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Emergency Maintenance Guide

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Overview

This guide provides procedures for handling critical incidents and emergency maintenance scenarios for Orion deployments across all infrastructure types. When production systems fail, rapid response and systematic recovery procedures are essential.

Emergency Contact: support@juno-innovations.com

Incident Classification

Severity Levels

Severity 1 - Critical (Production Down)

  • Complete platform unavailability
  • Security breach
  • Multiple users unable to access workstations
  • Compute orchestration failure

Response Time: 15 minutes Initial Response: Immediate acknowledgment and incident team activation

Severity 2 - High (Significant Impact)

  • Partial platform unavailability
  • Performance degradation affecting multiple users
  • Single points of failure activated
  • Non-critical service failures

Response Time: 1 hour Initial Response: Incident assessment and response plan

Severity 3 - Medium (Limited Impact)

  • Individual user issues
  • Non-critical feature unavailability
  • Performance issues affecting few users
  • Cosmetic or documentation issues

Response Time: 4 hours Initial Response: Issue acknowledgment and assignment

Severity 4 - Low (Minimal Impact)

  • Enhancement requests
  • Minor bugs with workarounds
  • Documentation updates
  • Training requests

Response Time: 24 hours Initial Response: Issue logged and scheduled

Scope of Emergency Support

Orion Platform Issues:

  • Compute orchestration failures

  • Platform connectivity issues

  • Resource allocation problems

  • Authentication and authorization failures

  • Container orchestration problems

  • Kubernetes cluster issues within Orion's scope

Customer Responsibility (Not Covered):

  • Data backup and recovery

  • Storage system failures

  • Application data corruption

  • Custom application issues

  • Infrastructure provider outages

  • Network connectivity outside cluster scope

Fault Condition Handling

Immediate Response Procedures

Step 1: Initial Assessment (0-5 minutes)

# Quick cluster health check
kubectl cluster-info
kubectl get nodes
kubectl get pods -A --field-selector=status.phase!=Running

# Check critical Orion services
kubectl get pods -n orion-system
kubectl get svc -n orion-system

Step 2: Contact Support (5-10 minutes)

Primary Contact: support@juno-innovations.com

Include in Support Request:

  • Severity level assessment

  • Infrastructure details (cloud provider, Kubernetes distribution, version)

  • Error messages and logs

  • Steps already taken

  • Business impact description

Support Email Template: 

Subject: [SEVERITY-X] Orion Platform Issue - [Brief Description]

Severity: [1-4]
Infrastructure: [AWS EKS, GKE, AKS, On-Premises K8s, etc.]
Region/Location: [us-east-1, on-premises datacenter, etc.]
Kubernetes Version: [1.28, etc.]
Orion Version: [x.x.x]

Issue Description:
[Detailed description of the problem]

Error Messages:
[Copy/paste relevant error messages]

Steps Taken:
[List troubleshooting steps already performed]

Business Impact:
[Number of affected users, critical workloads impacted]

Contact Information:
Name: [Your name]
Phone: [Emergency contact number]
Preferred Communication: [Email/Discord/Phone]

Step 3: Initial Mitigation (10-15 minutes)

For Cluster-Wide Issues: 

# Check cluster autoscaler (if deployed)
kubectl get pods -A -l app=cluster-autoscaler

# Verify node health
kubectl describe nodes | grep -i "ready\|schedulable"

# Check system resource usage
kubectl top nodes

For Application Issues: 

# Restart problematic services
kubectl rollout restart deployment/orion-controller -n orion-system

# Scale up replicas if needed
kubectl scale deployment/orion-api --replicas=3 -n orion-system

# Check service endpoints
kubectl get endpoints -n orion-system

For Storage Issues: 

# Check persistent volumes
kubectl get pv
kubectl get pvc -A

# Verify storage class
kubectl get storageclass

Infrastructure-Specific Troubleshooting

Cloud Provider Issues

AWS EKS:

  • Check EKS cluster status in AWS console

  • Verify node group health and scaling

  • Review CloudWatch logs for infrastructure events

Google GKE:

  • Check cluster status in Google Cloud Console

  • Verify node pool health and auto-scaling

  • Review Stackdriver logs for system events

Azure AKS:

  • Check cluster status in Azure Portal

  • Verify node pool and scaling configuration

  • Review Azure Monitor logs for infrastructure events

On-Premises Kubernetes:

  • Check master node health and etcd status

  • Verify worker node connectivity and resources

  • Review system logs on infrastructure nodes

Network and Connectivity Issues

# Test internal cluster networking
kubectl run test-pod --image=busybox -it --rm -- nslookup kubernetes.default

# Check ingress controller status
kubectl get pods -A -l app.kubernetes.io/name=ingress-nginx

# Test external connectivity
kubectl run curl-test --image=curlimages/curl -it --rm -- curl -I https://httpbin.org/ip

Escalation Procedures

Internal Escalation

  1. L1 Support (0-30 minutes): Initial response and basic troubleshooting
  2. L2 Support (30+ minutes): Advanced troubleshooting and coordination
  3. Engineering Team (1+ hours): Code-level investigation and fixes
  4. Executive Team (Critical only): Customer communication and external escalation

External Escalation

  • Infrastructure Provider: For cloud platform or on-premises infrastructure issues
  • Kubernetes Community: For complex K8s issues
  • Security Team: For suspected security incidents
  • Vendor Support: For third-party component failures

Documentation Requirements

Incident Report Template: 

# Incident Report: [YYYY-MM-DD] - [Brief Title]

## Summary
- **Start Time**: [UTC timestamp]
- **End Time**: [UTC timestamp]
- **Duration**: [X hours Y minutes]
- **Severity**: [1-4]
- **Affected Users**: [Number/percentage]
- **Infrastructure**: [AWS EKS, GKE, On-Premises, etc.]

## Timeline
- **HH:MM** - Issue first detected
- **HH:MM** - Support contacted
- **HH:MM** - Initial response
- **HH:MM** - Resolution implemented
- **HH:MM** - Service restored

## Root Cause
[Detailed explanation of what caused the issue]

## Resolution
[Steps taken to resolve the issue]

## Prevention
[Changes made to prevent recurrence]

## Lessons Learned
[What we learned and process improvements]

Software Recovery Instructions

Universal Recovery Capabilities

Orion leverages standard Kubernetes recovery mechanisms across all infrastructure types:

Automatic Recovery Features

  • Self-healing pods: Kubernetes restarts failed containers automatically
  • Service mesh resilience: Automatic failover between healthy endpoints
  • Replica management: Deployments maintain desired replica counts
  • Load balancer health checks: Traffic routing away from unhealthy instances
  • Node self-recovery: Most managed Kubernetes services replace unhealthy nodes

Manual Recovery Procedures

Application Recovery: 

# Force restart all Orion services
kubectl rollout restart deployment -n orion-system

# Verify recovery
kubectl get pods -n orion-system -w

# Check service health
kubectl get endpoints -n orion-system

Database Recovery: 

# Check database connection (adjust for your database type)
kubectl exec -it deployment/orion-api -n orion-system -- \
  nc -zv <database-endpoint> <port>

# Restart database connections
kubectl rollout restart deployment/orion-api -n orion-system

Network Recovery: 

# Restart ingress controller
kubectl rollout restart deployment -n ingress-nginx

# Check DNS resolution
kubectl run dns-test --image=busybox -it --rm -- nslookup kubernetes.default

# Verify service mesh (if applicable)
kubectl get pods -n istio-system  # or linkerd-system

Infrastructure-Specific Recovery

Cloud-Managed Kubernetes Recovery

  • Control Plane: Managed by cloud provider, automatic recovery
  • Worker Nodes: Node pools typically auto-replace unhealthy nodes
  • Persistent Storage: Cloud-native storage usually self-recovers
  • Load Balancers: Managed load balancers automatically route around failures

On-Premises Kubernetes Recovery

  • Control Plane: May require manual intervention for etcd or API server issues
  • Worker Nodes: Manual node replacement or troubleshooting may be needed
  • Storage: Depends on storage solution (Ceph, NFS, local storage)
  • Load Balancers: MetalLB or similar solutions may need manual intervention

Hybrid and Edge Recovery

  • Connectivity: Check network links between sites
  • Synchronization: Verify data sync between edge and central sites
  • Local Resources: Check local storage and compute availability

Enhanced Support and Recovery Features

Current Capabilities:

  • Multi-region deployment: Deploy across multiple availability zones or regions

  • Monitoring integration: Proactive failure detection and alerting

  • Runbook automation: Scripted common recovery procedures

Planned Enhancements (Q2 2025):

  • One-click recovery: Automated recovery procedures via UI

  • Advanced backup strategies: Point-in-time recovery with minimal downtime

Recovery Validation

After implementing recovery procedures, validate system health:

# Comprehensive health check
kubectl get all -n orion-system
kubectl get nodes -o wide
kubectl cluster-info

# Test user access
kubectl get orion-workstations -A
kubectl get ingress -n orion-system

# Verify external connectivity
kubectl run test-pod --image=curlimages/curl -it --rm -- \
  curl -I https://your-orion-domain.com

# Check resource utilization
kubectl top nodes
kubectl top pods -n orion-system

Communication Procedures

Internal Communication

  • Incident Commander: Designated team lead for coordination
  • Status Updates: Every 30 minutes for Severity 1-2 incidents
  • Documentation: Real-time incident tracking in shared workspace

Customer Communication

  • Initial Response: Acknowledge issue within SLA timeframe
  • Regular Updates: Status updates every 2 hours for Severity 1-2
  • Resolution Notice: Confirmation when service is restored
  • Post-Incident Report: Detailed analysis within 48 hours

Communication Templates

Initial Response: 

Thank you for contacting Juno Innovations support. We have received your 
Severity [X] incident report and are immediately investigating the issue.

Incident ID: [JUNO-YYYY-MMDD-###]
Assigned Engineer: [Name]
Infrastructure: [Your deployment type]
Next Update: [Timestamp]

We will provide updates every [timeframe] until resolution.

Status Update: 

Incident Update - [JUNO-YYYY-MMDD-###]

Current Status: [In Progress/Investigating/Resolved]
Actions Taken: [Brief summary]
Next Steps: [What we're doing next]
Estimated Resolution: [Best estimate]

Next update scheduled for: [Timestamp]

Emergency Contacts

Primary Support Channels

  • Email: support@juno-innovations.com (24/7 monitored)
  • Discord: Juno Innovations Community Server (business hours)
  • Emergency: Include "EMERGENCY" in subject line for critical issues

Business Hours

  • Standard Support: Monday-Friday, 9 AM - 6 PM EST
  • Emergency Support: 24/7 for Severity 1 incidents
  • Response Times: See Support Tiers for detailed response commitments

Escalation Contacts

  • Technical Escalation: Level 2 support automatically engaged for unresolved Severity 1-2 incidents
  • Management Escalation: Available for customer satisfaction issues
  • Emergency Executive Contact: Available for business-critical incidents

Remember: In emergency situations, document everything, communicate frequently, and don't hesitate to escalate early. Quick resolution is better than perfect procedures. Our support team has experience across all major Kubernetes distributions and infrastructure types.