What's new in Db2 and Db2 Warehouse for Red Hat OpenShift and Kubernetes

Db2 and Db2 Warehouse for Red Hat OpenShift and Kubernetes is enhanced for the 12.1.5 release.

Note: Db2 and Db2 Warehouse for Red Hat OpenShift and Kubernetes legacy deployments are created by using the legacy operator. The legacy operator consists of Db2 Operator versions 12.1.0-12.1.5 and is deprecated. Plan to uplift to Db2 Operator Version 2. For more information, see Uplifting Db2 instances to Db2 Operator Version 2
Important: Db2uCluster Custom Resource is deprecated and will be discontinued in a future release. As a resolution, migrate from Db2uCluster to Db2uInstance. To migrate to Db2uInstance, perform a Db2 native backup on your Db2uCluster instance and then restore to a new Db2uInstance. For more information on this procedure, see Backing up a Db2 or Db2 Warehouse database offline and Restoring Db2 or Db2 Warehouse from an offline backup.

Db2 Operator V2 introduces a new deployment and management model for Db2 and Db2 Warehouse on Red Hat OpenShift and Kubernetes. This release focuses on modernizing deployment workflows, improving lifecycle management, and aligning with Kubernetes-native practices.

Helm-based installation model

  • Replaces Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM) with Helm-based installation and upgrades.
  • Enables GitOps-compatible, version-controlled deployments.
  • Simplifies configuration through centralized Helm values.

Declarative high availability with Db2uHa

  • Introduces the Db2uHa custom resource for HA configuration.
  • Provides read replica support and role-aware services.
  • Simplifies setup compared to user-managed HADR.

Enhanced validation and admission control

  • Adds validation and mutation webhooks.
  • Detects invalid configurations before deployment.
  • Enforces defaults and requires maintenance acknowledgment for disruptive changes.

Storage pre-checker

  • Runs before Db2 startup to validate storage configuration.
  • Detects issues with permissions, performance, and capacity early.
  • Helps prevent runtime failures.

Certificate lifecycle automation

  • Integrates with cert-manager for TLS management.
  • Supports automatic certificate renewal and online updates without restarts.

Uplift support from legacy operator

  • Uplift is available to transition existing deployments to Operator V2.
  • The uplift preserves data and configuration during migration.

Policy-based deployment with Kyverno

  • Introduces Kyverno support for enforcing policies in restricted environments (restricted-v2).