Upgrading to HPE Ezmeral Container Platform 5.3

Upgrade Paths

When you upgrade to HPE Ezmeral Container Platform release 5.3, you are installing HPE Ezmeral Container Platform 5.3.6, which is the latest public release of HPE Ezmeral Container Platform 5.3.

You can upgrade directly from the following previous versions of HPE Ezmeral Container Platform only:

• 5.3.5
• 5.3.1
• 5.2

To upgrade HPE Ezmeral Container Platform from an earlier version, you must upgrade to version 5.2 before you can prepare to upgrade to HPE Ezmeral Container Platform 5.3.x. As part of preparing for the upgrade to 5.3.x, you will upgrade your existing Kubernetes clusters to version 1.18.6.

Software Versions

In most cases, documentation refers to a software version of HPE Ezmeral Container Platform by its major and minor release, such as release 5.3. Unless specifically noted, references to the major and minor release also apply to maintenance releases. For example, references to HPE Ezmeral Container Platform 5.3 includes functions and features in HPE Ezmeral Container Platform 5.3.5.

Air-Gapped Kubernetes Deployment

An air-gapped Kubernetes deployment refers to a deployment in which Kubernetes hosts, clusters, and tenants do not have connectivity to the Internet.

For information about requirements for air-gapped environments, see Kubernetes Air-Gap Requirements.

Impact on Workloads During Platform Upgrade

During an upgrade of the HPE Ezmeral Container Platform, workloads are affected as follows:

Kubernetes Clusters and workloads

• New Kubernetes clusters cannot be created during the control plane upgrade process. Workloads running on existing Kubernetes clusters or within a tenant namespace will be impacted when the Docker daemon is restarted. Service endpoints will be inaccessible due to the unavailability of the authentication proxy.
• Any new service points ( e.g. NodePort services) that are in flight for port remapping via a Gateway host will be queued up until the control plane upgrade completes. Affected service endpoints will be remapped via a Gateway host and made available for users when the control plane resumes operating.
• All existing service endpoints across one or more Kubernetes clusters and/or tenants will continue to serve traffic during the control plane upgrade except for a brief (approximately 5 seconds) interval while the haproxy component restarts during the Gateway upgrade.
• All existing pods will be shut down and restarted. Containers in these pods will be unavailable during the restart.
• Kubernetes users across all roles (e.g. Cluster Administrator or Member) will not be able to interact with the Kubernetes API server via either kubectl, the web interface, or any other means during the upgrade process. Terminal access to Kubernetes cluster is still possible via SSH, assuming that administrators can access Kubernetes nodes.
• Cluster manipulation activities such as upgrading existing kubernetes clusters or expanding master/worker nodes are not allowed until the upgrade completes.

Non-Kubernetes virtual nodes and workloads

• Existing non-Kubernetes virtual nodes/containers will be down and/or inaccessible during the upgrade process because all Docker processes will be “paused” (or stopped) for all “active” virtual clusters before the upgrade starts.
• All orchestration activities (e.g. expand/shrink, ActionScripts, Gateway port-mapping, node migration, etc.) will be unavailable until the upgrade completes.
• Tasks are not queued during the upgrade; you must reinitiate any such tasks after the upgrade.

Upgrade Process Summary

The following is a summary of the process to upgrade to HPE Ezmeral Container Platform version 5.3.6. Detailed procedures are provided in the tasks linked to by this summary.

1. Before you upgrade the platform, you might need to upgrade host software to a version that is supported both on the HPE Ezmeral Container Platform version you are running and on the HPE Ezmeral Container Platform version to which you are upgrading.
   1. Upgrade host operating system software on each host.
   2. If using an air-gapped environment, Configure or change Kubernetes air gap settings.
   3. Upgrade Kubernetes versions on each Kubernetes cluster. Because Kubernetes versions must be upgraded one at a time, you might need to perform multiple upgrades.

   Other tasks you perform before upgrading the software include obtaining the software and executing pre-check scripts on all hosts.

2. If your deployment includes hosts that have GPUs, you must remove the hosts from the Kubernetes clusters and remove the hosts from HPE Ezmeral Container Platform. You complete this task in Before Upgrading the Platform.
   IMPORTANT

   HPE Ezmeral Container Platform adds support for MIG-enabled GPUs. For all GPUs to be recognized by the system after the upgrade, all hosts that have GPUs must be removed from HPE Ezmeral Container Platform before the upgrade, and then added back to the configuration after the upgrade process is complete. This requirement applies to all GPUs, including those GPUs are that are not MIG-enabled.

3. If your environment includes HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric on Kubernetes clusters, proceed to Upgrade HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric on Kubernetes.

   If your environment implements Embedded Data Fabric, there are no specific upgrade tasks to perform for that feature. You can procede to upgrading the platform software.

   IMPORTANT

   A deployment of HPE Ezmeral Container Platform can include one Data Fabric cluster that implements HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric on Kubernetes, or the deployment can include an Embedded Data Fabric, but not both (see Storage). If this deployment already includes an Embedded Data Fabric, do not attempt to add another Kubernetes Data Fabric cluster.

4. Upgrade the platform software on the Controller host.
5. (Optional, Kubernetes environments only) If you want to install Falco Kernel modules on your Kubernetes hosts, consider installing them before you upgrade the Kubernetes add-ons. See Install the Falco Kernel modules on each Kubernetes host.
6. (Kubernetes environments only) Upgrade Kubernetes add-ons on each Kubernetes cluster.
7. (Optional, Kubernetes environments only) Upgrade Kubernetes clusters to later versions of Kubernetes. HPE Ezmeral Container Platform supports multiple versions of Kubernetes. Depending on the applications you have installed or plan to install, you might want to upgrade Kubernetes to a later version than the version you installed before the platform upgrade.
8. Restart HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric on Kubernetes by entering the following command:

   kubectl exec -it admincli-0 -n dataplatform -- /bin/bash -c "edf startup resume"

9. Verify the upgrade.
10. If you want to add hosts that include GPUs, or you want to upgrade Kubernetes to later versions, do those tasks as part of the Post Upgrade Tasks.