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This document details how Operator Nexus releases, manages, and supports various platform runtime upgrades for near edge customers.
Operator Nexus releases a platform cluster runtime version with three minor versions per year and monthly patch versions in between.
Operator Nexus supports n-2 platform cluster runtime releases for customers, providing approximately one year of support upon release.
Understanding Operator Nexus Cluster versioning
Operator Nexus Platform Cluster versions use semantically versioning-based principles (https://semver.org/), which ensures that users can make informed decisions about version selection with the following rules about changes allowed in a version:
- Major version to introduce fundamentally incompatible functionality or interface changes.
- Minor version to introduce functionality while retaining a backwards compatible interface.
- Patch version to make backwards compatible modifications, such as bug or security vulnerability fixes.
Operator Nexus Cluster versions utilize the same Major.Minor.Patch scheme. Using semantic versioning includes a critical principle of immutability. Once a versioned package has been released, the contents of that version WILL NOT be modified. Any modifications MUST be released as a new version.
The Platform Cluster version is represented in the Operator Nexus Cluster resource. At the time of cluster creation, the version is specified in the cluster resource, and must contain a supported version. To update the cluster, you can provide a desired version, which must be one of the supported versions for that cluster. You can view on the cluster the supported versions based on your specific instance.
Operator Nexus Platform Cluster release cadence
Operator Nexus targets a new minor version platform cluster release in February, June, and October every year. A customer can decide when to apply the minor version to an Operator Nexus instance. However, these minor releases aren't optional and need to be taken to stay in support.
These platform cluster releases consist of new minor Kubernetes releases for the infrastructure, new versions of Azure Linux, and other critical components to the underlying platform.
In addition to minor releases, Operator Nexus releases patch platform cluster releases in between minor releases. In general, these releases are optional to apply.
Patch Platform Cluster runtime releases
Platform Cluster patch releases are scheduled monthly to provide customers with an updated version of Azure Linux, starting in Nexus release 2408.1. These patch releases are applied to the latest minor release.
The contents of these releases are primarily scoped to updating current versions of the HostOS and Kubernetes patch releases. Operator Nexus will also release patch platform cluster runtime releases addressing critical functional or high severity security issues. These patch runtime releases are released alongside a new management bundle release to enable the deployment of this new runtime.
The patch releases are optional and not required to be applied. Operator Nexus certifies the various supported runtime releases to ensure there's a path to upgrade, regardless of the patch runtime release, to the next minor runtime version.
Platform Cluster runtime releases out of support
When a customer is on a release that becomes out of support, Microsoft attempts to mitigate the customer tickets but it may not be possible to address. When a runtime minor release drops support, it will no longer be an option to deploy to a new instance.
When an instance is running an n-3 version:
- The cluster continues to run; however, normal operations may start to degrade as older versions of software aren't validated
- Support tickets raised will receive support, but the issues may not be able to be mitigated.
- The n-3 release isn't available to customers to deploy a new instance.
- An upgrade path is no longer supported, requiring customers to repave instances.
- Platform Cluster runtime versions past support may continue to run but Microsoft doesn't guarantee all functionality to be compatible with the newest version of software in the Cluster Manager. An upgrade path is provided for customers on supported releases. Upgrading from an n-3 version or greater isn't supported and requires a redeployment of the site. Customers need to execute a platform cluster runtime upgrade before a site gets to n-3.
- A requirement for the customer to update their platform cluster runtime within a year of the most recent platform cluster runtime upgrade or first deployment to ensure their Nexus instance can connect to Azure. After a year without any runtime upgrade, the Operator Nexus instance, losing connection to Azure, will require a new deployment
Skipping minor releases
Platform Cluster runtime minor releases can't be skipped due to the upgrade requirements of Kubernetes. A customer wanting to go from an n-2 version to an n version needs to perform multiple platform cluster runtime upgrades.