Amplifying SaaS Reliability Focus for Q3FY22

WHAT

Advocate a responsible but impactful shift of team capacity towards improving SaaS Reliability in Q3.

WHY

SaaS continues to grow at 2-3x faster than self-managed and it is a showcase of the GitLab product reliability. We haven't been able to meet our targets. E-group considers this a top priority and it is in line with our 1-year focus on SaaS First.'

WHY NOW

We already have SaaS First OKR this quarter. However, based on recent incidents it is clear we need to do more.

GUIDANCE

• Take a hard look at your particular area and see what you need to prioritize to prevent outages in SaaS from your area.

1. Make sure your error budget is appropriate for your team
2. Ensure corrective actions / infradev issues are prioritized to SLOs
3. Connect with EM for high prio tech debt focused on SaaS reliability
4. Ensure Eng allocation budget is enough to cover
5. If 1 -3 exceed your team’s capacity for Q3, let Anoop and Scott know.

This is not fully baked

Yes. You are right. We need to work through it. This is also part of the GitLab Daily standup now. Customer success has a issue to help as well.

HOW

• PM: Understand and share what are the minimal-must-do features/capabilities we should deliver to meet customer ARR commitments from 14.2 through 14.6
• EM: Understand and share What are the top most things you could advocate for to improve reliability of your areas. In addition to improving reliability, consider observability needs to detect and fix reliability issues when they do occur in SaaS

Group status

• Manage:Access - @ogolowinski - planning issue
• Manage:Compliance - @stkerr - planning issue
• Manage:Import - @hdelalic - planning issue
• Manage:Optimize - @ljlane - planning issue
• Plan:Project Management - @gweaver - planning issue
• Plan:Product Planning - @cdybenko - planning issue
• Plan:Certify - @mjwood - planning issue
• Create:Source Code - @sarahwaldner - planning issue
• Create:Code Review - @phikai - planning issue
• Create:Editor - @ericschurter - planning issue
• Create:Gitaly - @mjwood - planning issue
• Create:Ecosystem - @mushakov - planning issue
• Verify - @DarrenEastman @jheimbuck_gl @dhershkovitch @jreporter - planning issue
• Package:Package - @trizzi - planning issue; board with tentative milestones
• Release:Release - @kbychu - planning issue
• Configure:Configure - @nagyv-gitlab - planning issue
• Monitor:Monitor - @abellucci - planning issue
• Secure:Static Analysis - @tmccaslin - planning issue
• Secure:Dynamic Analysis - @derekferguson - planning issue
• Secure:Composition Analysis - @NicoleSchwartz - planning issue - Comment
• Secure:Threat Insights - @matt_wilson - planning issue
• Secure:Vulnerability Research - @tmccaslin - planning issue
• Protect:Container Security - @sam.white - planning issue
• Enablement:Distribution - @dorrino - planning issue
• Enablement:Geo - @nhxnguyen - planning issue
• Enablement:Memory - @joshlambert - planning issue
• Enablement:Search - @JohnMcGuire - Reliability issues
• Enablement:Database - @joshlambert - planning issue
• Enablement:Sharding - @joshlambert - planning issue
• Horse - @awthomas - planning issue
• Infrastructure - @awthomas - planning issue
• Fulfillment: - @justinfarris - planning issue
• Growth:Activation - @jstava - planning issue
• Growth:Conversion - @s_awezec - planning issue
• Growth:Expansion - @gdoud @s_awezec - planning issue
• Growth:Adoption - @mkarampalas - planning issue

Other ideas considered and discussed

Please see the e-group discussion around SaaS Reliability for deeper context and things considered.