Runbook Checklist Design

The runbook checklist lists the tasks to prepare and do before the cutover. It usually covers these aspects:

• Personnel and site preparations
  1. Check and notify internal personnel and third-party personnel participating in the cutover, and check the time.
  2. Create a cutover assurance group for notifications during the cutover.
  3. Determine the cutover date, sign-in time, and operation start time.
  4. Prepare the cutover site with a meeting room and necessary items like computers, power strips, and projection screens.
  5. Make ready the required tools, terminals, and login platforms. The related personnel should check whether the tools and platforms are available, including whether the bastion host account permissions are normal and whether test terminals (test mobile phones and computers) are available.
  6. Notify related personnel to release an announcement on the official website, and remind third parties to release the announcement on their official websites if required.

• Application list check and script update
  1. Software version development and iterative release of enterprises are still in progress during cloud migration. Therefore, you need to check the detailed environment lists before the cutover, including the application list and job list.
  2. After the lists are checked, notify the relevant people that the version is frozen to prevent differences between the test and live environments.
  3. Update the cutover scripts in the runbook based on the latest application list and job list.
• Environment check

  Before the cutover, check that the source end, destination end, and migration task are working properly and the script is ready.

  1. Source end check: Check if there is an alarm for exceeding the bandwidth limit on the Direct Connect synchronization bandwidth. If so, assess if you need to expand the bandwidth. Additionally, monitor alarms for applications and databases at the source to ensure they are clear and the status is normal.
  2. Destination end check: Notify the cloud vendor to perform routine resource status inspection and high availability check. After the switching to the destination, the production environment is used. Make sure alarms, monitoring, logs, and security policies are set up and checked.
  3. Forward migration task status check: The migration task is usually created before the system cutover. The task must be in the incremental synchronization state with no errors or alarms.
  4. Reverse migration task status check: Before the cutover, check the status of the reverse migration task to ensure there are no errors or alarms. The data layer or middleware should manage rollback paths.
  5. Parameter consistency check: Check the consistency between source and destination parameters, such as the character set consistency of databases and the consistency of database usernames.