Configuring instance upgrade parallelism for VMware Tanzu Application Services (Spring Cloud Services)

Products

• VMware Tanzu Spring Runtime
• VMware Tanzu Spring Essentials

Issue/Introduction

large-scale customers where the default number of concurrent upgrades were identified as a primary bottleneck experience long-running instance upgrades. 

Environment

• Product: VMware Application Services (Spring Cloud Services)
• Platform: VMware Tanzu Application Service (TAS)
• Version/s: N/A
• Note that Spring Cloud Services has been renamed to Application Services.

Cause

By default, the Concurrent Service Instance Upgrade service broker errand for the Application Services (Spring Cloud Services) tile processes (5) service instance upgrades in parallel. In environments with a large number of service instances, this approach can result in lengthy upgrade windows and extended maintenance cycles.

Resolution

To reduce the duration of the upgrade process, parallelism can be extended for the Concurrent Service Instance Upgrade errand. This allows the platform to update more than the default (5) service instances simultaneously.

1. Log in to the Ops Manager Installation Dashboard.
2. Click on the Application Services tile.
3. Navigate to the Service Broker pane.
4. Locate the "Concurrent Service Instance Upgrade" property (note the minimum is 1 and the default is 5)
5. In the configuration field, set the value to the desired number of concurrent upgrades.
• Note: Ensure the underlying infrastructure (e.g., BOSH Director, IaaS limits) can handle the increased load of multiple simultaneous canary watches and updates.
6. Click Save.
7. Return to the Installation Dashboard and click Review Pending Changes.
8. Ensure the Application Services tile is selected and click Apply Changes.

Additional Information

• Increasing parallelism improves upgrade speed but increases the load on the BOSH Director and the underlying IaaS.
• It is recommended to start with a conservative parallelism value and monitor platform performance before increasing to higher values.