What are the requirements for upgrading skywalking from v8.9 to v9.7

[sunyuanfeng]

Hello, we would like to upgrade our current version in order to utilize logical sharding and reduce storage costs.

1. Currently, I am using JDK 8 and ES 7.10. Should I upgrade them?
2. Does the agent version also need to be upgraded?
3. Does upgrading require a migration of ES index data?

[wu-sheng]

First of all, why v9.7? It is also a very old version. Years ago.

Then to your question

1. ES 7.10 should be good. JDK8 for agent should be good, OAP requires newer JRE.
2. v8 agent still worked if you don't face any agent/app side issue.
3. You will face compatible isssue. I recommend you to use a clean ES for the new OAP deployment, and immigrate the agents/apps pointing to the new cluster.

[sunyuanfeng]

Because we have two business clusters. One business cluster uses JDK8 from ten years ago, and the versions of its components are relatively old. The other business cluster is newly built and uses JDK17.
So which version do you recommend us to use respectively?
And how does the ES version correspond to SkyWalking?

[wu-sheng]

For the agent, JDK8 is still supported, you should be good to use latest. For elastic, maybe Elasticsearch 8? I didn't use that database for a while, just checked from codebase and tests perspective only.

[sunyuanfeng]

ES8 is ok.
Will using v10 bring any greater benefits, such as functionality or cost?

[wu-sheng]

Yes, new features e.g. ai relative monitoring(spring ai, ai gateway), more efficiency engine, new BanyanDB support. And I am pushing dynamic oal/mal/lal into 10.5.
So, yes, many new things are added.

[sunyuanfeng]

Now, v9 can already meet our needs. We'll consider v10 later. Thank you very much

[wu-sheng]

Sure. You could pick the version you need.