Deprecation: Removal of PostgreSQL, Redis, and MinIO charts in 19.0

Deprecation Summary

GitLab chart bundles a Bitnami PostgreSQL, Bitnami Redis, and a fork of the official MinIO chart for ease of setting up GitLab. Because of several changes to licensing, project maintenance, and public image availability these charts will be removed from GitLab chart and GitLab Operator with no replacement.

Documentation

Product Usage

GitLab chart bundles a PostgreSQL, Redis, and MinIO chart to quickly setup testing and PoC envionments. These components were always documented to be replaced suitable options for production envionments.

The charts will be removed without replacement, check the migration guide for details.

Breaking Change?

Does this deprecation contain a breaking change? Yes

This is only a breaking change if you use the GitLab chart or GitLab Operator with the bundled PostgreSQL, Redis, or MinIO. If you externalized these components, you are not impacted by this change.

Affected Customers

Who is affected by this deprecation: GitLab.com users, Self-managed users, or Dedicated users? (choose all that apply)

  • GitLab.com
  • Self-managed
  • Dedicated

What pricing tiers are impacted?

  • GitLab Free
  • GitLab Premium
  • GitLab Ultimate

Not bound to any pricing tier.

Deprecation Milestone

This deprecation will be announced in milestone: 18.9 If this deprecation has already been announced, include information about when the initial announcement went out and what follow-up announcements are scheduled.

Planned Removal Milestone

The feature / functionality will be removed in milestone: 19.0

Links

Check https://docs.gitlab.com/charts/installation/migration/bundled_chart_migration/ for recommended actions.

Checklists

Timeline

Rollout Plan

  • DRI Engineers: @grantyoung @clemensbeck

  • DRI Engineering Manager: @cjwilburn

  • Describe rollout plans on GitLab.com

    • Link to a feature flag rollout issue that covers:
      • Expected release date on GitLab.com and GitLab version
      • Rollout timelines, such as a percentage rollout on GitLab.com
      • Creation of any clean-up issues, such as code removal

  • Determine how to migrate users still using the existing functionality

  • Document ways to migrate with the tooling available

  • Automate any users who have not yet migrated, but ensure it's a two-way door decision

Communication Plan

An internal slack post and a release post are not sufficient notification for our customers or internal stakeholders. Plan to communicate proactively and directly with affected customers and the internal stakeholders supporting them.

Internal Communication Plan This will have been documented in your breaking change request. You can use this checklist to track completion of these items.

External Communication Plan This will have been documented in your breaking change request. You can use this checklist to track completion of these items.

  • Customer announcement plan (timeline for notifications, audience, channels, etc)
  • Ensure you have approvals from legal and corp comms for any communication being sent directly to customers.
  • As soon as possible, but no later than the third milestone preceding the major release, ensure that the following are complete (for example, given the following release schedule: 17.8, 17.9, 17.10, 17.11, 18.0 – 17.9 is the third milestone preceding the major release).
  • On the major milestone:
    • The deprecated item has been removed. Add link to the relevant merge request.
    • If the removal of the deprecated item is a breaking change, the merge request is labeled breaking change.
    • Document the migration plan for users, clearly outlining the actions they need to take to mitigate the impact of the breaking change.

Development

  • DRI Engineers: @engineer(s)

  • DRI Engineering Manager: @EM

  • Measure usage of the impacted product feature

    • Evaluate metrics across GitLab.com, Self-Managed, Dedicated
    • add issue link
    • list any metrics and/or dashboards

  • Create tooling for customers to manually migrate their data or workflows

    • add issue link

  • Build mechanism for users to manually enable the breaking change ahead of time

    • add issue link

  • Automate the migration for those who do not take any manual steps (ensure the automation can be reverted)

    • add issue link

  • Develop rollout plan of breaking change on GitLab.com

    • add feature flag rollout issue

  • Dogfood the changes on GitLab.com or a Self-Managed test instance

    • add issue link

  • (Optional) Create UI controls for instance admins to disable the breaking change, providing flexibility to Self-Managed / Dedicated customers. Optional as this depends on the breaking change.

    • add issue link

Stakeholder Mentions

  • Product Designer @ProductDesigner
  • Tech Writer @TW
  • Software Engineering in Test @SET
  • Any other stable counterparts based on the product categories:
    • Add Sales/CS counterpart or mention @timtams
    • Add Support counterpart or mention @gitlab-com/support/managers
    • Add Marketing counterpart or mention @martin_klaus
    • Add Corp comms if direct customer comms are needed @jmalleo
    • Add Product Security counterpart, if relevant to your deprecation
    • Mention (in internal note) Customer Success Managers / Acount Managers / Solutions Architects for impacted customers

Labels

  • This issue is labeled deprecation, and with the relevant ~devops::, ~group::, and ~Category: labels.
  • This issue is labeled breaking change if the removal of the deprecated item will be a breaking change.

References

Edited by Clemens Beck