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Preparing for upgrade

 

Perform the following tasks before upgrading BMC Helix IT Operations Management (BMC Helix ITOM):

TaskActionReference
1Review the compatibility matrix to ensure that all components in your environment are supported with the current release of BMC Helix Service Management.For more information, see Compatibility information.
2

Make sure you have created the URLs required to access BMC Helix ITOM applications.

3

Upgrade to the latest version of  BMC Discovery 25.2.02.

Important: BMC Discovery is not mandatory if you only use BMC Helix Continuous Optimization.

To install BMC Discovery, see Installing in the BMC Discovery documentation.

To upgrade to BMC Discovery, see Upgrading in the BMC Discovery documentation.

4

Back up all the PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) data. 

Important: We do not have a specific best practice for this step. However, we recommend using your preferred method to back up the PVC data based on the type of PVC.

 

5

Back up your customizations in the deployment manager and the cluster.

 

For example:

If you are using a self-signed or custom-signed certificate, back up the certificates (custom_cacert.pem, cacerts, or any other certificates on which you have set up an LDAP) from helix-on-prem-deployment-manager/commons/certs/. 

6

Create a new workspace directory on the system from where you will run the BMC Helix ITOM deployment script.
This directory will be your new working directory (For example, working_directory).

 

7

Download the deployment manager to the working_directory.

8

Download the latest container images required to perform the upgrade.

9

Use the upgrade configuration utility.

The utility picks the values from the latest successful deployment of BMC Helix ITOM to configure the infra.config, deployment.config, and secrets.txt files. 

 

For more information, see Using the upgrade configuration utility.

10

(Optional) Define a password for the user.

Applications will use a non-default user for Elasticsearch connections for Log Elasticsearch (Log ES), which you can define in the secrets.txt file.

11

If you changed the default passwords for BMC Helix Single Sign-on (HSSO) and Elasticsearch during the installation of BMC Helix ITOM (for more information, see Preparing for password encryption), you must set the same password before upgrading BMC Helix ITOM. 

To set the passwords:

  1. Navigate to commons/certs/default/
  2. Open the default.password file.
  3. Set the values of the following parameters:
    • RSSO_NEW_PASSWORD
    • RSSO_PASSWORD
    • LOCAL_PASSWORD

To use a non-default user, go to the secrets.txt file and change the default value of the LOG_ES_PASSWD parameter.

The password must meet the following requirements:

  • Must have a minimum of 8 characters.
  • Must contain at least one uppercase letter [A–Z] and one lowercase letter [a–z].
  • Must contain at least one digit [0–9].
  • Must contain at least one special character.
  • Must not end with a #.
  • Must not contain 'admin' and 'bmcuser'.
12

Save the certificates (custom_cacert.pem or public_cacert.pem) in the <working _directory>/commons/certs/ directory. 

Important: If you set the value of the parameters CUSTOM_CA_SIGNED_CERT_IN_USE to false and MONITOR to yes, you must name the public CA certificate file (full chain) as public_cacert.pem and copy it to the commons/certs directory; that is, commons/certs/public_cacert.pem.

 

13

Backup HSSO audit logs

If you have deployed ITOM 24.1 or ealier, you can backup the data related to RSSO audit log into MinIO.

  1. Ensure that you have run the Upgrade Configuration Utility to populate the configuration files.
  2.  Ensure that you have copied custom certificates into common/certs/custom_cacert.pem.
  3. Navigate to helix-on-prem-deployment-manager/utilities/migration/postgres 
  4. Run the ./export_rssoaudit_old.sh command.
    After sometime, you see the export-rssoaudit-old completed successfully message.
  5. Verify the data in Minio:
    1. Go to the Minio console, for example: minio.apps.ocp415.bmc.com.
    2. Login with your credentials.
    3. On the object browser, you see the rssoaudit on the table.

    4. Click the file and download the data, which you can view locally.

14

(Optional) Upgrade your container orchestration platform (Kubernetes and Openshift) to a supported version.

Important: If you are using Rancher on Kubernetes, you must upgrade Rancher and then upgrade Kubernetes.

15

Upgrade the NGINX Ingress Controller (nginx-ingress-controller) based on your Kubernetes and OpenShift versions. 

Important: You might experience downtime while upgrading the Nginx Ingress Controller.

16

Upgrade Helm to a supported version based on your Kubernetes and OpenShift versions. 

17

Valkey is the default replacement for Redis in BMC Helix ITOM 26.1. Depending on your deployment requirements, deploy Valkey or continue using Redis Cluster.  

  • To deploy Valkey, configure the VALKEY_STORAGECLASS parameter in the infra.config file.
  • To deploy Redis Cluster, configure the REDIS_CLUSTER_STORAGE_CLASS parameter in the infra.config file and RedisCluster parameter in the deployment.config file.
18

To verify your environment configuration and cluster health, run the pre‑installation check and cluster health check using the Health Check Tool.

The pre-installation check validates critical components and infrastructure health checks to make sure the environment is ready for the upgrade.

The cluster health check validates the cluster's readiness and current health.

For more information, see Installing Health Check Tool.

Compatibility information

The following table lists the compatible versions of technology stacks with  BMC Helix IT Operations Management (BMC Helix ITOM) 26.1:

BMC Helix IT Operations ManagementBMC DiscoveryKubernetesOpenShiftIngress (NGINX)F5 NGINX PlusHelm
26.125.2.021.31,1.32, 1.33, 1.34, and 1.354.18, 4.19, and 4.201.14.3R353.19 and 3.20
1.29 and 1.304.16 and 4.171.13.7R343.18
25.425.21.28 - 1.344.15 - 4.191.11.5 - 1.14.0R30 - R343.14 - 3.18
25.325.21.28 - 1.334.15 - 4.191.11.5 - 1.12.4R30 - R343.14 - 3.18

Important
In this documentation, NGINX Ingress Controller refers to the Open-Source NGINX Ingress Controller maintained by Kubernetes.

Where to go from here

If you have completed all the upgrade prerequisite tasks, proceed with the upgrade:

 

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BMC Helix IT Operations Management deployment 26.1