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Installation and upgrade

Experienced customers can download a package to do an automated installation or upgrade of Component Pack for HCL Connections. It is best for new customers to read this introduction and at least initially to do the manual steps in this section to gain a better understanding of Component Pack.

Ansible deployment automation framework provided by HCL

If you are unfamiliar with Kubernetes management and its associated dependencies, or if you wish to gain insights on how to automate the deployment process, we encourage you to explore our HCL Connections and Component Pack Deployment Automation Framework. This framework provides insights into the automation of deployment workflows and can be used as an accelerator to reduce the overhead of deploying a Connections environment. It orchestrates the seamless setup of Kubernetes, kubectl, Helm, and performs the necessary tasks to facilitate creation of a deployment of HCL Connections and Component Pack.

For more specifics on how to use the automation, see HCL's open-source GitHub for the documents Quickstart for setting up HCL Connections and Component Pack Deployment Automation Framework and HCL Connections and Component Pack Deployment Automation Framework.

Replacing Component Pack

Component Pack runs on top of the Kubernetes, and for important data uses persistent storage. That storage lives, in a supported way, on NFS or Amazon EFS, if you are running stuff on Amazon, so your data should be already safe.

It is possible to simply recreate Kubernetes cluster and reinstall Component Pack and simply continue using it with the data as where you left it before you did it. Removing Component Pack and/or Kubernetes doesn't affect your data at all. Just don't remove the data.

In theory, you can have multiple Kubernetes clusters with multiple installations of Component Pack, and on Connections side, by manipulating httpd.conf in your IHS, you can decide to which one to point to. Just don't try to have multiple clusters using same PVs at the same time for the sake of data consistency and reliability.

Installation and upgrade general approach

You will notice that we are going to use the same commands to install or upgrade Component Pack. For upgrade from Connections 7.0, the baseline we use includes Kubernetes-based components, like Elasticsearch 7-based Metrics.

Order of installation

Refer to the HCL Connections System Requirements for the Kubernetes versions and platforms tested with the Component Pack.

It is recommended to review all the steps first and perform a system backup before doing the installation/upgrade.

Perform the following steps chronologically, in the order that they appear in the list, to get your Component Pack deployment up and running:

For a fresh installation

Installing the latest CR version of Component Pack 8
1. Install or upgrade HCL Connections
2. Set up NFS
3. Create the Connections namespace
4. Log in to a Harbor OCI registry
5. Apply Pod security restrictions at the namespace level
6. Set up Helm charts
7. Set up persistent volumes and persistent volume claims on NFS
8. Run bootstrap
9. Set up connections-env chart
10. Build MongoDB 5 image
11. Install infrastructure charts
12. Set up Customizer
13. Install OpenSearch
14. Set up community ingress
15. Set up Orient Me for OpenSearch
16. Set up Metrics for OpenSearch
17. Set up Microsoft Teams integration
18. Install community creation wizard and templates (Tailored Experience) chart
19. Configure the LotusConnections-config.xml
20. Set up Activities Plus
21. Set up Connections add-in for Microsoft Outlook

For an upgrade

Upgrading Component Pack 7 to 8 Upgrading Component Pack 8 to the latest CR version
1. Install or upgrade HCL Connections 1. Install or upgrade HCL Connections
2. Refer to Set up NFS to ensure that you have NFS setup with proper folders and specific permissions. 2. Refer to Set up NFS to ensure that you have NFS setup with proper folders and specific permissions.
3. Back up MongoDB data 3. Uninstall k8s-psp, Infrastructure and if applicable, opensearch-master, opensearch-data, opensearch-client and kudos-boards-cp
4. Back up Elasticsearch 7 data 4. Upgrade system to Kubernetes v1.25
5. Set up OpenSearch and MongoDB volumes on NFS 5. Log in to a Harbor OCI registry
6. Uninstall k8s-psp, Infrastructure and if applicable, opensearch-master, opensearch-data, opensearch-client and kudos-boards-cp 6. Apply Pod security restrictions at the namespace level
7. Delete ingresses 7. Set up Helm charts
8. Upgrade system to Kubernetes v1.25 8. Set up persistent volumes and persistent volume claims on NFS
9. Set up connections-env chart 9. Run bootstrap
10. Log in to a Harbor OCI registry 10. Set up connections-env chart
11. Apply Pod security restrictions at the namespace level 11. Build MongoDB 5 image
12. Set up Helm charts 12. Install infrastructure charts
13. Set up persistent volumes and persistent volume claims on NFS 13. Set up Customizer
14. Run bootstrap 14. Install OpenSearch
15. Set up connections-env chart 15. Set up community ingress
16. Build MongoDB 5 image 16. Set up Orient Me for OpenSearch
17. Install infrastructure charts 17. Set up Metrics for OpenSearch
18. Migrate MongoDB data 18. Set up Microsoft Teams integration
19. Set up Customizer 19. Install community creation wizard and templates (Tailored Experience) chart
20. Install OpenSearch 20. Configure the LotusConnections-config.xml
21. Migrate ElasticSearch 7 data 21. Set up Activities Plus
22. Reconfigure Orient Me for OpenSearch 22. Set up Connections add-in for Microsoft Outlook
22. Reconfigure Metrics for OpenSearch
23. Set up community ingress
24. Set up Microsoft Teams integration
25. Install community creation wizard and templates (Tailored Experience) chart
26. Configure the LotusConnections-config.xml
27. Set up Activities Plus
28. Set up Connections add-in for Microsoft Outlook

For more information, see Steps to install or upgrade to Component Pack 8.

For OpenShift deployment

Refer to Installing Component Pack on OpenShift for details.

For EKS deployment

Refer to Installing Component Pack using EKS for details.

Parent topic: Installing or upgrading Component Pack for Connections