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Status Planned for future release
Created by Guest
Created on Apr 7, 2023

Improve RHEL 8 lifecycle support on Cloud Pak System

We are not in a position to get a RHEL 8.x minor release rolled out at scale within the 2 years of EUS provided by Red Hat (please also refer to the uploaded diagram: IBM CPS – RHEL 8 lifecycle challenge.pdf):

 - Red Hat provides 2 years of EUS (extended update support) for every other RHEL 8.x minor release (i.e. 8.0, 8.2, 8.4, 8,6, etc) – we believe the RHEL subscriptions that ship with IBM CPS come with the extended update support add-on included (https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata#Extended_Update_Support).

- An IBM CPS release only supports a single RHEL 8.x minor release, support for a particular RHEL 8.x minor release is only available some time after the release by Red Hat (as documented in https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/887959 and https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cloud-pak-system-w4600/2.3.3?topic=wvi-using-your-own-linux-os-image-create-virtual-system-instances).

- Upgrading to a new IBM CPS release takes several months, as dictated by the size of our IBM CPS install base and change freezes to take into account.

- Upgrading RHEL 7.9 VMs on CPS to RHEL 8.x by DTO also takes a considerable amount of time (as we believe the only supported way of doing so is by deleting and re-creating the VMs).

 

Red Hat supports (minor) in-place upgrade from (say) RHEL 8.4 to 8.6) (https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/how-update-red-hat-enterprise-linux-tvia-minor-releases-and-extended-update-support). 

Having this option on IBM CPS would allow us to more quickly upgrade to a more recent RHEL 8.x EUS release. And thereby remain on supported RHEL 8.x EUS releases.

 

Likewise, a (major) in-place upgrade from RHEL 7 to 8 is supported by Red Hat (https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html-single/upgrading_from_rhel_7_to_rhel_8/index#doc-wrapper  and https://access.redhat.com/articles/4263361) .

Having support for this on IBM CPS would accelerate this upgrade in anticipation of the upcoming 30 June 2024 End of Support date for RHEL 7.

Idea priority Urgent
  • Admin
    ASHOK PANDA
    Reply
    |
    Jun 2, 2023

    We are planning to break it down the requirement into two parts
    1. In place minor release upgrade ( Example 8.2 to 8.4 or 8.4 to 8.6 etc.)
    2. In pace upgrade for Major release ( Example 7.x to 8.x or 8.x to 9,x)

    1st part can be planned after CPS 2.3.4 release, however part 2 may take longer time due to various complexities and dependencies.


    We recommend creating separate RFEs for Part1 & Part 2