RQA customer-managed upgrade

Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM) manages the lifecycle of operators by using channels. RQA facilitates OLM and channels to support the product upgrades. When a patch, a minor, or a major version update is available, the OLM creates the update request. After the OpenShift® administrator manually approves the update request, the IBM Engineering Requirements Quality Assistant (RQA) operator is upgraded to a new version by OLM.

RQA uses semantic versions X.Y.Z that denotes the MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH upgrade, and supports the following updates:
  • Patch updates
  • Minor version updates
  • Major version updates

RQA operator manages the RQA product version that is installed to the cluster. RQA version is also tied to the RQA operator version. When you install RQA, you can choose the channel and the initial version from that channel. The head version of the channel is always used from that point on. The naming convention that RQA uses for the channel is VX.Y, which corresponds to VMAJOR.MINOR.

RQA operator upgrade

When the RQA operator is upgraded, it also upgrades the running RQA instance. The RQA upgrade supports the following scenarios:
  • Automated patch level updates within the same channel: The RQA patch upgrade takes place within the same channel.
  • Minor and major updates by switching the channel: The RQA upgrade for minor or major version updates takes place when the OpenShift administrator changes the channel.

See the following examples to understand the upgrade support:

Assumption
The initial version of the RQA operator and the RQA product is 3.0.0, and it's available through channel V3.0. You installed the RQA operator and created the RQA instance in your OpenShift cluster.
  • For Patch update: A new version of the RQA operator is released with version 3.0.1.
  • For Minor version update: A new version of the RQA operator is released with version 3.1.0.
  • For Major version update: A new version of the RQA operator is released with version 4.0.0.
  • Case 1 - Patch update
    • A new version of the RQA operator is released with version 3.0.1, which includes a patch update that is available through the same channel V3.0.
    • If your approval strategy is Automatic, the installed RQA operator gets upgraded to version 3.0.1.
    • If the approval strategy is Manual, the OpenShift administrator can approve the update to upgrade the operator version to 3.0.1.
    • The running RQA instance also automatically gets updated to version 3.0.1.
  • Case 2 - Minor version update
    • A new version of the RQA operator is released with version 3.1.0, which includes the minor version update that is available through a new channel V3.1.
    • You switch to the new channel V3.1 to upgrade your RQA operator.
    • If the approval strategy is Automatic, the RQA operator that is installed gets upgraded to version 3.1.0.
    • If your approval strategy is Manual, the OpenShift administrator can approve the update to upgrade the operator version to 3.1.0.
    • The running RQA instance also automatically gets updated to version 3.1.0.
  • Case 3 - Major version update
    Important: You might need to complete a few manual steps for the major version update.
    • A new version of the RQA operator is released with version 4.0.0, which includes the major version update that is available through a new channel V4.0.
    • You switch to the new channel V4.0 to upgrade your RQA operator.
    • If the approval strategy is Automatic, the RQA operator that is installed gets upgraded to version 4.0.0.
    • If your approval strategy is Manual, the OpenShift administrator can approve the update to upgrade the operator version to 4.0.0.
    • The running RQA instance also automatically gets updated to version 4.0.0.