Proposal

RackHD ToolChain Upgrade Strategy

Background (What, Why, Value)

RackHD is developed or running based on several tool chain, like NodeJS, RabbitMQ, MongoDB and even operating system like Ubuntu. As a part of long term production release, we need to keep whole tool chain upgraded in a regular basis.

Proposal of Strategy

Will upgrade RackHD tool chain every 6 month (April => Oct => April …)

Tool chain upgrade policy

Name	Policy (by Cadence or by Need)
Host OS https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases	By Cadence; To track Ubuntu LTS version and use appropriate version in given cycle, ex: Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04
NodeJS & npm https://github.com/nodejs/Release https://nodejs.org/en/download/	By Cadence; To track NodeJS LTS version and use appropriate version in given cycle, ex: NodeJS 8.x, NodeJS 10.x
MongoDB https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/release-notes/	By Cadence; To use most recent released MongoDB version in given cycle
RabbitMQ http://www.rabbitmq.com/changelog.html	By Cadence; To use most recent released RabbitMQ version in given cycle
RackHD Docker Base image https://hub.docker.com/_/node/ https://wiki.debian.org/LTS	By Cadence;
RanchOS based Microkernel https://github.com/rancher/os/releases	(1) Part1: RanchOS -- by Cadence (2) Part2: "docker" Microkernel base image -- by Need, will upgrade when supporting new hardware Notes: "docker" Microkernel base image is different from RackHD docker base image
RackHD downstream NPM Package	By Cadence; Scope of Upgrade: (1) npm install warnings (2) critical packages: mango, loadash, mocha
isc_dhcp_server	By Need
iPXE images	By Need
On-image-build toolchain (Dockerized now)	By Cadence

We'll introduce tool chain compatibility testing pipelines to validate RackHD will work normally with different version of tool chain in the scope.

201804 Tool Chain Upgrade Work Plan (EPIC: RAC-6719)

Notes: Based on above strategy, we’ll conduct first tool chain upgrade release in April (aka 201804 release). Next upgrade release will be 201810.

Goal of 201804 upgrade release

Upgrade RackHD tool chain with matrix below in each flavor of release
Introduce RackHD NPM package revision lock down feature in the release
Optimize weekly RackHD Release version bump scheme
- Problem now: RackHD release version always gets bumped as +0.1.0 regardless API contract changes or not, small or big change

2.50.0 => 2.51.0 => 2.52.0 => Will soon become 2.99.0 …

Plan -- still use semantic versioning

API change by Swagger differ => +0.1.0, otherwise, +0.0.1

Fix issue that sprint release note will still be send out when CI/CD pipeline failed

Name	Current	201804 Release
Host OS https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases	Ubuntu 14.04	Ubuntu 16.04
NodeJS & npm https://github.com/nodejs/Release https://nodejs.org/en/download/	NodeJS: 4.8.7 NPM: 2.15.5	NodeJS: 8.11.1 NPM: 5.6.0
MongoDB https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/release-notes/	MongoDB 3.4.9	MongoDB: 3.6.3
RabbitMQ http://www.rabbitmq.com/changelog.html	RabbitMQ: 3.5.7	RabbitMQ 3.6.10
RackHD Docker Base image https://hub.docker.com/_/node/ https://wiki.debian.org/LTS	Debian-Jessie	Debin-Jessie

Q&A

Is the 201804 release a separate release from the weekly sprint releases?

Leo: I look “201804 release” like a “release code name” which will be actually delivered by several weekly sprint releases. So, no separate release for it.

Do you have more info on the plan to “Introduce RackHD NPM package revision lock down feature in the release” Is this being done with a package like yarn?

Leo: We are planning to leverage package-lock feature introduced in NPM 5. (see attached)

Also, can you help clarify the rollout strategy of the features? For example, will the 201804 Tool Chain Upgrade (and subsequent upgrades) features all be rolled out at the same time on one day or phased in as the features become available during the month they are targeted for (either April or October)?

Leo: Great question on rollout model – I think it as “phase in” model like your statement “phased in as the features become available during the month they are targeted for (either April or October)”.

Work Plan

Design Doc

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