Red Hat February 09, 2019 Release FAQs

william.maggs · January 2019

This is for internal use only. Please do not distribute externally.
External-facing communications will be made available to customers and partners on Friday, Jan 11, 2019.

What is happening on February 9, 2019?

We are updating the operating system on which non-core services run to Red Hat Enterprise Linux while applying OS and firmware patches to protect against several security vulnerabilities including patches for the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities.

Why are we updating our infrastructure operating system to Red Hat?

These updates will make the Anaplan Platform safer while preparing it for several expected upgrades including a Continuous Integration/Deployment pipeline and other enhancements that will help automate and speed up the release of new features and performance improvements to Anaplan. In addition, it will allow us to require less downtime in the future while allowing us to release more and more of our features without any interruption to the Anaplan service.

How long will the scheduled maintenance last?

The maintenance period will be a maximum of 8 hours, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. PST. As ever, we will notify all stakeholders when the work is complete, hopefully sooner than scheduled. Please see status.anaplan.com for updates.

Will the window take the entire time?

With our plan to make our platform more secure and reliable while reducing downtime, we have significant updates that will take longer to implement. Although this may take less time than what is announced, we want to make sure we make these infrastructure updates with a comprehensive and conservative plan and continue to be a reliable platform our customers can trust. In addition, we want to set expectations so that if any more time is needed, we are prepared. This will better support the roadmap of features and new enhancements coming this year.

What systems will be affected?

The entire Anaplan platform. All Anaplan services, models, and customers will not be available during this downtime.

Is this a total downtime or can I get a special pass for my customer?

No, all customers and internal users will be unable to access to Anaplan during this window.

What about core upgrades?

We have begun the process of upgrading our core application servers, which contain most of our customers' key data, and will continue to do so on a rolling basis. We will be updating internal customer cores first. Due to the nature of our cloud platform, users should not experience any disruption in service while the core upgrades are going on.

How will this affect releases for the rest of 2019?

Following the upgrade, we will continue to release the Anaplan platform for the rest of 2019 as planned. The OS upgrades will make it possible for us to continue to update our release process with new tools and processes, improving our velocity. Among other things, we will be soon be moving services in our new UI including Springboard, Home, and Workflow to a more continuous release process that will allow us to ship new features without downtime and much more often. We will continue to notify our customers of releases and scheduled maintenance that require downtime.

To keep up to date with the latest planned releases, we encourage you to regularly check the Release Calendar.

What is the best way for my customer to learn the latest?

For information on platform releases, upcoming features and our release calendar, head to Platform Updates area of the Community for the latest information.

For updates on platform availability and progress of the release during the actual downtime window, you can go to status.anaplan.com.

Can I share this information with my customers or partners?

Please refrain from sharing any detailed information about the specific changes we will be making to our platform, as this is a highly sensitive update that we are performing. Customers and partners will receive a separate communication on Friday, January 11, 2019, with approved, public-facing information.

My customer is very upset about the release window and are raising this as an issue. What do I do?

If your customer is raising a major concern with the extended downtime window, notify your CS Director and Regional VP, who will then coordinate with the ELT team for additional support and care for these customers as required.

I have more questions - who can I reach out to?

Should you have any further questions not addressed in this FAQ, please comment directly on the post here in Community, and we will ensure it gets answered by the appropriate team.