Off-hour Environment Downscale

1. Introduction

  • Purpose: 

The purpose of this document is to establish guidelines and procedures for the scheduled shutdown of Rancher environments and shared resources. It provides instructions and requirements for team members to follow during the shutdown period, as well as outlines the self-service tools that will be made available to perform environment resume operations.

  • Scope: 

This document applies to all teams supported by Kitfox that utilize Rancher environments and shared resources (RDS, Kafka, Opensearch). It outlines the policy, objectives, and procedures for the scheduled shutdown, as well as the requirements for advance notice and the permissions granted to teams for self-service tasks. The document also covers emergencies, compliance, and consequences related to the shutdown policy.

Current Rancher env: https://folio-org.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1396467

  • Document Revision History:

5/5/23: initial version

2. Environment Shutdown Policy

  • Policy Statement:

The Kitfox team implements a scheduled shutdown of Rancher environments on weekends to achieve cost savings and optimize resource allocation. This policy ensures that the company's cloud resources are utilized efficiently and aligns with our commitment to cost-effective operations.

  • Objectives:

    • Cost Savings: By shutting down Rancher environments and shared resources during weekends and off hours, we aim to reduce cloud resource consumption and associated costs, contributing to overall cost savings for the organization.
    • Resource Optimization: The scheduled shutdown helps optimize resource allocation by temporarily pausing non-critical workloads and freeing up cloud resources for other purposes, ensuring efficient utilization of available resources.

3. Shutdown Schedule (WIP)

  1. Effective Date: April 21, 2023
  2. Initial Shutdown Period:
  • Start Time: 6:00 PM ET, Friday
  • End Time: 6:30 PM ET, Sunday

4. Self-Service Tools for Environment Shutdown

  1. Self-Service Tools (https://jenkins-aws.indexdata.com/job/Rancher/job/Automation/job/start-stop-project/)
  2. Job is documented at Manage start-stop-project Jenkins job and informs KitFox channel when environment is started
  3. Self-service job is available to Tech Lead, Scrum Master, PO, QA Leads
    1. action: Choose the action to be performed with the project "start" - if you need to work with env during stop hours, "stop" - after you finished your work.
    2. clusterName: Select the target cluster where the Kubernetes namespace is located.
    3. projectName: Select the target project where the Kubernetes namespace is located.
  4. Access and Permissions
    1. Tech Lead, Scrum master, PO, QA Lead
  • Rancher Environment stop/start: Team members with the designated roles will have the permission to start and stop Rancher environments using the self-service tools. This allows them to initiate the shutdown and subsequent resumption of the environments.
  • Shared Cloud Resources Pause/Resume: Team members with the designated roles will have the privilege to manage shared cloud resources, such as RDS, Kafka, OpenSearch, and other relevant services. This includes provisioning, configuration, and monitoring of these resources within the Rancher environment.
  • TBD: Revocation of permissions/privileges 
  1. Training and Documentation
    1. Training Plan: Do we need it? The idea is to to ensure team members with the designated roles are familiar with the self-service tools and the management of shared cloud resources. If yes, what should it include?
    2. Documentation: wiki page with step-by-step instructions on how to utilize the self-service tools for environment shutdown/resume operations

5. Compliance and Consequences

  1. Compliance with Shutdown Policy: All team members are expected to comply with the environment shutdown policy and adhere to the specified schedule and procedures.
  2. Consequences of Non-Compliance: Non-compliance with the shutdown policy may result in forcing developers to code in Cobol for the rest of their lives.