    oc create secret docker-registry registry-${INSTANCE}-clu-training-${INSTANCE}-dwf-training
--docker-server={docker-registry-server} --docker-username={docker-username} --docker-password={docker-password} --docker-email={docker-email}
    Then, delete the ${INSTANCE}-clu-training-create job:
    oc delete secret/${INSTANCE}-clu-training-secret job/${INSTANCE}-clu-training-create -n ${PROJECT_CPD_INSTANCE}
  3. Optional: If you enabled either the Japanese or Korean languages, you have an old and a new SIREG deployment for each language. Delete old SIREG deployments. After the new SIREG pods are running, delete the old SIREG deployments by running the following command:
    oc delete deploy wa-sireg-ja-tok-20160902 wa-sireg-ko-tok-20181109

What to do next

Watson Assistant is ready to use. For information about getting started, see Building an assistant with Watson Assistant. To enable Red Hat OpenShift Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) for Watson Assistant to automatically increase or decrease pods in response to CPU or memory consumption, see Automatically scaling resources for services.