A change management team requires that production Instana agents remain on the currently approved version and must not auto-update until a new version passes UAT review. Agents are installed as instana-agent-dynamic across 200 Linux servers. What is the most operationally efficient centralized approach to enforce this?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation and Infographic
The Instana backend provides an agent update policy feature allowing administrators to freeze or pin agent versions for specific zones or agent groups from a single central console, without touching individual servers. This approach is the most operationally efficient for large fleets because it integrates naturally with change management workflows where approval and release are managed centrally. Approaches requiring per-server changes such as apt-mark hold or package replacement are time-consuming at scale and bypass the built-in Instana fleet management capabilities.
Full explanation below image
Full Explanation
The Instana backend provides an agent update policy feature allowing administrators to freeze or pin agent versions for specific zones or agent groups from a single central console, without touching individual servers. This approach is the most operationally efficient for large fleets because it integrates naturally with change management workflows where approval and release are managed centrally. Approaches requiring per-server changes such as apt-mark hold or package replacement are time-consuming at scale and bypass the built-in Instana fleet management capabilities. The correct answer is 'Use the Instana backend agent management console to configure an update policy that pins the production zone to the approved version'. The incorrect options — 'Run apt-mark hold instana-agent-dynamic on each of the 200 production servers to prevent automatic package upgrades', 'Edit the configuration.yaml file on each server to set the agent version pinning configuration parameter', 'Uninstall instana-agent-dynamic and reinstall instana-agent-static on all 200 production servers one by one' — are wrong because they do not align with IBM Instana's architecture or recommended practices for this scenario. Understanding this concept is essential for the Domain 3: Installation domain of the IBM Instana Observability certification.