Currently a major upgrade from 13 to 16.2 requires an interim step where the source environment is updated to the latest 13 zstream before upgrading to 16.2.

This takes a lot of time and operational resources, including hypervisor reboots which are especially costly to operations.

For the 16.2 to 17.1 upgrade, it would be ideal for us to allow an upgrade directly from any 16.2 zstreams. If not *any*, then at least a range of zstreams (eg: latest - 3).

Requirements:

1. The workflow must not change. It must be consistent for all source z-streams.
2. If there are known issues for specific versions, they can be excluded from this support explicitly in the documentation.

Notes:
 - The earliest version of OSP allowed is constrained by the inclusion of the fixes for https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2080301
 - The earliest RHEL version allowed is constrained by the inclusion of all the fixes in the dependent bugs here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2016669

Additional note:
This is distinct from https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2016660 which supports the upgrade from OSP 16.2.latest to OSP 17.1.latest. This RFE aims to support the upgrade from OSP 16.2.4 and any interim z-streams up to OSP 16.2.latest.