Upgrading Integration tracing

Note: If you plan to use the Integration tracing capability (Operations Dashboard), you must upgrade it before upgrading any of the instances it will be tracing.

Upgrading Integration tracing involves:

  1. Upgrading the Operations Dashboard operator using the Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM).

  2. Upgrading the Integration tracing deployment by editing the Integration tracing custom resource (CR).

  3. Upgrading the traced integration capabilities (optional).

These operations can be configured to happen automatically, or they can be initiated manually.

Upgrading the operator

The OLM attempts to upgrade an operator when a new version is available to the cluster.

  • Automatic approval - If the Operations Dashboard operator subscription is set to Automatic approval, the operator is upgraded automatically whenever a new version becomes available. However, if the operator's channel has also been upgraded, you must specify the new version of the channel. This is a manual step, even for operator upgrades that are automatic. To determine which channel version to specify for your release, see Operator channel versions for Cloud Pak for Integration releases.

To upgrade the operator channel:

  1. Go to the OpenShift web console.

  2. Click Operator > Installed Operators.

  3. Click Integration tracing.

  4. In the Subscription details pane, click the pencil (edit) icon for the Channel field, and update to the new channel. For example:

Change subscription update channel for integration tracing in OpenShift web console

  • Manual approval - If the subscription is set to Manual approval, a Cluster Administrator must approve the InstallPlan created by OLM to upgrade the operator.

    • You approve the InstallPlan by clicking Operators > Installed Operators in the OpenShift console.

    • The upgrade status under Subscription displays as "Upgrading" until the user reviews and approves its Install Plan.

    • After confirming approval on the Install Plan page, the subscription upgrade status changes to "Up to date".

Upgrading the operand

An upgraded Operations Dashboard operator may support new versions of Integration tracing.

  • Automatic upgrade - If your Integration tracing CR spec.version is set to a channel, and the operator supports a newer version in that channel, your Integration tracing deployment is automatically upgraded.

  • Manual upgrade - If your Integration tracing spec.version is set to a specific version, upgrade your Integration tracing by updating the spec.version in the Integration tracing CR.

Users can also identify what versions are available to a given instance of Integration tracing (for upgrade or downgrade) by looking at the status.versions.available section of an Integration tracing CR.

Troubleshooting: You may get validation errors while trying to upgrade the operand. Workaround:

  • Edit the URL to access the v1beta2 custom resource, so that the end of the URL is /integration.ibm.com~v1beta2~OperationsDashboard/cp4i-od-dev/yaml.

  • Update the custom resource value for spec.license so that it accepts the Cloud Park for Integration license.

Upgrading the traced integration capabilities

IBM recommends that once you have upgraded the instance of Integration tracing, you also upgrade the integration capabilities that are traced by that instance of Integration tracing to the same version as the instance. Doing so ensures that you enjoy the latest features of Integration tracing.

Backward compatibility with older versions of integration capabilities

Integration tracing can receive distributed tracing data from IBM Cloud Pak for Integration capabilities of older versions with the following limitations:

  • Version 2020.4.1 is fully supported.

  • Versions 2020.3.1 and 2020.2.1 are supported with the following limitations:

    • The sampling policy cannot be adjusted, and is always be set to the default (10%).

    • Some new features of Integration tracing, such as excluding internal MQ services from generating traces, may not be available.