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Requirements for hosted control planes

In the context of hosted control planes, a management cluster is an OpenShift Container Platform cluster where the HyperShift Operator is deployed and where the control planes for hosted clusters are hosted. The management cluster and workers must run on the same infrastructure. For example, you cannot run your management cluster on bare metal and your workers on the cloud. However, the management cluster and workers do not need to run on the same platform. For example, you might run your management cluster on bare metal and workers on OpenShift Virtualization.

The control plane is associated with a hosted cluster and runs as pods in a single namespace. When the cluster service consumer creates a hosted cluster, it creates a worker node that is independent of the control plane.

Support matrix for hosted control planes

Because multicluster engine for Kubernetes Operator includes the HyperShift Operator, releases of hosted control planes align with releases of multicluster engine Operator. For more information, see OpenShift Operator Life Cycles.

Management cluster support

Any supported standalone OpenShift Container Platform cluster can be a management cluster.

A single-node OpenShift Container Platform cluster is not supported as a management cluster. If you have resource constraints, you can share infrastructure between a standalone OpenShift Container Platform control plane and hosted control planes. For more information, see "Shared infrastructure between hosted and standalone control planes".

The following table maps multicluster engine Operator versions to the management cluster versions that support them:

Table 1. Supported multicluster engine Operator versions for OpenShift Container Platform management clusters
Management cluster version Supported multicluster engine Operator version

4.14 - 4.15

2.4

4.14 - 4.16

2.5

4.14 - 4.17

2.6

4.15 - 4.17

2.7

Hosted cluster support

For hosted clusters, no direct relationship exists between the management cluster version and the hosted cluster version. The hosted cluster version depends on the HyperShift Operator that is included with your multicluster engine Operator version.

Ensure a minimum latency of 200 ms between the management cluster and hosted clusters.

The following table maps multicluster engine Operator versions to the hosted cluster versions that you can create by using the HyperShift Operator that is associated with that version of multicluster engine Operator:

Table 2. Hosted cluster versions that can be created by multicluster engine Operator versions
Hosted cluster version multicluster engine Operator 2.4 multicluster engine Operator 2.5 multicluster engine Operator 2.6 multicluster engine Operator 2.7

4.14

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

4.15

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

4.16

No

No

Yes

Yes

4.17

No

No

No

Yes

Hosted cluster platform support

The following table indicates which OpenShift Container Platform versions are supported for each platform of hosted control planes. In the table, Management cluster version refers to the OpenShift Container Platform version where the multicluster engine Operator is enabled:

Table 3. Required OpenShift Container Platform versions for platforms
Hosted cluster platform Management cluster version Hosted cluster version

Amazon Web Services

4.16 - 4.17

4.16 - 4.17

IBM Power

4.17

4.17

IBM Z

4.17

4.17

OpenShift Virtualization

4.14 - 4.17

4.14 - 4.17

Bare metal

4.14 - 4.17

4.14 - 4.17

Non-bare-metal agent machines (Technology Preview)

4.16 - 4.17

4.16 - 4.17

Updates of multicluster engine Operator

When you update to another version of the multicluster engine Operator, your hosted cluster can continue to run if the HyperShift Operator that is included in the version of multicluster engine Operator supports the hosted cluster version. The following table shows which hosted cluster versions are supported on which updated multicluster engine Operator versions:

Table 4. Updated multicluster engine Operator version support for hosted clusters
Updated multicluster engine Operator version Supported hosted cluster version

Updated from 2.4 to 2.5

OpenShift Container Platform 4.14

Updated from 2.5 to 2.6

OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 - 4.15

Updated from 2.6 to 2.7

OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 - 4.16

For example, if you have an OpenShift Container Platform 4.14 hosted cluster on the management cluster and you update from multicluster engine Operator 2.4 to 2.5, the hosted cluster can continue to run.

Technology Preview features

The following list indicates Technology Preview features for this release:

  • Hosted control planes on IBM Z in a disconnected environment

  • Custom taints and tolerations for hosted control planes on OpenShift Virtualization

  • NVIDIA GPU devices on hosted control planes for OpenShift Virtualization

Additional resources