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Upgrading kdb Insights Enterprise

This section details the steps to upgrade kdb Insights Enterprise from a current install. It also details the steps that may need to be taken to upgrade specific entities using the UI.

If you are upgrading kdb Insights Enterprise on Azure Marketplace reach out to KX Support.

Prerequisites

Pre-flight checks

The upgrade process requires downtime to ensure data integrity can be guaranteed. This means that before any upgrade is scheduled, a number of pre-flight checks are necessary.

  1. Stop ingestion feeds

    Stop all feeds into the application to avoid data loss with inflight data.

  2. Ensure latest version of kxi-cli is installed

  3. If you are upgrading from 1.1.X to 1.2.0+, ensure you have performed the Keycloak 18 migration steps

  • Pre-Upgrade Versions

The currently running versions of kdb Insights Enterprise and Operator should be noted for a rollback scenario

  1. Operator

    helm ls -n kxi-operator

    NAME        NAMESPACE       REVISION    UPDATED                                 STATUS      CHART                       APP VERSION
insights    kxi-operator    1           2022-04-01 15:39:44.955236379 +0000 UTC deployed    kxi-operator-1.0.0          1.0.0

  2. Application

    helm ls -n $INSIGHTS_NAMESPACE

    NAME        NAMESPACE   REVISION    UPDATED                                 STATUS      CHART                   APP VERSION
insights    kxi         1           2022-04-01 16:57:00.144126754 +0000 UTC deployed    insights-1.0.0          1.0.0

  3. Operator version The CLI installs the latest kdb Insights Operator minor version that matches the specified $INSIGHTS_VERSION. You can override this by passing the --operator-version command line option.

  4. Install values Retrieve the INSTALL_CONFIG_FILE from the existing with the following command. Update the resulting file to customise the install configuration upon upgrade, including version-specific upgrade considerations.

kxi install get-values --namespace $INSIGHTS_NAMESPACE > $INSTALL_CONFIG_FILE

  • kubectl You should have the kubectl tool installed on your machine and configured to access the same cluster as the kdb Insights Enterprise deployment you are upgrading.

  • Version-specific considerations Please see release notes for any specific upgrade considerations for your version of kdb Insights Enterprise.

Variables

Have the following information to hand:

variable example further details
INSIGHTS_NAMESPACE kxi Namespace of existing deployment
INSIGHTS_VERSION 1.1.1 Version to upgrade to
INSTALL_CONFIG_FILE values.yaml Install configuration
PRE_UPGRADE_INSIGHTS_VERSION 1.0.0 Current application version
PRE_UPGRADE_OPERATOR_VERSION 1.0.0 Current Operator version

Retrieve install configuration

Retrieve the INSTALL_CONFIG_FILE from the existing installation with the following command.

kxi install get-values --namespace $INSIGHTS_NAMESPACE > $INSTALL_CONFIG_FILE

Update the resulting file to customise the install configuration upon upgrade, including version-specific upgrade considerations.

Upgrade with CLI

Upgrading via the CLI does not remove the persisted data backing kdb Insights Enterprise configuration or databases. These remain as persisted volumes within the Kubernetes cluster.

The steps performed by the CLI are:

  1. Backup assemblies
  2. Teardown assemblies
  3. Upgrade application, Operator and CRDs
  4. Restore assemblies

If there are no assemblies running, the CLI upgrades the base system and skips the assembly steps.

To initiate the upgrade, run the following command. This steps through the upgrade, prompting you as required.

kxi install upgrade --filepath $INSTALL_CONFIG_FILE --version $INSIGHTS_VERSION

Backing up assemblies
Persisted assembly definitions for ['dfx-assembly', 'iot-assembly'] to <ASSEMBLY STATE FILE>
...
Upgrading insights and operator
...
Reapplying assemblies
...
Upgrade to version x.x complete
...

Encryption in Transit

If you have not previously set encryption of data in transit, you will be prompted to enable it during upgrade.

If you have previously enabled encryption for data in transit, the default behaviour is to keep the existing, pre-upgrade setting. To change this setting, add the --encryption true/false command line parameter.

Post-upgrade checks

Check the system is running correctly.

  1. Expected version of kdb Insights Enterprise is running

    kubectl describe cm insights-config | grep version
version: insights-1.1.1

  2. Operator installed

    helm ls -n kxi-operator

    NAME        NAMESPACE       REVISION    UPDATED                                 STATUS      CHART                       APP VERSION
insights    kxi-operator    1           2022-04-11 15:39:44.955236379 +0000 UTC deployed    kxi-operator-1.1.0          1.1.0

  3. Application installed

    helm ls -n $INSIGHTS_NAMESPACE

    NAME        NAMESPACE   REVISION    UPDATED                                 STATUS      CHART                   APP VERSION
insights    kxi         1           2022-04-11 16:57:00.144126754 +0000 UTC deployed    insights-1.1.1          1.1.1

  4. Operator in running state

    kubectl get pods -n kxi-operator

    NAME                                     READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
insights-kxi-operator-6df4bcfddc-gnnjj   1/1     Running   0          85m
insights-kxi-operator-6df4bcfddc-lqmrl   1/1     Running   0          85m
insights-kxi-operator-6df4bcfddc-z45wq   1/1     Running   0          85m

  5. Application in running state

    kubectl get pods -n $INSIGHTS_NAMESPACE

    NAME                                            READY   STATUS      RESTARTS   AGE
insights-aggregator-9959bdc87-4pg7z             2/2     Running     0          9m47s
...
...
insights-sg-gateway-596b486d9f-pmhf4            1/1     Running     0          9m47s
insights-sg-gateway-596b486d9f-qvzbr            1/1     Running     0          9m47s

  6. Assembly CRDs redeployed

    kubectl get crds | grep insights.kx.com

assemblies.insights.kx.com                   2022-04-11T15:23:53Z
assemblyresources.insights.kx.com            2022-04-11T15:23:54Z

  1. Ensure assemblies are up and running successfully. The CLI restores assemblies that were running before the upgrade was initiated. The example below shows two sample assemblies; you may have different assemblies, or none at all.

    kubectl get asm

    NAME           DESCRIPTION      READY   STATUS   AGE
dfx-assembly   A KXI Assembly   True             28m
iot-assembly   A KXI Assembly   True             28m

Rollback

Use the kxi install rollback command to roll back to an older version of kdb Insights Enterprise.

  1. Run kxi install history to review the release history and choose which revision you want to roll back to:

    $ kxi install history --show-operator
REVISION    UPDATED                     STATUS          CHART               APP VERSION     DESCRIPTION
1           Tue Feb 28 14:10:03 2023    deployed        insights-1.3.0      1.3.0           Install complete
2           Tue Feb 28 14:16:41 2023    failed          insights-1.4.0      1.4.0           Upgrade complete
3           Tue Feb 28 14:25:55 2023    failed          insights-1.4.1      1.4.1           Upgrade "insights" failed: post-upgrade hooks failed: timed out waiting for the condition

1           Tue Feb 28 14:09:52 2023    superseded      kxi-operator-1.3.1  1.3.1           Install complete
2           Tue Feb 28 14:15:37 2023    superseded      kxi-operator-1.4.0  1.4.0           Upgrade complete
3           Tue Feb 28 14:24:54 2023    superseded      kxi-operator-1.4.2  1.4.2           Upgrade complete

    Omit --show-operator if you only want to see kdb Insights Enterprise revisions.

    Revision Value

    To initiate a rollback, it's important to note that the rollback command relies on the REVISION value rather than the APP VERSION. In order to revert back to version 1.3.0 of kdb Insights Enterprise, you must identify the correct REVISION number, which in this case is simply 1.

    The version of kdb Insights Operator and kdb Insights Enterprise must match

    If the currently installed version of kdb Insights Operator does not align with the rollback version of kdb Insights Operator, it's necessary to perform the rollback on both.

  2. Teardown all running assemblies.

  3. Run kxi install rollback with the chosen revisions:

    $ kxi install rollback $INSIGHTS_REVISION --operator-revision $OPERATOR_REVISION
Rolling Insights back to version 1.3.0 and revision 1.
And operator back to version 1.3.1 and revision 1 [y/N]: y

Backing up assemblies
No assemblies to back up
...

    No explicit revision

    If you do not provide an explicit revision, kxi install rollback will choose the most recent one.

    Rolling back kdb Insights Enterprise only

    Omit --operator-revision if you only want to roll back kdb Insights Enterprise.

  4. (Rolling back to versions older than 1.5 only) When rolling back to versions older than 1.5, an additional step must be taken to downgrade all IDB PVCs that have been created from any assemblies. For each IDB PVC, run the following rollback chart. The values.yaml used is the same one used for the kdb Insights installation.

    Start by fetching the IDB_PVC value of interest.

    kubectl get pvc | grep idb

    dfx-assembly-idb      Bound pvc-1dee46c6-ac8b-4ad6-807b-46489d53651f 20Gi RWX rook-cephfs 2d
iot-assembly-idb      Bound pvc-3f6b47b4-dff8-4bfe-89bf-7e01bc852310 20Gi RWX rook-cephfs 2d
..

    For this example, we will start with the dfx-assembly 

    IDB_PVC=dfx-assembly-idb


    helm install rollback kx-insights/kxi-db-rollback --set rollback.version="1.4" --set rollback.idbPVC="$IDB_PVC" -f values.yaml

    This will run a single rollback job on the specified $IDB_PVC. Check the rollback job completed.

    kubectl get pods | grep rollback

    rollback-db-1.4-2rshr          0/1     Completed  0     22m

    Once the rollback completes, run

    helm uninstall rollback

    Repeat this process for each IDB PVC.

  5. Once the rollback has completed, deploy for each torn down assembly.

Failed upgrades

Assembly state files are retained upon upgrade failure. The following is an example output from a failed upgrade.

...
Persisted assembly definitions for ['dfx-assembly', 'iot-assembly'] to /tmp/tmp7ny84esa-kxi-assembly-state.yaml
...
Error: Command '['helm', 'upgrade', '--install', '-f', './values.yaml', 'insights', 'kx-insights/insights', '--version', '1.1.1', '--namespace', 'insights']' returned non-zero exit status 1.

After recovering the state of kdb Insights Enterprise, restore assemblies to their running state by executing the following command, replacing the assembly state file name with that created by the failed upgrade.

kxi assembly create --filepath /tmp/tmp7ny84esa-kxi-assembly-state.yaml

Updating your application configuration

You can apply advanced configurations to your running instance of kdb Insights Enterprise by upgrading with an updated install config file.

  1. Retrieve your install configuration from the existing application and update the resulting INSTALL_CONFIG_FILE.

  2. Upgrade your installation with the updated values file, passing the same version number as the running installation.

Upgrade Entities with the UI

The UI lists required upgrades, accessed from the left-hand icon menu upgrades-icon.

What to upgrade?

The schemas and streams to upgrade, or remove, are:

status description
Orphaned schema A schema that was not selected as the schema source for an assembly in versions prior to 1.5.
Orphaned stream A stream that was not selected as the stream source for an assembly in versions prior to 1.5.
Overloaded internal stream A scenario where an assembly in versions prior to 1.5 is configured with two or more internal streams selected.
Overloaded external stream A scenario where an assembly in versions prior to 1.5 is configured with two or more external streams selected.
Shared stream A scenario where a single stream id is selected as a source stream for two or more an assemblies in versions prior to 1.5.

Upgrade a schema

Schemas created in the UI prior to 1.5 may require a manual upgrade. The upgrade table is a list of schemas requiring upgrading, and available actions for the schemas. The list can be sorted and filtered from the header titles.

item description
Name Name of schema.
Actions Available upgrade options.

Upgrade a stream

Streams created in the UI prior to 1.5 may require a manual upgrade. The upgrade table is a list of streams requiring upgrading, and available actions for the streams. The list can be sorted and filtered from the header titles.

item description
Name Name of stream.
Issue Is the stream orphaned, shared or overloaded.
Actions Available upgrade options.

Upgrade Actions

In the case where an entity is orphaned or overloaded, three action options appear in the entity's row within the upgrade table: add to an existing database, create a new database and delete the entity.

upgrade actions for orphaned or overloaded entities

In the case where a stream is shared by two or more databases, the only available action is to resolve.

Add to an existing database

Click the three parellel horizontal line icon to open a dialog with a dropdown selection of databases. Selecting a database displays a brief description of the new schema/stream configuration compared to its previous configuration.

Click Add to erase the previous schema/stream configuration of the selected database and replace it with the new configuration, removing it from the list of required upgrade entities.

Adding a stream to an existing database

Create a new database

Click the '+' icon, to create and name a new database. A validation is performed to check against existing or non-compatible database names.

Create a new database with default configuration for all settings not related to the selected stream/schema.

Creating a new database

Delete

Click the trash can icon to remove the selected entity from the list of required upgrades.

Resolve shared stream

This option only appears if there are shared streams. If two or more databases share the same schema configuration entity, the platform will automatically duplicate the entity and assign a unique copy to each of the databases sharing the configuration.

Click the Resolve button to open a dialog with an editable name field for shared streams. Click the Pencil icon to edit the name of stream.

Resolving a shared stream

On successful validation, click 'Resolve' to duplicate the stream configuration, and refresh the upgrades table with the removal of the resolved stream.