Introduction
This blog explains rolling updates for IBM Business Automation Workflow on containers version 25.0.1. Rolling updates enable administrators to upgrade their environments with minimal downtime through a simple configuration change. This approach ensures business continuity while keeping systems current with the latest features and fixes.
What is a rolling update?
A rolling update is a deployment strategy that upgrades applications without downtime. Instead of replacing all components at once, the system gradually introduces new versions while keeping existing ones running. This incremental approach ensures continuous availability and minimizes risk during updates.
Key benefits
Business continuity: IBM Business Automation Workflow orchestrates critical business processes. Even brief downtime can disrupt workflows and impact user experience. Rolling updates minimize this risk by ensuring essential workflows remain available throughout the upgrade.
Controlled, predictable upgrades: Rather than a risky all-at-once approach, rolling updates replace components incrementally, limiting changes to only a subset at any time. This approach limits the scope of any issues and helps maintain continuous access in regulated or always-on environments.
Health-first deployment: The system ensures each new component is fully ready before retiring an old one, maintaining service continuity during the transition.
Built-in failure handling: If a new component fails health checks, the system pauses the rollout and keeps healthy components serving users until the problem is resolved.
Simplified administrator experience: Rolling updates are designed to be straightforward for administrators. With a simple change in your configuration, you can enable safer, more reliable upgrades without requiring specialized expertise. Once configured, IBM Business Automation Workflow automatically on containers manages the upgrade process, minimizing downtime and keeping your environment current with minimal effort.
How a rolling update works
The system follows a simple pattern during updates as shown below,
Failure handling
If a new component never becomes ready: The system will not remove more old components beyond the configured limit. It keeps retrying to launch the new component, but the rollout pauses until the problem is fixed. Your application remains available on the healthy components.
If an update fails: The system pauses the rollout and keeps retrying while expecting administrator intervention to resolve the root cause. IBM Business Automation Workflow remains available to users, avoiding major disruption.
Important considerations
For rolling updates to work smoothly, configure your environment as described in the IBM documentation. Without proper configuration, IBM Business Automation Workflow services may experience extended disruption during updates.
Note that not all components currently support multiple instances. For example, some components are limited to a single instance, so updating these components will cause temporary disruption to certain functions.
Conclusion
Rolling updates in IBM Business Automation Workflow on containers provide a safer, more reliable upgrade path with minimal downtime. By configuring simple parameters, administrators can control the update process to balance speed, availability, and resource usage. This approach ensures business continuity while keeping systems current with the latest capabilities.
For further reference and official documentation, refer to the IBM documentation Here
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank all the mentors and colleagues who provided valuable guidance and feedback during the creation of this blog. Special thanks to @thuyanh, @Vincent Le, @Scott Nguyen and @Ananthram J for their insightful inputs and support.