Add versions when viewing AWS RDS psql service instances

[lbeaufort]

Expose brokered service software versions to user programmatically (through the API)

Needs include:
EPA
Determining which database versions are being used across all orgs and spaces.

FEC
So that they can more easily audit their systems developers at the FEC want to be able to view the postgres versions of AWS RDS psql service instances.

Proposition:
Add support to the aws-broker to GET service instance parameters, which is part of the API but we do not implement. However, this would only give the major DB version (like Postgres 13, 14, 15…), not the full version, so it wouldn’t meet their needs. As of 9/12/2023 there is no widely-accepted format for delivering service version numbers like there is for software libraries.

Acceptance Criteria

• GIVEN an existing brokered service instance (such as an RDS instance)
  WHEN I run the command cf service <service_name>
  THEN I'd like to be able to see the version of the brokered service

---

Security considerations

No known security considerations other than exposure of service instance versions.

Implementation sketch

[links to background notes, sketches, and/or relevant documentation

• [first thing to do]
• [another thing to do]

[karareinsel]

Let's discuss at our next FEC-cloud.gov monthly meeting.

[karareinsel]

Feedback from FEC is that this is a "want" and not a "need." The challenge for FEC is the only way to know which version is running is to SSH into the service. The documentation isn't helpful, as it says "AWS RDS latest": https://cloud.gov/docs/services/relational-database/

[onelittlebecca]

I am going to work on this fix to allow for customers to specify a version for Postgres when instantiating. I think I can add this work on viewing which version of postgres into the broker while I am working on it. (I will try and see what I can get through when I start in on it)

[ccostino]

This came up in our office hours today, and there might be a way to provide this (and other) information. We need to do some more research on service instance metadata.

[bengerman13]

I think exposing these things via the service binding information would be acceptable, since rds is expected to be bound to an app

[onelittlebecca]

Just wanted to say hi since I'm slowly turning off notices for cg repos 😂

[lbeaufort]

Hi team, just adding that version number would be very helpful to show for the AWS elasticache redis version too. I think the only way to see the running version is with a service key, which is a lot of work. Going forward, we'll work on documenting this on our end when we create the service.

It would be helpful to have redis version displayed as a tag, or something here. Thanks!

cf service (REDIS_SERVICE_NAME)

Showing info of service REDIS_SERVICE_NAME in org ORG / space dev as [email protected]...

name:             REDIS_SERVICE_NAME
service:          aws-elasticache-redis
tags:             
plan:             redis-dev
description:      AWS Elasticache Redis Broker
documentation:    https://cloud.gov/docs/services/aws-elasticache/
dashboard:        
service broker:   aws-broker

This service is not currently shared.

Showing status of last operation from service REDIS_SERVICE_NAME...

status:    create succeeded
message:   The service instance status is succeeded
started:   x
updated:   x

bound apps:
name                   binding name   status             message
...

[davidhunt-cti]

Hi team, just adding that version number would be very helpful to show for the AWS elasticache redis version too.

It would be helpful to have redis version displayed as a tag, or something here. Thanks!

I would also like to see this feature added for Redis (and Elasticsearch).

As a workaround, the version is available in the environment variables if the service is bound to an app but it requires an extra step to retrieve:

cf env app

System-Provided:
{
 "VCAP_SERVICES": {
  "aws-elasticache-redis": [
   {
    "binding_guid": "...",
    "binding_name": null,
    "credentials": {
     "current_redis_engine_version": "5.0.6",
     ...