Feature Overview (aka. Goal Summary)  

This ticket outlines the scope of the Tech Preview release for OCP 4.17

This Tech Preview release grants early access to upcoming features in the next-generation Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM v1).  Customers can now test these functionalities and provide valuable feedback during development.

Goals (aka. expected user outcomes)

Highlights of OLM v1 Phase 4 Preview:

• Safe CRD upgrades: Prevent data loss due to CRD schema changes

• Clear compatibility reporting: Improved status reporting for supported and unsupported operator bundles

• Clear ownership: Prevent conflicts between multiple ClusterExtensions managing the same resources

• Least privilege principle: Adhere to security best practices by using dedicated ServiceAccounts for installing/upgrading content

• Secure communication: Protect catalog data with HTTPS encryption for catalogd webserver responses

• Laying the groundwork for native Helm chart support: OLM v1 embeds Helm, doing the heavy lifting to enable future native support for Helm chart-packaged content

Requirements (aka. Acceptance Criteria):

All the expected user outcomes and the acceptance criteria in the engineering epics are covered.

Background

Leveraging learnings and customer feedback since OCP 4's inception, OLM v1 is designed to be a major overhaul.

With OpenShift 4.17, we are one step closer to the highly anticipated general availability (GA) of the next-generation OLM.  

See the OCPSTRAT feature for OLM v1 GA:

• OCPSTRAT-1347 [GA release] Next-gen OLM (OLM v1)

Documentation Considerations

• Safe CRD Upgrades: [TP release] Docs explain OLM v1's current approach to prevent data loss due to CRD schema changes during the ClusterExtension upgrade.

• Clear compatibility reporting: [TP release] Docs introduce OLM v1's current approach to communicating the supported and unsupported operator bundles during installation.

• Clear Ownership: [TP release] Docs explain OLM v1's effort to prevent conflicts between multiple ClusterExtensions managing the same resources.

• Least Privilege Principle: [TP release] Docs explain OLM v1's design rationale behind adhering to security best practices by using dedicated ServiceAccounts for installing/upgrading content, showcasing the installation/upgrade flow with ServiceAccounts w/o and w/ enough permissions associated with it.

• Secure Communication: [TP release] Docs explain OLM v1's security stance in protecting catalog data with HTTPS encryption for catalogd webserver responses.