Upgrading

Upgrade your Event Streams installation as follows. The Event Streams operator handles the upgrade of your Event Streams instance.

Upgrade paths

You can upgrade Event Streams to the latest 11.5.x version directly from any earlier 11.5.x or any 11.4.x version by using the latest 3.5.x operator. The upgrade procedure depends on whether you are upgrading to a major, minor, or patch level version, and what your catalog source is.

If you are upgrading from Event Streams version 11.3.x or earlier, you must first upgrade your installation to 11.4.x and then follow these instructions to upgrade from 11.4.x to 11.5.x.

  • On OpenShift, you can upgrade to the latest version by using operator channel v3.5. Review the general upgrade prerequisites before following the instructions to upgrade on OpenShift.

    Note: If your operator upgrades are set to automatic, patch level upgrades are completed automatically. This means that the Event Streams operator is upgraded to the latest 3.5.x version when it is available in the catalog, and your Event Streams instance is then also automatically upgraded, unless you set a schedule for the upgrade by pausing the reconciliation.

  • On other Kubernetes platforms, you must update the Helm repository for any level version update (any digit update: major, minor, or patch), and then upgrade by using the Helm chart. Review the general upgrade prerequisites before following the instructions to upgrade on other Kubernetes platforms.

Prerequisites

  • The images for Event Streams release 11.5.x are available in the IBM Cloud Container Registry. Ensure you redirect your catalog source to use icr.io/cpopen as described in Implementing ImageContentSourcePolicy to redirect to the IBM Container Registry.

  • Ensure that you have installed a supported container platform and system. For supported container platform versions and systems, see the support matrix.

  • To upgrade successfully, your Event Streams instance must have more than one ZooKeeper node or have persistent storage enabled. If you upgrade an Event Streams instance with a single ZooKeeper node that has ephemeral storage, all messages and all topics will be lost and both ZooKeeper and Kafka pods will move to an error state. To avoid this issue, increase the number of ZooKeeper nodes before upgrading as follows:

     apiVersion: eventstreams.ibm.com/v1beta2
 kind: EventStreams
 metadata:
   name: example-pre-upgrade
   namespace: myproject
 spec:
   # ...
   strimziOverrides:
     zookeeper:
       replicas: 3

  • If you installed the Event Streams operator to manage instances of Event Streams in any namespace (one per namespace), then you might need to control when each of these instances is upgraded to the latest version. You can control the updates by pausing the reconciliation of the instance configuration as described in the following sections.

  • If you are running Event Streams as part of IBM Cloud Pak for Integration, ensure you meet the following requirements:

    • Follow the upgrade steps for IBM Cloud Pak for Integration before upgrading Event Streams.

    • If you are planning to configure Event Streams with Keycloak, ensure you have the IBM Cloud Pak for Integration 2023.4.1 (operator version 7.2.0) or later installed, including the required dependencies.

      Note: After upgrading Event Streams to the latest version, if you are changing authentication type from IAM to Keycloak, modify the EventStreams custom resource as described in post-upgrade tasks.

  • Ensure all applications connecting to your instance of Event Streams that use the schema registry are using Apicurio client libraries version 2.6.2 or later before migrating.

Note: There is no downtime during the Event Streams upgrade. The Kafka pods are rolled one at a time, so a Kafka instance will always be present to serve traffic. However, if the number of brokers you have matches the min.insync.replicas value set for any of your topics, then that topic will be unavailable to write to while the Kafka pods are rolling.

Scheduling the upgrade of an instance

In 11.1.x and later, the Event Streams operator handles the upgrade of your Event Streams instance automatically after the operator is upgraded. No additional step is required to change the instance (product) version.

If your operator manages more than one instance of Event Streams, you can control when each instance is upgraded by pausing the reconciliation of the configuration settings for each instance, running the upgrade, and then unpausing the reconciliation when ready to proceed with the upgrade for a selected instance.

Pausing reconciliation by using the CLI

  1. Log in to your Kubernetes cluster as a cluster administrator by setting your kubectl context.

  2. To apply the annotation first to the EventStreams and then to the Kafka custom resource, run the following command, where <type> is either EventStreams or Kafka:

    kubectl annotate <type> <instance-name> -n <instance-namespace> eventstreams.ibm.com/pause-reconciliation='true'
  3. Follow the steps to upgrade on OpenShift.

Unpausing reconciliation by using the CLI

To unpause the reconciliation and continue with the upgrade of an Event Streams instance, run the following command to first remove the annotations from the Kafka custom resource, and then from the EventStreams custom resource, where <type> is either Kafka or EventStreams:

kubectl annotate <type> <instance-name> -n <instance-namespace> eventstreams.ibm.com/pause-reconciliation-

When the annotations are removed, the configuration of your instance is updated, and the upgrade to the latest version of Event Streams completes.

Pausing reconciliation by using the OpenShift web console

  1. Log in to the OpenShift Container Platform web console using your login credentials.

  2. Expand Operators in the navigation on the left, and click Installed Operators.

    Operators > Installed Operators

  3. From the Project list, select the namespace (project) the instance is installed in.
  4. Locate the operator that manages your Event Streams instance in the namespace. It is called Event Streams in the Name column. Click the Event Streams link in the row.
  5. Select the instance you want to pause and click the YAML tab.

  6. In the YAML for the custom resource, add eventstreams.ibm.com/pause-reconciliation: 'true' to the metadata.annotations field as follows:

    apiVersion: eventstreams.ibm.com/v1beta2
kind: EventStreams
metadata:
  name: <instance-name>
  namespace: <instance-namespace>
  annotations:
    eventstreams.ibm.com/pause-reconciliation: 'true'
spec:
  # ...
  7. This annotation also needs to be applied to the corresponding Kafka custom resource. Expand Home in the navigation on the left, click API Explorer, and type Kafka in the Filter by kind... field. Select Kafka.
  8. From the Project list, select the namespace (project) the instance is installed in and click the Instances tab.
  9. Select the instance with the name <instance-name> (the same as the Event Streams instance).

  10. In the YAML for the custom resource, add eventstreams.ibm.com/pause-reconciliation: 'true' to the metadata.annotations field as follows:

    apiVersion: eventstreams.ibm.com/v1beta2
kind: Kafka
metadata:
name: <instance-name>
namespace: <instance-namespace>
annotations:
   eventstreams.ibm.com/pause-reconciliation: 'true'
  11. Follow the steps to upgrade on OpenShift.

Unpausing reconciliation by using the OpenShift web console

To unpause the reconciliation and continue with the upgrade of an Event Streams instance, first remove the annotations from the Kafka custom resource, and then from the EventStreams custom resource. When the annotations are removed, the configuration of your instance is updated, and the upgrade to the latest version of Event Streams completes.

Upgrading on the OpenShift Container Platform

Upgrade your Event Streams instance running on the OpenShift Container Platform by using the CLI or web console as follows.

Planning your upgrade

Complete the following steps to plan your upgrade on OpenShift.

  • Determine which Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM) channel is used by your existing Subscription. You can check the channel you are subscribed to in the web console (see Update channel section), or by using the CLI as follows (this is the subscription created during installation):

    1. Run the following command to check your subscription details:

      oc get subscription

    2. Check the CHANNEL column for the channel you are subscribed to, for example, v3.4 in the following snippet:

      NAME                        PACKAGE                     SOURCE                      CHANNEL
ibm-eventstreams            ibm-eventstreams            ibm-eventstreams-catalog    v3.4
  • If your existing Subscription does not use the v3.5 channel, your upgrade is a change in a minor version. Complete the following steps to upgrade:
    1. Ensure the catalog source for new version is available.
    2. Change your Subscription to the v3.5 channel by using the CLI or the web console. The channel change will upgrade your operator, and then the operator will upgrade your Event Streams instance automatically.
  • If your existing Subscription is already on the v3.5 channel, your upgrade is a change to the patch level (third digit) only. Make the catalog source for your new version available to upgrade to the latest level. If you installed by using the IBM Operator Catalog with the latest label, new versions are automatically available. The operator will upgrade your Event Streams instance automatically.

Making new catalog source available

Before you can upgrade to the latest version, the catalog source for the new version must be available on your cluster. Whether you have to take action depends on how you set up version control for your deployment.

  • Latest versions: If your catalog source is the IBM Operator Catalog, latest versions are always available when published, and you do not have to make new catalog sources available.

  • Specific versions: If you used the CASE bundle to install catalog source for a specific previous version, you must download and use a new CASE bundle for the version you want to upgrade to.
    • If you previously used the CASE bundle for an online install, apply the new catalog source to update the CatalogSource to the new version.
    • If you used the CASE bundle for an offline install that uses a private registry, follow the instructions in installing offline to remirror images and update the CatalogSource for the new version.
  • In both cases, wait for the status.installedCSV field in the Subscription to update. It eventually reflects the latest version available in the new CatalogSource image for the currently selected channel in the Subscription:
    • In the OpenShift Container Platform web console, the current version of the operator is displayed under Installed Operators.
    • If you are using the CLI, check the status of the Subscription custom resource, the status.installedCSV field shows the current operator version.

Upgrading Subscription by using the CLI

If you are using the OpenShift command-line interface (CLI), the oc command, complete the steps in the following sections to upgrade your Event Streams installation.

  1. Log in to your Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform as a cluster administrator by using the oc CLI (oc login).

  2. Ensure the required Event Streams Operator Upgrade Channel is available:

    oc get packagemanifest ibm-eventstreams -o=jsonpath='{.status.channels[*].name}'

  3. Change the subscription to move to the required update channel, where vX.Y is the required update channel (for example, v3.5):

    oc patch subscription -n <namespace> ibm-eventstreams --patch '{"spec":{"channel":"vX.Y"}}' --type=merge

All Event Streams pods that need to be updated as part of the upgrade will be gracefully rolled. Where required, ZooKeeper pods will roll one at a time, followed by Kafka brokers rolling one at a time.

Upgrading Subscription by using the web console

If you are using the web console, complete the steps in the following sections to upgrade your Event Streams installation.

  1. Log in to the OpenShift Container Platform web console using your login credentials.

  2. Expand Operators in the navigation on the left, and click Installed Operators.

    Operators > Installed Operators

  3. From the Project list, select the namespace (project) the instance is installed in.
  4. Locate the operator that manages your Event Streams instance in the namespace. It is called Event Streams in the Name column. Click the Event Streams link in the row.
  5. Click the Subscription tab to display the Subscription details for the Event Streams operator.
  6. Click the version number link in the Update channel section (for example, v3.4). The Change Subscription update channel dialog is displayed, showing the channels that are available to upgrade to.
  7. Select v3.5 and click the Save button on the Change Subscription Update Channel dialog.

All Event Streams pods that need to be updated as part of the upgrade will be gracefully rolled. Where required, ZooKeeper pods will roll one at a time, followed by Kafka brokers rolling one at a time.

Note: The number of containers in each Kafka broker will reduce from 2 to 1 as the TLS-sidecar container will be removed from each broker during the upgrade process.

Upgrading on other Kubernetes platforms by using Helm

If you are running Event Streams on Kubernetes platforms that support the Red Hat Universal Base Images (UBI) containers, you can upgrade Event Streams by using the Helm chart.

Planning your upgrade

Complete the following steps to plan your upgrade on other Kubernetes platforms.

  • Determine the chart version for your existing deployment:

    1. Change to the namespace where your Event Streams instance is installed:

      kubectl config set-context --current --namespace=<namespace>

    2. Run the following command to check what version is installed:

      helm list

    3. Check the version installed in the CHART column, for example, <chart-name>-3.4.0 in the following snippet:

      NAME                      NAMESPACE  REVISION  UPDATED                                 STATUS   CHART                            APP VERSION    
ibm-eventstreams          es         1         2023-11-20 11:49:27.221411789 +0000 UTC deployed ibm-eventstreams-operator-3.4.0  3.4.0

  • Check the latest chart version that you can upgrade to:

    1. Log in to your Kubernetes cluster as a cluster administrator by setting your kubectl context.

    2. Add the IBM Helm repository:

      helm repo add ibm-helm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/IBM/charts/master/repo/ibm-helm

    3. Update the Helm repository:

      helm repo update ibm-helm

    4. Check the version of the chart you will be upgrading to is the intended version:

      helm show chart ibm-helm/ibm-eventstreams-operator

      Check the version: value in the output, for example: version: 3.5.1

  • If the chart version for your existing deployment is earlier than 3.4.x, you must first upgrade your installation to 11.4.x and then follow these instructions to upgrade to chart version 3.5.x.

  • If your existing installation is in an offline environment, you must carry out the steps in the offline installation instructions to download the CASE bundle and mirror the images for the new version you want to upgrade to, before running any helm commands.

  • Complete the steps in Helm upgrade to update your Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) and operator charts to the latest version. The operator will then upgrade your Event Streams instance automatically.

Upgrading by using Helm

You can upgrade your Event Streams on other Kubernetes platforms by using Helm.

To upgrade Event Streams to the latest version, run the following command:

helm upgrade \
<release-name> ibm-helm/ibm-eventstreams-operator \
-n <namespace> \
--set watchAnyNamespace=<true/false>
--set previousVersion=<previous-version>

Where:

  • <release-name> is the name you provide to identify your operator.
  • <namespace> is the name of the namespace where you want to install the operator.
  • watchAnyNamespace=<true/false> determines whether the operator manages instances of Event Streams in any namespace or only a single namespace (default is false if not specified). For more information, see choosing operator installation mode.

  • <previous-version> is the version of the Helm chart being upgraded from. For example, if your Helm chart version is 3.4.0, set the field as: --set previousVersion=3.4.0. You can retrieve the version of your existing Helm chart by running the following command:

    helm list --filter <release-name> -n <namespace> -o json | jq '.[0].app_version'

Post-upgrade tasks

Enable collection of producer metrics

In Event Streams version 11.0.0 and later, a Kafka Proxy handles gathering metrics from producing applications. The information is displayed in the Producers dashboard. The proxy is optional and is not enabled by default. To enable metrics gathering and have the information displayed in the dashboard, enable the Kafka Proxy.

Enable metrics for monitoring

To display metrics in the monitoring dashboards of the Event Streams UI:

  • If you are running Event Streams on the OpenShift Container Platform, complete the following steps to enable the dashboard:

    1. Ensure that you enable the monitoring stack.

    2. To create a ClusterRoleBinding in the next step, obtain the ServiceAccount name for your instance. The ServiceAccount is named <es-instance-name>-ibm-es-admapi. For example, authorized-instance-ibm-es-admapi

    3. Run the following command:

      oc adm policy add-cluster-role-to-user cluster-monitoring-view -z <serviceaccount-name> -n <namespace-name>

      Where <serviceaccount-name> is the ServiceAccount name for your instance that you obtained in the previous step.

  • If you are running Event Streams on other Kubernetes platforms, you can use any monitoring solution compatible with Prometheus and JMX formats to collect, store, visualize, and set up alerts based on metrics provided by Event Streams.

Configure your instance to use Keycloak

If your existing instance is configured to use IAM and you want to use Keycloak, update your EventStreams custom resource as follows:

  1. Remove the spec.requestIbmServices section.

  2. Set the adminUI authentication type to integrationKeycloak:

    # ...
spec:
  # ...
  adminUI:
    authentication:
      - type: integrationKeycloak

Upgrade the Kafka broker protocol version

After successfully upgrading to Event Streams by completing all previous steps and verifying the cluster’s behavior and performance, if your Event Streams instance is configured with a specific version in the inter.broker.protocol.version, complete the following steps to upgrade the Kafka brokers to your Kafka version:

  1. In the spec.strimziOverrides.kafka.config section of your EventStreams custom resource, change the inter.broker.protocol.version value to the Kafka version that is supported in your Event Streams version. For example, if you are running on Event Streams 11.5.0, set the value to 3.7.
  2. Wait for the Kafka pods to roll.

Remove the apicurio-registry-version annotation

Remove the eventstreams.ibm.com/apicurio-registry-version='>=2.4' annotation from your Event Streams custom resource with the following command:

oc annotate --namespace <namespace> EventStreams <instance-name> eventstreams.ibm.com/apicurio-registry-version-

Update SCRAM Kafka User permissions

Event Streams 11.5.0 and later uses KafkaTopic custom resources (CRs) and topic operator for managing topics through Event Streams UI and CLI. If access to the Event Streams UI and CLI has been configured with SCRAM authentication, see the managing access to update the KafkaUser permissions accordingly.

Upgrading an Event Streams instance that uses Topic Operator

After upgrading to Event Streams 11.5.0, perform the following tasks if the Event Streams instance was configured to use the Topic Operator before upgrading.

Delete the internal topics that are not used anymore

You can delete the custom resources of the internal topics strimzi-store-topic and strimzi-topic-operator as they are no longer used.

kubectl delete $(kubectl get kt -n <namespace> -o name | grep strimzi-store-topic) -n <namespace> \
  && kubectl delete $(kubectl get kt -n <namespace> -o name | grep strimzi-topic-operator) -n <namespace>

Discontinue management of other internal topics by the Topic Operator

Internal topics such as consumer-offsets and transaction-state are used in Kafka but do not need to be managed by the Topic Operator. In these cases, you can discontinue their management through the Topic Operator first, and then delete their custom resources without deleting the topics.

For example:

  1. To discontinue management of the internal topics consumer-offsets and transaction-state, use the following command:

    kubectl annotate $(kubectl get kt -n <namespace> -o name | grep consumer-offsets) strimzi.io/managed="false" -n <namespace> \
&& kubectl annotate $(kubectl get kt -n <namespace> -o name | grep transaction-state) strimzi.io/managed="false" -n <namespace>

    Before proceeding to the next step, ensure that these topics are no longer managed by their custom resource after reconciliation. You can verify this by confirming that the kafkaTopic resource is in the ready status and the metadata.generation value matches the status.observedGeneration in the custom resource.

  2. Optionally, after these topics are no longer managed by their kafkaTopic resource, delete the corresponding custom resources using the following command:

    kubectl delete $(kubectl get kt -n <namespace> -o name | grep consumer-offsets) -n <namespace> \
&& kubectl delete $(kubectl get kt -n <namespace> -o name | grep transaction-state) -n <namespace>

For more information, see Deleting internal topics used by the operator.

Verifying the upgrade

After the upgrade, verify the status of Event Streams by using the CLI or the UI.