How to Open a Proactive Case for ARO Cluster Maintenance and Upgrades

Environment

• Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO) 4

Issue

• How can I receive quick response times for my maintenance windows?
• How to notify Red Hat of upgrades or maintenance taking place on a cluster, so appropriate support resources are aware and available?
• What information should be provided to Red Hat support when opening a proactive case?
• [PROACTIVE] ARO Upgrade

Resolution

• For ROSA/OSD refer to : How to open a PROACTIVE case for ROSA Classic, ROSA HCP, and OSD Cluster Maintenance and Upgrades

Introduction - What is a Proactive Case?

Proactive cases are a way for our Managed Services customers to provide "advance notice" to Red Hat Support of planned upgrades, migrations, patching, or any other maintenance activity. The benefits of a proactive case are as follows:

• A Support Engineer, who is available during the maintenance window, will be assigned to the proactive case ahead of time so that they are:
  • Aware of the maintenance window and time frames,
  • The objectives of the planned maintenance
  • Can check the cluster details, status, and health prior to the Window.
• Since the support case already exists, time is not lost creating a case and/or gathering preliminary information if an issue arises.
• If the proactive case is provided with enough time, Red Hat can provide basic status and health checks to ensure the cluster is ready for the maintenance window.

A proactive case window can be scheduled at a time that minimizes impacts to critical workloads running on the cluster. This includes maintenance windows which occur overnight or on weekends.

A proactive case can be opened for non-Red Hat software maintenance (for example critical application software upgrade), but as noted in The Support Scope of Coverage for Production and Development Red Hat Support can only assist with issues where a Red Hat product or Service is the cause.

Prerequisites and Conditions

• All active Managed Services clusters (ROSA/OSD/ARO) include a Premium OpenShift Support subscription and are entitled to raise a proactive case.
• Where applicable, a Technical Account Manager (TAM), Solution Architect (SA), or Customer Success Executive (CSE), should be engaged.
• Proactive Cases should be submitted at least 7 to 14 days before the scheduled activity is due to begin.
  • This is to allow Red Hat time to assign a support person to your case and check the health and status of the cluster. Shorter time frames are accepted, but they will result in less preparation time being available, which could lead to delays in Red Hat responding to an issue in your proactive case.
  • All details requested below should be provided within 7 days of the maintenance window.
• Proactive cases are conducted in English to ensure adequate global support coverage.
• Teams raising Proactive Cases are expected to be familiar with the following support references.
  • The Reference Guide for Engaging with Red Hat Support KCS article.
  • The Support Scope of Coverage for Production and Development KCS articles.
  • The What is a Remote Support Session and how to acknowledge the Remote Access Rider? KCS article.
• Check if there is a supported upgrade path from your current version to your desired version, using the This content is not included.OpenShift Container Platform update graph.
  • On occasion, these paths may close due to newly discovered issues, bugs, or incompatibilities. These path closures result in a Bug Ticket with our Development Engineering team and a resolution will be tested and vetted as soon as possible to reopen those paths.

Opening a Proactive Support Case

Please open a normal This content is not included.Support Case and fill in the following fields:

• Account: - As normal.

• Owner: - Who will be the contact available during the maintenance window.

• What can we help you with?: - Select Other.

• Summary: - Prefix "[Proactive]" and then provide a brief description of the maintenance.

• Product: - Choose the product:

  • Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO)

• What are you experiencing? What are you expecting to happen?: - Add the following details:

  • resourceID - Refer to these instructions on How to get resourceID?.

    • It will be formatted as the following:
      • /subscriptions/XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXX/resourcegroups/XXXX/providers/Microsoft.RedHatOpenShift/OpenShiftClusters/XXXX

  • Maintenance Window - Date / Time of Event.

    • Provide the planned "start date/time" and "the end date/time** of the maintenance window in both local and UTC time zones.
    • For example:

    Start: 22:00 22 January 2023 (AEST)(UTC+10)
           12:00 22 January 2023 (UTC)
    End:   01:00 23 January 2023 (AEST)(UTC+10)
           15:00 22 January 2023 (UTC)
    Duration: 3 hours
    

  • Description - Provide as many details as possible, for example:

    • Specific activities occurring during the event.
    • Environment (PROD/UAT/NONPROD/etc).
    • Additional system(s) involved (are other systems being upgraded at the same time; Network/Firewall/DNS/.. changes occurring at the same time; LDAP/IDP; ...;).
    • Other components being upgraded (for example operators).
    • Any other relevant information.
    • For Upgrades: Please provide the full current version of the cluster, as well as the full upgraded version desired for the cluster by the end of the maintenance period. These should be formatted as 4.y.z.

  • Contact Information - Provide the primary and secondary contact names, email addresses, and phone numbers with country and region code. This is especially important if the person who opened the case is not the person doing the maintenance activity.

• Support Level: - Premium

• Severity - Select a Severity level of 3 (Normal).

  • The Severity level will be raised to 1 (Urgent) by Red Hat engineers at the start of the maintenance window. This will ensure a timely response to any questions or issues that arise during that time.

• Send Notifications - Add any additional people you would like to receive notifications for this proactive case.

• For Upgrades - Confirm you have performed self-service checks and provide oc adm upgrade status.

Example Details

• Case Title: (Field: Issue summary)

[Proactive] ROSA Cluster Upgrade 4.10.7 - 4.11.2

• Activity Description (Field: What are you experiencing? What are you expecting to happen? )

Maintenance Window
  Start: 22:00 22 January 2023 (AEST)(UTC+10)
         12:00 22 January 2023 (UTC)
  End:   01:00 23 January 2023 (AEST)(UTC+10)
         15:00 22 January 2023 (UTC)
  Duration: 3 hours

Description:
We are planning to upgrade our production cluster from ARO v4.10.7 to ROSA 4.11.2.  No other systems are involved.
Resource ID: /subscriptions/XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXX/resourcegroups/XXXX/providers/Microsoft.RedHatOpenShift/OpenShiftClusters/XXXX
The following operators will also be upgraded at the same time:
 - Service Mesh v x.5 to v x.6
 - Red Hat Logging v x.5 to v x.6

There was an issue while upgrading the non-production cluster the details and resolution are documented in case 0012345

### Pre-Upgrade Health Check Status
**Self-Service Checks Completed**: [Yes/No]
**Self-Check Status**: [Pass/Fail - If fail, please reference the ServiceLog notification]

Primary Contact Information:
  - Name: Jane Doe
  - Email: jane.doe@example.com
  - Phone: +1-123-456-7890

Secondary Contact Information:
  - Name: John Doe
  - Email: john.doe@example.com
  - Phone: +1-123-456-7891

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