Being user-focused, OpenStack technology regularly gets new updates released by its community of contributors. However, without the right level of operational expertise and professional knowledge, upgrading OpenStack for enterprises can quickly become a daunting challenge.
What is the OpenStack release?
Aimed at producing a ubiquitous cloud solution that is easy to use, simple to implement, and interoperable between deployments, OpenStack works well at all scales, keeping the customer’s needs as a top priority.
Since 2010 OpenStack has always focused on constantly improving to provide the highest quality of software products and services. Its approach has been evolving for a long time to increase OpenStack capabilities and the number of service options.
Moreover, to align with fast industry development, changes in demand trends, and tendencies, twice a year OpenStack community offers improvements and new functionalities for the technology releasing regular upgrades for the current version.
The first official release, code-named Austin, appeared three months after the OpenStack launch. Since then, 24 updates have been released. The Openstack community chooses the name of releases following defined Release Name Criteria:
- The name starts with the letter of the Latin alphabet following the initial letter of the previous release. After “Z”, the next release name will be with the initial “A” again.
- The name words must include only characters of the Latin alphabet.
- The release name is a single word with a maximum length of 10 characters.
The Openstack international community actively participates in choosing the name for a new release. Anyone can suggest a name version by adding it to a particular page on the OpenStack wiki. Then name words are ranked, and Technical Committee announces the winner. If a trademark conflict appears, the Foundation picks the next name down the ranked list until a word without a trademark conflict is found.
What does upgrade mean?
The upgrade means users can move their current OpenStack cloud systems to newer, more stable, improved OpenStack up-to-date version following its release. Except this, from the business’ perspective, the old OpenStack version system not updated on time may become a real problem for enterprises with a negative impact on smooth workload operations. At least because, eventually, an outdated OpenStack version stops being supported. That is why, in order not to get in trouble, we strongly recommend upgrading OpenStack versions in time.
Well, the decision to upgrade your cloud systems following new OpenStack releases is the only right one. What are your next steps? How to escape possible mistakes in OpenStack upgrading? Here are the key points that we should mention.
Manual Upgrade is not an Option
The manual upgrade process is prone to failure when doing manually repetitive tasks in the complex topology and relationship between the cloud services. The manual method will fail due to its complexity with a high probability. Here is why.
Wrong Order of Upgrade steps Can Make Problems
Step by step, in the proper order, updated components of the OpenStack cloud system are half of the success.
Not upgrading the cloud services in the correct order may end up breaking the cloud environment. All the needed upgrade steps for OpenStack components should be made in the following order:
- OpenStack Identity (Keystone)
- OpenStack Compute (Nova)
- OpenStack Image service (Glance)
- OpenStack Networking (Neutron)
- OpenStack Block Storage (Cinder)
- OpenStack Dashboard (Horizon)
- OpenStack Orchestration (Heat) and all the other OpenStack deployed components and supporting services such as Message Queue (RabbitMQ).
Pay Attention to API
Each new OpenStack release brings a new API version. If some other software or custom scripts are using the already deprecated OpenStack version of API, it will lead to a failed upgrade. Check twice to save your time and efforts!
Automate the Process
Full automation of the upgrade process helps eliminate the risk of incorrect changes leading to a failure in your updates. Most importantly, automatization allows you not to spend your valuable time constantly tracking changes and continuous evaluation if the update process is going right.
If everything is done right, a live zero-downtime upgrade could achieve an excellent result. Workload operations are secured, and no service is interrupted!
Upgrade without a Stress
Sardina Systems provides OpenStack upgrade support as part of the FishOS license to offer high-quality service for the customers. Our efficient cloud management software solution FishOS includes a market-first Zero-Downtime Upgrader. It is designed to provide the necessary OpenStack version upgrades without interruptions in enterprise cloud operations. After the new OpenStack release, it usually takes a couple of months to carefully test and smoothly integrate all the new features with FishOS. From there on, we recommend our customers upgrade their cloud systems with the latest OpenStack release and provide professional technical support to make it fast and easy for enterprises. Being a fully automated software solution, FishOS delivers a comprehensive full-lifecycle cloud solution from quick cloud deployment to scheduled system upgrades, allowing its customers to benefit from process simplicity and zero-downtime cloud operations.
Do you have questions? Need more information?
Don’t hesitate to contact Sardina’s team for expert guidance on how FishOS can scale the business, adopt a comprehensive Openstack enterprise cloud, and help resolve upgrade challenges.
Sardina Systems provides highly-demanded technical expertise and professional knowledge, proved by a large number of successful OpenStack cloud deployments. We can help enterprises quickly and easily adopt OpenStack cloud, meeting all industry requirements, legal regulations, and customer unique IT needs, to save valuable business resources – time, money, and efforts.