Upgrade the version of the data platform

How to upgrade from an earlier version to a newer version of the Contextual Data Platform

If you run a prerelease or custom version of the data platform, get in touch with the Arango support team to determine the upgrade strategy.

The upgrade instructions assume that the Kubernetes namespace the data platform uses is called arango and that the ArangoDeployment has the name deployment-example. Substitute these names as needed.

Online upgrade

The following descriptions covers the upgrade procedure for the Arango Contextual Data Platform if it has internet access.

Step 1: Prepare the upgrade

You receive an updated package configuration file from the Arango team.

The Contextual Data Platform package configuration is a YAML file that defines which services to install and their configurations. The file may include newer versions of existing services, newly added services, as well as changes as to what services are started automatically.

A newer version of the Contextual Data Platform may require a higher ArangoDB version. Make sure to check the Release notes and plan for an upgrade of ArangoDB as part of the data platform upgrade if necessary.

Step 2: Upgrade the operator

Upgrade the ArangoDB Kubernetes Operator (kube-arangodb) with Helm.

You can find the latest release on GitHub: https://github.com/arangodb/kube-arangodb/releases/latest

VERSION_OPERATOR='1.4.3' # Use a newer version if available

helm upgrade --install operator \
  --namespace arango \
  "https://github.com/arangodb/kube-arangodb/releases/download/$VERSION_OPERATOR/kube-arangodb-enterprise-$VERSION_OPERATOR.tgz" \
  --set "webhooks.enabled=true" \
  --set "operator.args[0]=--deployment.feature.gateway=true" \
  --set "operator.architectures={amd64}"

The output looks similar to the following on success:

Release "operator" has been upgraded. Happy Helming!
NAME: operator
LAST DEPLOYED: Wed May 20 15:45:02 2026
NAMESPACE: arango
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 2
DESCRIPTION: Upgrade complete
TEST SUITE: None
NOTES:
You have installed Kubernetes ArangoDB Operator in version 1.4.3

To access ArangoDeployments you can use:

kubectl --namespace "arango" get arangodeployments

More details can be found on https://github.com/arangodb/kube-arangodb/tree/1.4.3/docs

Step 3: Update the deployment

The planned upgrade of the data platform may require a newer version of ArangoDB. See the Release notes for the minimum versions.

Before upgrading ArangoDB, make sure to check for any incompatible changes in the ArangoDB release notes and create an off-site backup!

Update the ArangoDeployment specification to use a newer version of ArangoDB.

If you have a YAML file, e.g. deployment.yaml, then modify the spec.image field, save the file, and apply the specification:
```
kubectl apply --namespace arango -f deployment.yaml
```
You may also edit the specification directly in a command-line to modify the spec.image field:
```
kubectl edit --namespace arango ArangoDeployment deployment-example
```

Example:

apiVersion: database.arangodb.com/v1
kind: ArangoDeployment
metadata:
  name: deployment-example
  # ...
spec:
  image: arangodb/enterprise:3.12.9  # <-- Update here
  # ...

The upgrade process starts shortly after the modification and can take some time until the Agent, DB-Server, and Coordinator pods are replaced with new ones running the configured ArangoDB version.

Step 4: Update the platform CLI tool

Download the Arango Contextual Data Platform CLI tool arangodb_operator_platform from https://github.com/arangodb/kube-arangodb/releases , matching the version of the operator (kube-arangodb).

It is recommended to rename the downloaded executable to arangodb_operator_platform (with an .exe extension on Windows) and add it to the PATH environment variable to make it available as a command in the system.

On Linux and macOS, you need to make the file executable. Your file manager may allow that in a visual way, or you can use a command-line to run chmod +x arangodb_operator_platform.

On macOS, you may additionally need to run xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine arangodb_operator_platform in a command-line to remove the flag that marks it as downloaded from the internet to be able to run it.

Step 5: Update the platform services

Use the platform CLI tool and the package configuration you received to update the data platform services.

Substitute <license-client-id> and <license-client-secret> with the actual license credentials and ./platform.yaml with the path to the package configuration file. The platform name (deployment-example) needs to match the name as specified in the ArangoDeployment configuration.

arangodb_operator_platform --namespace arango package install \
  --license.client.id "<license-client-id>" \
  --license.client.secret "<license-client-secret>" \
  --platform.name deployment-example \
  ./platform.yaml

You can omit the license options if you want to let the tool discover the license credentials from the ArangoDeployment automatically.