2025-03-24: Elastic Search gitlab-nonprod-logs 8.12.3 -> 8.17.3

Production Change

Change Summary

We'd like to upgrade the elasticsearch non-prod cluster, as detailed in gitlab-com/gl-infra/observability/team#3763 (closed)

the non-prod elasticsearch cluster will be upgraded from 8.12.3 -> 8.17.3

Change Details

1. Services Impacted - elasticsearch logging cluster - gitlab-logs-nonprod
2. Change Technician - @knottos
3. Change Reviewer - @hmerscher @reprazent
4. Scheduled Date and Time (UTC in format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM) - 2025-03-26 14:00
5. Time tracking - 2h
6. Downtime Component - none

Set Maintenance Mode in GitLab

If your change involves scheduled maintenance, add a step to set and unset maintenance mode per our runbooks. This will make sure SLA calculations adjust for the maintenance period.

Detailed steps for the change

Change Steps - steps to take to execute the change

Estimated Time to Complete (mins) - Estimated Time to Complete in Minutes

• Set label changein-progress /label ~change::in-progress
• Go to https://cloud.elastic.co/deployments/e8fabf53b73247e98df7c355d6a782fc
• Select upgrade, 8.17.3; Then hit 'upgrade'
• Wait for upgrade to complete.
• Set label changecomplete /label ~change::complete

Rollback

Rollback steps - steps to be taken in the event of a need to rollback this change

Estimated Time to Complete (mins) - Estimated Time to Complete in Minutes

Unfortunately, there is no easy mechanism for downgrading. Instead the recommended way is to restore a snapshot of the previous cluster version. Note that this will result in data loss (logs) for the period after the snapshot, but before the rollout failed.

• Go to https://e8eb2b813ecf40e3ab39829e7cd3a4d9.us-central1.gcp.cloud.es.io:9243/app/management/data/snapshot_restore/snapshots
• Select the most recent snapshot (elastic cloud should have created one prior to the upgrade automatically: https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elastic-stack/9.0/upgrade-elastic-stack-for-elastic-cloud.html)
• Hit restore in the bottom right
• Wait for restore operation to complete.
• Set label changeaborted /label ~change::aborted

Monitoring

Key metrics to observe

• Metric: Activity

  • Location: https://cloud.elastic.co/deployments/e8fabf53b73247e98df7c355d6a782fc/activity
  • What changes to this metric should prompt a rollback: Any sort of hard failure of the deployment, usually accompanied by a message such as

  

Change Reviewer checklist

C4 C3 C2 C1:

• Check if the following applies:
  • The scheduled day and time of execution of the change is appropriate.
  • The change plan is technically accurate.
  • The change plan includes estimated timing values based on previous testing.
  • The change plan includes a viable rollback plan.
  • The specified metrics/monitoring dashboards provide sufficient visibility for the change.

C2 C1:

• Check if the following applies:
  • The complexity of the plan is appropriate for the corresponding risk of the change. (i.e. the plan contains clear details).
  • The change plan includes success measures for all steps/milestones during the execution.
  • The change adequately minimizes risk within the environment/service.
  • The performance implications of executing the change are well-understood and documented.
  • The specified metrics/monitoring dashboards provide sufficient visibility for the change.
    • If not, is it possible (or necessary) to make changes to observability platforms for added visibility?
  • The change has a primary and secondary SRE with knowledge of the details available during the change window.
  • The change window has been agreed with Release Managers in advance of the change. If the change is planned for APAC hours, this issue has an agreed pre-change approval.
  • The labels blocks deployments and/or blocks feature-flags are applied as necessary.

Change Technician checklist

• Check if all items below are complete:
  • The change plan is technically accurate.
  • This Change Issue is linked to the appropriate Issue and/or Epic
  • Change has been tested in staging and results noted in a comment on this issue.
  • A dry-run has been conducted and results noted in a comment on this issue.
  • The change execution window respects the Production Change Lock periods.
  • For C1 and C2 change issues, the change event is added to the GitLab Production calendar.
  • For C1 and C2 change issues, the SRE on-call has been informed prior to change being rolled out. (In #production channel, mention @sre-oncall and this issue and await their acknowledgement.)
  • For C1 and C2 change issues, the SRE on-call provided approval with the eoc_approved label on the issue.
  • For C1 and C2 change issues, the Infrastructure Manager provided approval with the manager_approved label on the issue. Mention @gitlab-org/saas-platforms/inframanagers in this issue to request approval and provide visibility to all infrastructure managers.
  • Release managers have been informed prior to any C1, C2, or blocks deployments change being rolled out. (In #production channel, mention @release-managers and this issue and await their acknowledgment.)
  • There are currently no active incidents that are severity1 or severity2
  • If the change involves doing maintenance on a database host, an appropriate silence targeting the host(s) should be added for the duration of the change.