Upgrading Event Broker Services in Solace Cloud Prior to Version 10.25.0

Upgrading to newer event broker service releases allows you to adopt new features and to modernize your event broker services. In addition, as part of the service-level agreements (SLAs) for Solace Cloud, Solace continuously makes maintenance loads available for event broker services during the full support phase. You must upgrade to:

• use maintenance loads to protect the platform against new security threats
• address critical issues
• use more recent event broker service versions when the full support period expires

You can upgrade your event broker services at any time. Upgrading your event broker service version is not the same as upscaling your event broker service to increase its service class.

For customers with Customer-Controlled Clusters, Solace strongly recommends against performing Kubernetes cluster upgrades on the same day as event broker service upgrades.

You can upgrade to any supported version that's both higher and released after your current version, see version adoption policy for details. Self-serve and automated upgrades in Solace Cloud make it easy to stay up-to-date.

The following answers to common questions provide more information about upgrading:

• Why Do I Need to Upgrade?
• When Can I Upgrade?
• How Do I Upgrade?
• What Is the Impact to my Event Broker Services When I Upgrade?
  • For other frequently asked questions on the impacts to event broker services, see More FAQs About the Upgrade Process
• How are High Availability Event Broker Services Upgraded?
• How Often Do I Need to Upgrade?
• What Happens if I Don’t Upgrade in Time?
• Can I Downgrade an Event Broker Service?

Why Do I Need to Upgrade?

You should upgrade your event broker services for these reasons:

• The full support phase has ended—Full support for your event broker services is no longer available. In this situation, you must upgrade to the most recent Production release that supports upgrade.
• Security fixes are required—You require a fix (security or another critical update) in the current version that you're using. For versions in the full support phase, you can upgrade to a maintenance load.
• New features or capabilities—You want to access new features or capabilities, or you simply want to remain current. In this situation, you must upgrade to the most recent production release that supports upgrade.

When Can I Upgrade?

Solace sends you product notification emails that announce releases and maintenance loads in Solace Cloud when they are available. You can view the planned release dates at Supported Dates for Release Versions.

You can upgrade only to Production releases that support upgrade. You can schedule an upgrade immediately after a Production release is released in Solace Cloud.

You can also upgrade existing event broker services to maintenance loads. These loads are where critical and high-level vulnerabilities are addressed in a maintenance load within 30 days of availability of an industry-accepted remedy. These maintenance loads are available only for releases in the full support phase. When possible, we recommend that you upgrade your existing event broker services to the most recent release that supports upgrades. The most recent release has additional features and minor security fixes in addition to critical security updates.

How Do I Upgrade?

You can upgrade your own event broker services using the Cloud Console or REST API. For more information, see Self-Serve Event Broker Service Upgrades in Solace Cloud.

In Customer-Controlled Clusters, the Mission Control Agent is usually upgraded automatically as part of event broker service upgrades. If your deployment includes a private repository, we recommend that you implement automation to pull the most recent images for the Mission Control Agent to ensure it is kept current. Contact Solace for more information.

What Is the Impact to my Event Broker Services When I Upgrade?

Typically, upgrading an event broker service takes only 15-30 minutes, depending on factors such as the deployment type and region. Multiple event broker services can be upgraded at the same time.

• High Availability—Upgrades to high availability (HA) event broker services are in-service upgrades and do not impact client applications. A brief interruption of less than one minute occurs during the HA activity failover.
• Enterprise-100 Standalone and Standalone services—Upgrades are service affecting. During an upgrade, client applications experience an outage of 15-30 minutes because there is only one software event broker.

Upgrade durations may vary depending on factors such as the cloud provider, the region type, and the deployment options chosen.

More FAQs About the Upgrade Process

The following frequently asked questions provide answers about the upgrade process:

Can more than one event broker service be upgraded at the same time?

You can upgrade multiple event broker services, with some limits based on upgrade type (immediate, or scheduled) and the availability of upgrade slots:

• For immediate upgrades, you can currently upgrade one event broker service at a time if upgrade slots are available. The Schedule Upgrade dialog in the Cloud Console shows availability. If a requested upgrade doesn't start within 30 minutes, Solace Cloud cancels the upgrade.

• For event broker service upgrades scheduled in a maintenance window, you can currently schedule as many event broker services to the maintenance window as Solace Cloud allows. If you schedule more upgrades to a maintenance window than the window can accommodate, Solace Cloud cancels upgrades that fall outside of the allotted time for the window.

For more information, see Performing Self-Serve Event Broker Service Upgrades.

How does Solace ensure upgrade reliability?

Solace Cloud performs automated pre-upgrade and post-upgrade checks to ensure the event broker service is both ready for an upgrade, and to ensure the upgrade was successful. Solace recommends that you validate your client connections following the upgrade.

In the rare case an upgrade encounters issues, Solace Cloud notifies both Solace and you, and we begin addressing the issue immediately. You are also notified with a request to contact Solace.

Will connected applications go offline during the upgrade?

During the failover period for event broker services with high-availability, there may be a temporary loss of connectivity for client applications as client applications reconnect. You do not need to disconnect them prior to the upgrade. For failover period impacts, see What Is the Impact to my Event Broker Services When I Upgrade?

Can we upgrade our environments separately?

Yes! Many of our customers take a phased approach to upgrade their event broker services starting with the least critical environments. For example, many customers start an upgrade with a development environment, and progress to staging, and then production environments. If you require a phased approach, you must book one upgrade slot per environment.

Can I upgrade a Preview release of an event broker service?

Yes. Preview releases can be upgraded only to their corresponding Production release (the same first two digits of the release version). For example, if you have a 10.8.0 version of an event broker service, you can upgrade to 10.8.1.

Does Solace retain any configuration backups or data before performing the upgrade?

No, we don't take any configuration backups before upgrades because configuration data is replicated and available for rollback when high-availability or optional disaster recovery is available. In general, there are no configuration changes performed during upgrades. You (the customer) are responsible for configuration management and backups. For more information, see Backing up Event Broker Services.

What communication method is used for upgrades?

As your event broker service approaches its end of the full support period, Solace sends you notifications encouraging you to upgrade the event broker service. For more information, see End of Support Notification Timeline.

You can view upgrade activity, and review upgrade logs using the Cloud Console or the REST API. For more information, see Self-Serve Event Broker Service Upgrades in Solace Cloud.

How are High Availability Event Broker Services Upgraded?

Upgrades of HA event broker services use the following three general procedures:

• Pre-upgrade checks—Gathers information and prepares your event broker service for the upgrade.

• HA event broker service upgrade—Upgrades the event broker service.

• Post-upgrade check—Validation to ensure that your event broker services are upgraded and running.

Pre-upgrade checks

Prior to upgrading your event broker service, Solace performs a series of pre-checks. These pre-checks ensure we have all the information that is required to make sure your upgrade goes smoothly in the least amount of time. We perform checks for the following information:

• Review of your Mission Control Agent to determine if it requires any new configuration changes due to the introduction of new event broker service features. You may be required to upgrade the Mission Control Agent in Customer-Controlled Clusters.
• Identification of any special configuration that needs to be considered during the upgrade. Special configurations include (but are not limited to) items such as, custom TLS certificates, the need to retain your MQTT cache, or manually provisioned Load Balancers.
• The deployment type (Customer-Controlled Cluster, Public Cluster, or Dedicated Cluster) and whether we have access to your datacenter/region.
• Whether your deployment uses any Controlled Availability features. If it does, you may need to increase the available memory footprint before the upgrade in Customer-Controlled Clusters.
• Whether any of the tags or metadata that are used by your event broker services require updates.
• Confirmation that the event broker service images are available.

If the pre-upgrade checks fail and the upgrade cannot be performed, you will be contacted by Solace with information about why the pre-check failed, actions you can take to address the failures, and to reschedule the upgrade.

High Availability Event Broker Service Upgrade

Prior to the upgrade, the Mission Control Agent runs a series of automated checks. These checks include:

• Redundancy
• Config-Sync
• DMR
• Image Accessibility
• MQTT Retain Memory

After the upgrade completes, the Mission Control Agent begins upgrading the event broker service over a series of steps. The Mission Control Agent pauses between each step to check that each event broker service node maintains redundancy during the process. The upgrade process begins with the primary and monitoring event brokers active, and the backup event broker in standby. From there, the individual event brokers are upgraded in the following steps:

1. The Mission Control Agent upgrades the monitoring event broker.
2. The Mission Control Agent upgrades the standby event broker.
3. The Mission Control Agent ceases activity in the active event broker and transfers activity to the now upgraded standby event broker. The Mission Control Agent waits during this process to ensure the activity transfer is complete before proceeding.
4. Once the activity transfer is complete, the Mission Control Agent upgrades the primary event broker. Once upgraded, the formerly active event broker now becomes the standby event broker.

Post upgrade checks

Once the upgrade is complete, Solace performs several post-upgrade checks to ensure your event broker service is up and running. These checks include:

• Ensuring that the monitoring pod is up and running, that its version is correct, and that it has a connection.
• Validating that our operational monitoring capabilities, including ensuring the upgraded service is reported as such, and that we are receiving metrics.

How Often Do I Need to Upgrade?

For the best upgrade experience, follow these recommendations:

Upgrade event broker services to a major release at least once a year

You must upgrade your event broker services to a major version at least once per year. Upgrading ensures that your event broker services are kept up-to-date with the latest security fixes.

Upgrade regularly to get security and critical fixes

You can upgrade existing event broker service versions to maintenance loads. Maintenance loads address critical and high-level vulnerabilities. High-severity and security fixes are made available within 30 days of availability of an industry-accepted remedy. Critical fixes are available within 30 days of the Solace Software Event Broker release that contains the fix. These upgrades apply only to releases in the full support phase:

• For versions in the full support phase, you can upgrade within the release version to a maintenance load.

  For example, if version 10.1 were in full support, you could upgrade to 10.1.2.0 to get a fix—even if the next major release that supports upgrade was available. Conversely, if 10.1 was not in full support, you would have to upgrade to next major release (that supports upgrade) to pick up the fixes.

• New event broker services are always created with the most recent maintenance load of the version selected.

  For example, suppose you initially created an event broker service using version 10.6, which at the time was based on software event broker version 10.6.1.12. If a software event broker maintenance load with a version of 10.6.1.99 was released, all subsequent event broker services that you create with version 10.6 would use the 10.6.1.99 maintenance load of the software event broker.

Proactively schedule upgrades for your event broker services

Solace encourages customers to perform and manage their own event broker service upgrades before they reach the end of full support. For more information, see Self-Serve Event Broker Service Upgrades in Solace Cloud.

For more information about roles and responsibilities for upgrading, see Upgrades to Mission Control Agent and Event Broker Services.

What Happens if I Don’t Upgrade in Time?

When your event broker service reaches the end of full support, you must upgrade.

If you don't upgrade, Solace automatically schedules an upgrade for your event broker service in your next configured maintenance window, or at a time of our choosing if no window is configured. We notify you of the date and time that the upgrade is scheduled to occur. For more information, see What to Expect When Versions Reach End of Full Support.

Upgrading reduces your security risk exposure and ensures that Solace Cloud remains modernized against any security and vulnerability threats.

End of Support Notification Timeline

Solace sends notifications to event broker service owners at the following intervals before the event broker service version reaches its end of full support date:

Three months before End of Full Support date

An initial notification that one or more of your event broker service versions are nearing their end of full support date. The notification includes:

• A list of affected event broker services, including their current version number and end of full support date, the datacenter they're deployed in, and your organization's maintenance window configuration status.

• The number of days remaining for you to take action before the end of full support date.

• Actions required by you to avoid an automatic event broker service upgrade and potential service disruptions.

One month before End of Full Support date

A reminder notification with the same information as the three-month notification.

Two weeks before End of Full Support date

A final notification that the event broker service versions are reaching end of full support. The notification reiterates that Solace will schedule an automatic upgrade to the latest supported version for affected event broker services if an upgrade is not performed prior to the end of full support date.

On the End of Full Support date (Day 0)

A notification confirming that the event broker service versions have reached end of full support and are no longer supported. The notification includes:

• Confirmation that the event broker service version is no longer supported by Solace.

• A list of affected event broker services with their current version, the datacenter they're deployed in, and your organization's maintenance window configuration status.

• Notice that affected event broker services have been queued for an automatic upgrade to the latest supported version.

What to Expect When Versions Reach End of Full Support

When an event broker service version reaches end of full support, the following occurs: 

• Support status—Solace ends support for the event broker service version.

• Upgrade scheduled—Solace automatically schedules your event broker service for an upgrade based on your maintenance window configuration:

  • You have configured a maintenance window—Solace schedules the upgrade during the next configured maintenance window.

  • You have not configured a maintenance window—Solace schedules the upgrade at a time of our choosing to ensure security and compliance.

• Your options—You can either:

  • Wait for the scheduled upgrade.

  • Upgrade immediately if the scheduled time doesn't meet your requirements. For more information, see:

    • Perform an immediate upgrade using the Cloud Console

    • Perform an immediate upgrade using the REST API

Can I Downgrade an Event Broker Service?

No. Downgrading event broker services is not supported.

Can Solace Help With My Upgrade?

If you need assistance upgrading your event broker service from Solace, you can schedule an upgrade via Calendly for any existing event broker services that support upgrades and are in the full support phase.

For Dedicated Cluster customers, Solace cannot perform consecutive event broker service and Kubernetes (or vice-versa) upgrades. You must schedule event broker service and Kubernetes cluster upgrades on separate days.