Deprecation plan: Introducing Vulnerability data retention and resource limits

A written process alone is unlikely to be sufficient to navigate through the complexity of how customers use GitLab. Please use this template as guidance with steps to take when deprecating GitLab functionality, but not as an exhaustive list designed to generate positive outcomes every time. Deprecations are often nuanced in their impact and the approach needed may not be fully covered in this template. Each team must be accountable for their deprecation, weighing the positives and negatives to ensure we prioritize results for customers.

Deprecation Summary

devopssecurity risk management is adding a 12-month time-based data retention limit and 20,000 object/project retention limits for: security findings, vulnerabilities, and SBOMs. These limitations would only apply to GitLab.com Ultimate multi-tenant customers. As these limits are released, customers will see their vulnerability counts and SBOM counts drop as data is archived or deleted. Customers can continue to access vulnerability data via an archive that will retain vulnerability data for 3-years. Additional details are included in the Vulnerability data retention proposal.

Documentation

Product Usage

Covered in the internal comment below and in the summary section of the business case.

Breaking Change?

Does this deprecation contain a breaking change? Yes

Affected Customers

Covered in more detail in the confidential comment and in the Customer Impact doc.

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

[ ] Internal note outlining details of customer impact has been created

Deprecation Milestone

This deprecation will be announced in milestone: 17.9 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 begin to be removed in milestone: 18.0. Archiving and deleting large amounts of data will not happen instantly or be completed during the breaking change windows. The archiving and deletion will rollout gradually to ensure it is done safely. Time-based retention limits for vulnerabilities are expected to finish rolling out within 1 milestone. Object-based limits may roll out at a more gradual pace to ensure the best experience for customers.

Links

Vulnerability Data Retention Proposal

Checklists

Timeline

Link to Timeline

Rollout Plan

  • DRI Engineers: @minac, Frontend TBD - @nmccorrison to determine
  • 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 (timeline, Internal/External comm 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

  • Create an internal note in the comment thread of this issue with a comprehensive narrative of customer impacts, with the intended audience of internal stakeholders who directly interact with customers.
    • Consider: what will the CSM / AE / SA teams need to tell their customers? What will they want to know about customer sentiment and impact?
    • If customers must take an action, include in this internal note the following information: what action is needed, the steps they can take to complete it, the due date for that action, and the consequences of not completing the action in time.
  • Internal announcement plan (timeline for notifications, audience, channels, etc)
  • Support and enablement plan
    • Support readiness: Document how the support team should handle tickets related to this deprecation / breaking change.
    • Customer Success readiness: Ensure the CS team knows how to bring questions or concerns from clients to the right internal team members.

External Communication Plan

  • 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.
      • Add link

Development

  • DRI Engineers: @minac
  • 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

Approvals

  • Product Manager @smeadzinger
  • Engineering Manager @nmccorrison
  • Senior Engineering Manager / Director @rvider
  • Group / Director of Product Management @dagron1
  • Product Leaders @hbenson
  • Eng Leaders @maw
  • Product / Eng Leaders in the CPO or CTO organizations, as applicable (optional - depends on scope of change)

Keep in mind that approval check boxes and deprecations notices alone are not sufficient communication about breaking changes. Despite having approvals documented here, the PM/EM will still need to take active steps to partner with internal stakeholders and customers to ensure a positive user experience.

Stakeholder Mentions

  • Product Designer @beckalippert
  • Tech Writer @rlehmann1
  • 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 @sladha
    • 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 Dean Agron