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Table of Contents

Phase 7: Operations & Monitoring

Duration: 30-60 minutes
Purpose: Set up monitoring, alerts, and operational procedures
Dependencies: Phase 6 complete, application running

Overview

This final phase establishes monitoring, alerting, and operational procedures for the Blueberry IDP. It includes cost optimization, backup procedures, and ongoing maintenance tasks.

📋 Setup Steps

  1. Monitoring Setup
  2. Configure GCP Cloud Monitoring
  3. Set up custom dashboards

  4. Create application metrics

  5. Alerting Configuration

  6. Create alert policies
  7. Set up notification channels

  8. Configure escalation procedures

  9. Backup Procedures

  10. Set up Firestore backups
  11. Configure Secret Manager backup

  12. Document recovery procedures

  13. Maintenance Procedures

  14. Schedule regular maintenance tasks
  15. Set up automated cleanup

  16. Document upgrade procedures

  17. Cost Optimization

  18. Monitor GCP costs
  19. Set up billing alerts
  20. Optimize resource usage

🎯 Success Criteria

After completing this phase, you should have:

  1. Monitoring Dashboard - Real-time visibility into system health
  2. Alerting System - Automated notifications for issues
  3. Backup Strategy - Regular backups of critical data
  4. Maintenance Schedule - Automated and manual maintenance procedures
  5. Cost Monitoring - Visibility and control over GCP spending

⏭️ Next Steps

Congratulations! Your Blueberry IDP is now fully operational. Consider:

  • User Training - Onboard developers to use the platform
  • Feature Expansion - Add new capabilities based on user needs
  • Performance Tuning - Optimize based on usage patterns
  • Security Hardening - Regular security reviews and updates

🔧 Key Commands

# Check system health
kubectl get pods --all-namespaces
kubectl top nodes
kubectl top pods -n blueberry

# View monitoring metrics
gcloud logging read "resource.type=k8s_cluster" --limit=10
gcloud alpha monitoring policies list

# Check costs
gcloud billing accounts list
gcloud alpha billing budgets list

# Backup operations
gcloud firestore export gs://blueberry-artifacts/firestore-backup/
gcloud secrets list

📊 Monitoring Metrics

Metric Purpose Threshold
Pod CPU Usage Resource utilization > 80%
Pod Memory Usage Memory consumption > 80%
Request Latency Application performance > 2 seconds
Error Rate Application reliability > 5%
Certificate Expiry SSL certificate health < 30 days

🔔 Alert Policies

  • Application Down: Pod restarts > 3 in 5 minutes
  • High Error Rate: 5xx errors > 10% of requests
  • Resource Exhaustion: CPU/Memory > 90% for 5 minutes
  • Certificate Expiry: SSL certificates expiring in 30 days
  • Cost Threshold: Monthly spend > $100

📈 Cost Optimization

  • GKE Autopilot: Automatically scales based on demand
  • Ephemeral Environments: Auto-cleanup after TTL
  • Image Optimization: Multi-stage builds and caching
  • Resource Requests: Right-size CPU/memory requests
  • Monitoring: Regular cost reviews and optimization

🔄 Maintenance Tasks

Daily

  • Monitor application health
  • Check error logs
  • Review resource usage

Weekly

  • Review cost reports
  • Check certificate expiry
  • Update dependencies

Monthly

  • Security patching
  • Performance optimization
  • Backup verification

Quarterly

  • Disaster recovery testing
  • Security audit
  • Cost optimization review

📚 Documentation

🎉 Conclusion

Your Blueberry IDP is now fully deployed and operational! The system provides:

  • Automated CI/CD - GitLab integration with ArgoCD
  • Ephemeral Environments - On-demand testing environments
  • Scalable Infrastructure - GKE Autopilot with auto-scaling
  • Comprehensive Monitoring - Real-time visibility and alerting
  • Cost Optimization - Automated resource management

The platform is ready to support your development team's needs for creating and managing ephemeral environments.

Document ID: setup/07-operations/README