Upgrading Event Broker Services in PubSub+ Cloud

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 PubSub+ 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 serviceversions 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.

Solace has a simple procedure for upgrading event broker services, and our version adoption policy explains which event broker service version you can move to.

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

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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

When Can I Upgrade?

Solace sends you product notification emails that announce releases and maintenance loads in PubSub+ 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 PubSub+ 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 book an upgrade slot directly using Calendly. At any time, you can schedule an upgrade for any existing event broker services to the latest major release that supports upgrade and is in the full support phase.

  • We make efforts to minimize delay, but early scheduling is best to secure the time that you want. The owners of the event broker services receive notifications when an upgrade is scheduled, when the upgrade starts, and when the upgrade completes.
  • For Public Region and Dedicated Regions deployments, you don't need to be present on any calls while the upgrade occurs because Solace does the upgrade for you.

  • For deployments on Customer-Controlled Regions, a person from your organization must be available on a call to access to your deployment during the short upgrade period for the event broker service.

    In Customer-Controlled Regions, 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.
  • Developer 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?

Yes. In a standard two-hour upgrade slot, Solace can upgrade five to six event broker services..

What happens if the upgrade fails?

We troubleshoot any errors during the upgrade slot. Errors are resolved during the remaining time in the upgrade slot when possible. If the errors can't be resolved, we open an investigation to identify the cause and provide resolution, and the event broker service is reverted to the same version before the upgrade started using our rollback procedure.

What type of validation is performed to ensure the upgrade was successful?

A standard post-upgrade checklist is followed for each upgrade to verify the event broker service metrics through our monitoring system. Validity checks determine that the service is running with the correct version. Solace recommends that you validate your client connections following the upgrade.

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 initiate the upgrades myself?
Yes. At any time, schedule an upgrade via Calendly for any existing event broker services that support upgrade and are in the full support phase.
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?

Depending on the stage of the upgrade cycle, you can expect the following communication:

  • When your services have passed full support, you will receive an email from Solace (email is from Product.Notification@solace.com) requesting that you schedule an upgrade.
  • After you have scheduled your upgrade slot in Calendly, we create an RT service ticket in your queue to communicate any updates related to the upgrade.
  • Automated reminder emails are sent from Calendly to you in the days and hours leading up to your scheduled upgrade slot.

How are High-Availability Event Broker Services Upgraded?

Upgrades of high-availability event broker services use the following three general procedures:

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

  • High-availability 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. The following are checks that we perform or information we require:
  • 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 Regions.
  • Identification of any special configuration that need 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 Region, Public Region, or Dedicated Region) 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 Regions.
  • 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. Full support ends one year after the software event broker is first released. Upgrading also ensures that your event broker services are kept up-to-date with the latest security fixes.

After the full support phase ends and your event broker services transition to the technical support phase, schedule an upgrade slot with us using Calendly.

Note that Solace upgrades any event broker services that are out of the technical support phase to maintain the security and integrity of PubSub+ Cloud. We will attempt to contact you prior to performing the upgrade.

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 PubSub+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

As a customer, you are responsible for scheduling an upgrade using Calendly. Upgrades can be scheduled with at least seven calendar days' notice to allow our team adequate time to prepare for your upgrade. We make the best effort to minimize the delay for critical maintenance loads.

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?

As mentioned above, when the full support phase ends and the technical support phase starts, you must upgrade. If you don't upgrade within the six-month technical support period, we automatically proceed with upgrading your event broker services to minimize your security risk exposure and to ensure that PubSub+ Cloud remains modernized against any security and vulnerability threats.

Solace will notify you of the time and date of the upgrade slot. For Customer-Controlled Regions, we request that you (or a representative with access to the your private region) be present during the upgrade slot. If you are not available during the upgrade slot, there's a risk that any issues that arise can't be resolved as Solace does not have access to certain parts of your private region (private network or virtual private cloud).

Can I Downgrade an Event Broker Service?

No. Downgrading event broker services is not supported.