HPE Helion OpenStack 8

Release Notes #

These release notes are generic for all HPE Helion OpenStack 8 components. Some parts may not apply to a particular component.

Documentation can be found in the docu language directories on the media. Documentation (if installed) is available below the /usr/share/doc/ directory of an installed system.

Publication Date: 2021-02-03 , Version: 8.20201214

1 HPE Helion OpenStack
2 Support Statement for HPE Helion OpenStack
3 Major Changes in HPE Helion OpenStack 8
4 Technology Previews
5 Deprecated and Removed Features
6 Migration to HPE Helion OpenStack 8
7 Documentation and Other Information
8 Limitations
9 Known Issues
10 Revision History
11 Colophon

1 HPE Helion OpenStack #

Powered by OpenStack™, HPE Helion OpenStack is an open source enterprise cloud computing platform that enables easy deployment and seamless management of an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) private cloud. As an open source computing platform, HPE Helion OpenStack consists only of source code and binaries built from open source code.

2 Support Statement for HPE Helion OpenStack #

To receive support, customers need an appropriate subscription from HPE .

3 Major Changes in HPE Helion OpenStack 8 #

HPE Helion OpenStack 8 is a major update to HPE Helion OpenStack and comes with many new features, improvements and bug fixes. The following list highlights a selection of the major changes:

OpenStack has been updated to the Pike release, and the deployment framework has been updated accordingly to support new features. Check Pike (https://releases.openstack.org/pike/) and Ocata (https://releases.openstack.org/ocata/) to see which new features got added.
HPE Helion OpenStack 8 is built by SUSE and delivered with HPE branding, ISOs and support channels.
All nodes used for Administration and OpenStack are now using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3 as operating system.
HPE Helion OpenStack 8 supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.3 compute nodes.
HPE Helion OpenStack 8 integrates with an externally deployed SUSE Enterprise Storage cluster which requires a separate subscription not included with HPE Helion OpenStack.
The Percona Server database used by the OpenStack control plane in previous releases of HPE Helion OpenStack 8 has been replaced in favour of MariaDB. The MariaDB implementation comes with several advantages like Galera Clustering and SSL encryption for the Client to Server communication.
The Vertica database backend for HPE Helion OpenStack Monitoring has been replaced by Cassandra.
HPE Helion OpenStack 8 is delivered with two options for Kubernetes deployment.
- OpenStack Magnum that requires a user to bring their own image
- Heat templates to deploy ready-to-run SUSE CaaS Platform images.
SUSE CaaS Platform is the preferred alternative over OpenStack Magnum and comes with several advantages like Transactional Updates or an up-to-date Kubernetes version.
HPE Helion OpenStack 8 is delivered with the Cloud Lifecycle Manager which is based on the Helion Lifecycle Manager.
The Cloud Lifecycle Manager framework comes with several highlights:
- Template-based cloud definition with a built-in configuration checker.
- Version controlling using a git repository which provides auditability.
- Provides flexibility to modify cloud configurations including networking without having to redeploy the HPE Helion OpenStack.
- Support for the OpenStack networking load balancing Service (Octavia) has been added.
- VMware NSX-V support has been added and supports NSX-V 6.3.
- Cloud Lifecycle Manager comes with an UI based installer for cloud configuration and deployment. The installer UI is integrated with SUSE Manager as well as HPE OneView to support the capabilities of hardware discovery and interrogation. HPE Helion OpenStack 8 supports SUSE Manager 3.1 and OneView 3.0.

4 Technology Previews #

Technology previews are packages, stacks, or features delivered by HPE. These features are not supported. They may be functionally incomplete, unstable or in other ways not suitable for production use. They are mainly included for customer convenience and give customers a chance to test new technologies within an enterprise environment.

Whether a technology preview will be moved to a fully supported package later, depends on customer and market feedback. A technology preview does not automatically result in support at a later point in time. Technology previews could be dropped at any time and HPE is not committed to provide a technology preview later in the product cycle.

Please, give your HPE representative feedback, including your experience and use case.

5 Deprecated and Removed Features #

The following features are deprecated as of HPE Helion OpenStack 8:

The deprecated keystonemiddleware.auth_token in-process token cache used by Ceilometer services is replaced with a memcached server. When HA is used, several memcached servers are configured and used, one for each ceilometer-server node. The keystone token data stored in memcached is authenticated and encrypted using a generated secret key.
Ceilometer V2 API has been deprecated. Also publishing events has been turned off by setting source in events_pipeline.yaml to not match any event, since Gnocchi and Panko which are optional components are not available.

The following features have been removed in HPE Helion OpenStack 8:

hLinux support has been removed in HPE Helion OpenStack 8 and all nodes will be migrated to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3 during the upgrade process.
New deployments cannot use the Vertica database backend, as Cassandra is now the default database for HPE Helion OpenStack Monitoring.

6 Migration to HPE Helion OpenStack 8 #

As described in the HPE Helion OpenStack 8 Migration Guide, prior to beginning the migration there is a preparation phase where a validation playbook must be run to ensure that Cloud configuration on HPE Helion OpenStack 5 is compatible with the migration process. The Migration Guide provides the list of compatibility checks. The validation playbook must run successfully prior to completing the migration steps. Please also check the list of Known Issues prior migration.

Upgrading to HPE Helion OpenStack 8 using the procedure defined in the migration Guide, must start from 5.0.3. If your installed version of HPE Helion OpenStack is prior to the versions described above, you will first need to upgrade to the appropriate HPE Helion OpenStack release prior to performing the migration.

Once the validation playbook completes successfully, there are three phases to the migration from HPE Helion OpenStack 5 to HPE Helion OpenStack 8. The first phase is to upgrade the operating system to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3. The upgrade will require downtime of approximately 4 hours as the control plane servers are reinstalled to replace the existing HPE hLinux operating system with the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3 operating system, which is required for HPE Helion OpenStack 8. This operating system deployment may be done using the built-in PXE-based provisioning tools included in the HPE Helion OpenStack 8 release, or by a proprietary process in your own environment.

Following the operating system upgrade, HPE Helion OpenStack will be reinstalled using software components compatible with the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3 operating system to resume operation of the existing cloud.

In second phase, you will begin the upgrade to a migration-specific release of HPE Helion OpenStack 8 which includes OpenStack Newton versions of cloud components. This process requires minimal downtime as it follows a more conventional upgrade process.

The final phase, the HPE Helion OpenStack 8 software upgrade, will be conducted to complete the process and bring the target cloud fully up to date with the HPE Helion OpenStack 8 release component version based on the Pike release of OpenStack, consistent with fresh deployments of HPE Helion OpenStack 8.

The complete upgrade process is documented in the Migration Guide, which can be found online.

7 Documentation and Other Information #

Read the READMEs on the DVDs.
Get the detailed changelog information about a particular package from the RPM (with filename <FILENAME>):
```
rpm --changelog -qp <FILENAME>.rpm
```
Check the ChangeLog file in the top level of DVD1 for a chronological log of all changes made to the updated packages.
Find more information in the docu directory of DVD1 of the HPE Helion OpenStack 8 DVDs. This directory includes PDF versions of the HPE Helion OpenStack documentation.

8 Limitations #

The SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3 nodes deployed through HPE Helion OpenStack are not compatible with the Public Cloud Module for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP3, because HPE Helion OpenStack provides more recent versions of the OpenStack client tools.
The x86_64 architecture is the only supported architecture for the Administration Server and the nodes managed by HPE Helion OpenStack.
Ansible and Galera are only supported as part and in combination with HPE Helion OpenStack.

9 Known Issues #

The following issues are known and will be fixed in a future maintenance update.

With Cloud Lifecycle Manager, the workflows to update or upgrade an installation could still be subject to change. Prior executing any update or upgrade, we urge to refer to the most latest documentation prior executing any steps.
With Cloud Lifecycle Manager, WebSSO functionality is available for OpenStack Identity Service (Keystone). However, the default token provider is still UUID, and keystone_configure_fernet: False is the default Fernet configuration. WebSSO with Fernet tokens is a supported choice. It is disruptive and therefore is not released as an update.
With Cloud Lifecycle Manager, the Bare Metal Service (Ironic) has a known issue with the agent_ilo driver. If the user image takes up more space than what's left on the ramdisk's root partition, the user image needs to be remastered and the ramdisk size increased.
With Cloud Lifecycle Manager, previously existing 3rd party integrations that were supported with HPE Helion OpenStack 5 and older releases are currently no longer supported in this release. Please contact Support in case you use any extension that is not part of the main product.
Device drivers and utilities comprised of any closed source content are excluded from the HPE Helion OpenStack ISOs. Contact the vendor or redistributor of the utility for information on how to install and integrate their drivers or utilities. HPE's SSACLI utility is an example of this type of utility. It is available from the HPE Support Center (https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=MTX_3d16386b418a443388c18da82f).
With Cloud Lifecycle Manager, there is the possibility of a layer 2 networking loop under the following circumstances:
- There is more than 1 provider network.
- RabbitMQ connectivity is down
- Rebooting a network or compute node.
Updates to the shim package may result in the following error:
```
          Loading kernel ...
          "error: /images/sles12sp3-x86_64/linux has invalid signature"
```
Any one of the following options will workaround this issue:
- Disable UEFI secure boot
- Install the previous "shim" package on the deployer node
- Remove or set to "not installed" existing siginatures in the bios of the node where the error occurred

10 Revision History #

HPE Helion OpenStack 8 provides fixes and new functions continuously using agile development methodology. The list below shows release highlights and new functionality from maintenance updates.

To see the full list of HPE Helion OpenStack 8 maintenance updates, go to SUSE Patch Finder (https://download.suse.com/patch/finder/#bu=suse&familyId=47364&productId=63967) or the Update Advisories (https://www.suse.com/support/update/).

February 15, 2019