How to open a PROACTIVE case for a ROSA, OSD (OpenShift Managed Services)

Resolution

• For ARO (Azure OpenShift) refer to : Proactive case for ARO

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
  • And 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) includes 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 a 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.
  • Reference Guide for Engaging with Red Hat Support article.
  • The Support Scope of Coverage for Production and Development

Opening a Proactive Support Case

Please open a normal 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:

  • Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS (ROSA)
  • OpenShift Dedicated (OSD)

• OpenShift Cluster ID: - Only required for ROSA and OSD clusters. If more than one cluster is receiving maintenance open a case for each cluster.

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

  • 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.

  • 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 Severity level of 3 (Normal). When the maintenance window begins the Severity level will be raised to 1 (Urgent) by Red Hat engineers to ensure a timely response to any questions or issues that arise during the maintenance window.

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

• Upload Files to analyze - (Drag and Drop area on the right side of the page) Upload the results of the diagnostic information and must-gather (refer to the Diagnostics section below). This will provide a baseline and also allow Red Hat to review the cluster for any issues prior to the start of the maintenance window.

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 ROSA v4.10.7 to ROSA 4.11.2.  No other systems are involved.

Cluster ID : xxx-xxx-xxx-xxxx

The following operators will also be upgraded at the same time:
 - Service Mesh v?.5 to v?.6
 - Red Hat Logging v?.5 to v?.6

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

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