IBM Cloud Paks Installation - How to make sure you have the right OCP version for your Cloud Pak
By this time, IBM Cloud Paks popularity speaks volumes across enterprises. So thought of cutting short on introducing what are IBM Cloud Pak and coming straight to the problem scenario.
Problem Scenario:
Cloud Paks uses Red Hat OpenShift(OCP) as Platform to deploy enterprise workloads on top of it. To deploy a Cloud Pak, Installation of OCP is a pre-req. I have been getting involved at clients that are experiencing failure for pre-req checking when installing OCP. The cause of failure needs to be investigated most of time the root cause points to the downloaded installer being the cause of the problem.
Deep diving:
Generally as a precursor to install activity, customers visit Red Hat Pull secret site to download pull secret for the installation by selecting the infrastructure provider, UPI/IPI option which takes them to the website page shown here
Customers also download the OpenShift installer from the same page and use that installer image during installation.
Root cause:
The problem with the above installer downloaded from the above link is that, it is the latest version of OCP and not the stable or intended targeted version that has to be installed. For example, if a Cloud Pak is targeted to run on OCP v4.4.x, Installing OCP with the above installer will result in latest version which is 4.5.4 (current) or the latest as of that date.
This is resulting in issues on compatibility when installing IBM Cloud Paks, and in some cases the OCP installer itself may not even succeeding if issues are being resolved in the latest nightly builds.
Solution:
In order to avoid such scenarios, it is always recommended to target the right stable version of OCP and downloading that installer version from the Red Hat repo link provided here and screenshot shown below in Figure 2.
This way we ensure that the installed OCP adheres to the required version that is compatible with the Cloud Pak.
