IBM Cloud adds OpenShift 4.22 and draws a line under RHEL workers on VPC

IBM has made Red Hat OpenShift 4.22 available for Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud clusters, pairing the managed-service update with an operational deadline: 4.22 is the last release that will support Red Hat Enterprise Linux worker nodes on VPC infrastructure.

What changed

IBM says customers can now select OpenShift 4.22 when deploying a cluster, although 4.21 remains the default for new clusters until IBM changes that default. The service update includes Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud 4.22.13 and updates managed components including Calico 3.31.7, etcd 3.6.14 and the Portieris admission controller 0.14.3.

The release also moves cluster control-plane access to standard HTTPS port 443 instead of dynamically allocated node ports. IBM lists that routing change as enabled initially in Chennai, Montreal and Mumbai, with expansion to follow. Operators can also use oc adm upgrade status to follow control-plane upgrades.

IBM’s 4.22 change log shows a broader set of enabled platform capabilities, including Gateway API, Sigstore image verification, network segmentation, external OIDC and upgrade-status feature gates. Master patch updates are automatic; worker patches still require workers to be reloaded or updated.

Who is affected

The most consequential boundary applies to VPC clusters that still use RHEL workers. IBM’s deprecation guidance says RHEL workers have been deprecated on VPC since OpenShift 4.18 and will not be supported after 4.22. Future OpenShift versions on VPC will require RHEL CoreOS workers. Classic and Satellite clusters are outside this particular deprecation.

There is a nearer lifecycle deadline as well: IBM says OpenShift 4.17 clusters reach end of support on October 23, 2026. Version 4.16 has been unsupported since August 26, while 4.15 and earlier are archived. IBM warns that deprecated or unsupported clusters may not receive vulnerability fixes.

What to do

Teams planning a move to 4.22 should first inventory VPC worker operating systems. RHEL 8 workers cannot move beyond OpenShift 4.17; they must be migrated to RHEL 9 or RHCOS before a cluster upgrade to 4.18 or later. RHEL 9 workers can remain through 4.22, but IBM recommends migrating them to RHCOS before the next OpenShift minor release.

For the platform upgrade itself, IBM points operators to the console-driven workflow and its version-change documentation. The practical sequence is to resolve worker-OS debt first, confirm application and add-on compatibility, then schedule the cluster upgrade while 4.17 remains inside its support window.