[FF] enforce_explicit_connection_for_partitioned_shared_models --

Summary

This issue is to roll out the feature on production, that is currently behind the enforce_explicit_connection_for_partitioned_shared_models feature flag.

Owners

  • Most appropriate Slack channel to reach out to: #g_database_frameworks
  • Best individual to reach out to: @allison.browne

Expectations

What are we expecting to happen?

The application should behave the same as before except that if a developer tries to use the partition management classes with a shared model and no explicit connection it will throw an error.

What can go wrong and how would we detect it?

Rollout Steps

Note: Please make sure to run the chatops commands in the Slack channel that gets impacted by the command.

Rollout on non-production environments

  • Verify the MR with the feature flag is merged to master and has been deployed to non-production environments with /chatops run auto_deploy status <merge-commit-of-your-feature>
  • Enable the feature globally on non-production environments with /chatops run feature set enforce_explicit_connection_for_partitioned_shared_models true --dev --pre --staging --staging-ref
  • Verify that the feature works as expected. The best environment to validate the feature in is staging-canary as this is the first environment deployed to. Make sure you are configured to use canary.
  • If the feature flag causes end-to-end tests to fail, disable the feature flag on staging to avoid blocking deployments.
    • See #e2e-run-staging Slack channel and look for the following messages:
      • test kicked off: Feature flag enforce_explicit_connection_for_partitioned_shared_models has been set to true on **gstg**
      • test result: This pipeline was triggered due to toggling of enforce_explicit_connection_for_partitioned_shared_models feature flag

If you encounter end-to-end test failures and are unable to diagnose them, you may reach out to the #s_developer_experience Slack channel for assistance. Note that end-to-end test failures on staging-ref don't block deployments.

Before production rollout

  • [-] If the change is significant and you wanted to announce in #whats-happening-at-gitlab, it best to do it before rollout to gitlab-org/gitlab-com.

Preparation before global rollout

  • Set a milestone to this rollout issue to signal for enabling and removing the feature flag when it is stable.
  • Ensure that you or a representative in development can be available for at least 2 hours after feature flag updates in production. If a different developer will be covering, or an exception is needed, please inform the oncall SRE by using the @sre-oncall Slack alias.

Global rollout on production

For visibility, all /chatops commands that target production must be executed in the #production Slack channel and cross-posted (with the command results) to the responsible team's Slack channel.

Release the feature

After the feature has been deemed stable, the clean up should be done as soon as possible to permanently enable the feature and reduce complexity in the codebase.

You can either create a follow-up issue for Feature Flag Cleanup or use the checklist below in this same issue.

  • Create a merge request to remove the enforce_explicit_connection_for_partitioned_shared_models feature flag. Ask for review/approval/merge as usual. The MR should include the following changes:
    • Remove all references to the feature flag from the codebase.
    • Remove the YAML definitions for the feature from the repository.
  • Ensure that the cleanup MR has been included in the release package. If the merge request was deployed before the monthly release was tagged, the feature can be officially announced in a release blog post: /chatops run release check <merge-request-url> <milestone>
  • Close the feature issue to indicate the feature will be released in the current milestone.
  • Once the cleanup MR has been deployed to production, clean up the feature flag from all environments by running these chatops command in #production channel: /chatops run feature delete enforce_explicit_connection_for_partitioned_shared_models --dev --pre --staging --staging-ref --production
  • Close this rollout issue.

Rollback Steps

  • This feature can be disabled on production by running the following Chatops command:
/chatops run feature set enforce_explicit_connection_for_partitioned_shared_models false
  • Disable the feature flag on non-production environments:
/chatops run feature set enforce_explicit_connection_for_partitioned_shared_models false --dev --pre --staging --staging-ref
  • Delete feature flag from all environments:
/chatops run feature delete enforce_explicit_connection_for_partitioned_shared_models --dev --pre --staging --staging-ref --production
Edited by Allison Browne