21.3 Patches

Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and CentOS Core 8 

You can set up BMC Deployment Engine on RHEL 8 and CentOS Core 8 operating systems.

The supported versions of RHEL and CentOS are as follows:

• RHEL versions - 7.x – 8.x
• CentOS versions - 7.x –8.x

For more information, see System requirements and Setting up BMC Deployment Engine.

Improved deployment sizing guidelines

BMC provides improved sizing templates for the BMC Helix IT Service Management deployment sizes: Compact, Small, Medium, and Large. 

For information about the sizing guidelines, see Sizing and scalability considerations.

For information about how to use the sizing templates, see Setting up BMC Deployment Engine and Installing BMC Helix Platform services 22.2.01.

Support for Azure Kubernetes Service platform

BMC Helix IT Service Management supports deployment on an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster.

For more information, see System requirements and Installing BMC Helix IT Service Management in an Azure Kubernetes Service cluster.

Support for Kubernetes and OpenShift

BMC Helix IT Service Management deployment supports Kubernetes versions 1.22, 1.23, and 1.24, and OpenShift versions 4.9, 4.10, and 4.11. 

The supported versions of Kubernetes and OpenShift are as follows:

• Kubernetes versions - 1.18 – 1.24
• OpenShift versions - 4.6 – 4.11

For more information, see System requirements.

Support for self-signed and CA signed certificates

Use a custom self-signed or CA signed certificates to use HTTPS communication for Service Management applications.

For more information, see the CACERTS_FILE parameter in Performing the BMC Helix IT Service Management installation and Applying security certificates to your applications.

Support for Nginx Ingress Controller

BMC Helix IT Service Management deployment supports  Nginx Ingress Controller version 1.2.0 in addition to support for version 0.32.

For more information, see System requirements.

Automated setting up of BMC Deployment Engine

You can set up BMC Deployment Engine by using an automated script that simplifies the set up process. 

For more information, see Setting up BMC Deployment Engine.

Support for Amazon EKS, GKE and OKE platforms

BMC Helix IT Service Management supports deployment on the following Kubernetes clusters:

• Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)
• Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Container Engine for Kubernetes (OKE)

For more information, see System requirements, Installing BMC Helix IT Service Management in an Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service cluster, and Installing BMC Helix ITSM Service Management in a Google Kubernetes Engine cluster.

Rollback deployment

When updating BMC Helix IT Service Management from the version 21.3.04 to 21.3.05, if any of the HELIX_PLATFORM_DEPLOY, HELIX_NONPLATFORM_DEPLOY, or HELIX_SMARTAPPS_DEPLOY pipelines fail, you can rollback back to the last successful deployed version of the platform and applications by using the rollback option.

For more information, see Upgrading BMC Helix IT Service Management to 21.3.06.

Updates to Fluent Bit deployment

In a fresh deployment of BMC Helix IT Service Management, Fluent Bit is deployed as a sidecar container in the BMC Helix Innovation Suite namespace. 

The following table lists the changes in the product deployment behavior:

For more information, see Performing the BMC Helix IT Service Management installation and Viewing and collecting critical logs by using the Kibana dashboard.

Enhancements to Support Assistant tool

In a fresh deployment of BMC Helix IT Service Management, Support Assistant tool is deployed as a sidecar container in the BMC Helix Innovation Suite namespace. 

The following table lists the changes in the product deployment behavior:

For more information, see Performing the BMC Helix IT Service Management installation and Viewing and collecting logs by using the Support Assistant tool.

Support for deployment size templates

BMC Helix IT Service Management deployment supports four different sizing profiles: Compact, Small, Medium, and Large. 

For more information, see Sizing and scalability considerations. 

Support for BMC Helix ITSM Insights and BMC Helix Dashboards deployment

BMC Helix IT Service Management supports deployment of BMC Helix ITSM Insights and BMC Helix Dashboards products in your on-premises environment. The BMC Helix IT Service Management deployment pipeline provides an option to select BMC Helix ITSM Insights and BMC Helix Dashboards deployment and you can optionally deploy the products along with other ITSM applications. The option is available for fresh installation and upgrade of BMC Helix IT Service Management.

For more information, see Performing the BMC Helix IT Service Management installation.