Updating tools

In Cloud environments, all the components of the platform must be up-to-date because of the often short maintenance cycles.

The Kubernetes project gets minor releases approximately every three months, and it maintains only the three most recent minor releases.

Managed Kubernetes services like AKS have a hands-off upgrade process, whereby the upgrade is performed with the click of a button. Before upgrading, review all the release notes between the source and target versions because Kubernetes features can change over time.

Alongside the upgrade of the Kubernetes service, ensure you upgrade any pipelines and developer tools with a compatible version of kubectl. The command-line tool must be within one minor version (older or newer) of the Kubernetes service.

Starting with Helm v3, there is no server-side component, so the process of upgrading the command-line tool is a case of replacing the binary. As with any software, make sure to review the Helm Release Notes before upgrading.

Because of the immutable nature of containers, when the application middleware (for example, IBM® WebSphere® Liberty) needs to be updated, new application images must be built upon a new base image. The new images should then be promoted throughout the software development lifecycle using the methods outlined in Updating SPM Deployment.