Chapter 2. OpenShift Data Foundation upgrade channels and releases
Chapter 2. OpenShift Data Foundation upgrade channels and releases In OpenShift Container Platform 4.1, Red Hat introduced the concept of channels for recommending the appropriate release versions for cluster upgrades. By controlling the pace of upgrades, these upgrade channels allow you to choose an upgrade strategy. As OpenShift Data Foundation gets deployed as an operator in OpenShift Container Platform, it follows the same strategy to control the pace of upgrades by shipping the fixes in multiple channels. Upgrade channels are tied to a minor version of OpenShift Data Foundation. For example, OpenShift Data Foundation 4.17 upgrade channels recommend upgrades within 4.17. Upgrades to future releases is not recommended. This strategy ensures that administrators can explicitly decide to upgrade to the minor version of OpenShift Data Foundation. Upgrade channels control only release selection and do not impact the version of the cluster that you install; the odf-operator decides the version of OpenShift Data Foundation to be installed. By default, it always installs the latest OpenShift Data Foundation release maintaining the compatibility with OpenShift Container Platform. So, on OpenShift Container Platform 4.17, OpenShift Data Foundation 4.17 will be the latest version which can be installed. OpenShift Data Foundation upgrades are tied to the OpenShift Container Platform upgrade to ensure that compatibility and interoperability are maintained with the OpenShift Container Platform. For OpenShift Data Foundation 4.17, OpenShift Container Platform 4.17 and 4.17 (when generally available) are supported. OpenShift Container Platform 4.17 is supported to maintain forward compatibility of OpenShift Data Foundation with OpenShift Container Platform. Keep the OpenShift Data Foundation version the same as OpenShift Container Platform in order to get the benefit of all the features and enhancements in that release. Important Due to fundamental Kubernetes design, all OpenShift Container Platform updates between minor versions must be serialized. You must update from OpenShift Container Platform 4.15 to 4.16 and then to 4.17. You cannot update from OpenShift Container Platform 4.16 to 4.17 directly. For more information, see Preparing to perform an EUS-to-EUS update of the Updating clusters guide in OpenShift Container Platform documentation. OpenShift Data Foundation 4.17 offers the following upgrade channel: stable-4.17 stable-4.16 stable-4.17 channel Once a new version is Generally Available, the stable channel corresponding to the minor version gets updated with the new image which can be used to upgrade. You can use the stable-4.17 channel to upgrade from OpenShift Data Foundation 4.16 and upgrades within 4.17. stable-4.16 You can use the stable-4.16 channel to upgrade from OpenShift Data Foundation 4.15 and upgrades within 4.16.