9.4 RC1 deploy steps
We had a few regressions that got noticed on dev.gitlab.org very close to 9.4 merge cut-off.
- https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/34859
- https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/34741
We've been possibly also hit by:
- https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/30555
- https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/34728
These issues were pretty severe and if we did not catch them in time for RC1 to be deployed on GitLab.com, we would have had more issues.
On top of this, there are ongoing infrastructure changes (such as getting nodes running only specific services) and the release procedure change.
In order to make this release as less bumpy as possible, I suggest we:
- Do a first deploy of RC1 on staging with a RM, someone from production team and from the build team (DJ or myself)
- Staging needs to be then tried as much as possible by the engineering team. This is to prevent any new major regressions for regular workflows
We should start right now by creating a day-by day plan as it is 10th already and RC1 is blocked.
@stanhu @pcarranza @jamedjo @mikegreiling any opinions?