Scheduling maintenance windows
You can schedule a maintenance window to mute alert notifications for specific entities within a particular time window. Use this feature when you want to select a planned maintenance or load testing of a specific section of your system that is monitored by Instana.
You can filter and mute the affected entities based on an application perspective or by using a Dynamic Focus Query. During an active maintenance window, Instana doesn't send alert notifications for events, issues, or incidents that match the query or the application perspective. However, these events, issues, or incidents are still created and updated.
Creating or scheduling maintenance windows
To access the Schedule Maintenance Window wizard and schedule a maintenance window, complete the following steps:
- In the Instana UI, go to Settings > Maintenance Windows.
- Click Schedule Maintenance Window.
The Schedule Maintenance Window wizard opens in the Simple Mode view by default and guides you through the steps to schedule a maintenance window. To display all the steps on one page, click Switch to Advanced Mode. The advanced mode view is the default view to edit a maintenance window.
Step 1: Schedule window
You can set the frequency of a maintenance window by selecting one of the following recurrence types:
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One time only
You can create a single, specific maintenance window. For more information about creating a one-time maintenance window, see Set a one-time maintenance window.
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Recurrent
You can create a series of maintenance windows that occur at regular intervals. For more information about creating recurrent windows, see Set a recurrent maintenance window.
For both one-time and recurring windows, users can enable an additional configuration checkbox. When users select this option, Instana notifies them about any open alerts for events that are suppressed during the window but still unresolved after the window expires. This feature helps users stay informed about open events unrelated to the maintenance window, allowing them to take timely action for resolution.
Set a one-time maintenance window
To create a one-time maintenance window, complete the following steps:
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In the Recurrence section, select One time only.
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In the Timing section, enter the schedule for the maintenance window in the following fields:
- Start Time and Start Date Determines when the maintenance window starts.
- Duration Specifies how long the maintenance window is active (in minutes, hours, or days).
- All day Schedules the maintenance window for 24 hours that begins at 12 midnight on the specified start date. If you enable this toggle, you don't need to configure the Start Time and the Duration.
The following figure shows how to set a one-time maintenance window:
Set a recurrent maintenance window
To create a recurrent maintenance window, complete the following steps:
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Select from the following recurring frequency options in the Recurrence section:
- Daily: This option creates maintenance windows that recur daily. You must specify the days on which the window must be repeated, for example, every 2 days.
- Weekly: This option creates maintenance windows that recur weekly. For the specified weekly interval, you can define on which days the maintenance window occurs. Specify the weekdays in the particular week and the weekly interval on how often it must happen, for example, on Friday and Sunday every 3 weeks.
- Monthly: This option creates maintenance windows that recur monthly. For the specified monthly interval, for example, every 2 months, you can define on which day the maintenance window occurs in the following ways:
- Specify the month-day, for example, the 21st of every second month.
- Specify the week-day, for example, the second Tuesday of every second month.
- Yearly: This option creates maintenance windows that recur on an annual basis. For the specified yearly interval, you can define on which day the maintenance window occurs in the following ways:
- Specify the month and day, for example, every year on 25 December.
- Specify the week-day of a specific month, for example, every last Monday of September.
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Specify a scheduling interval for all recurring frequency options. In the Schedule Range section, you can select the start and end dates of the recurring maintenance window from the following options:
- Start From: The starting date of the recurrent maintenance window specification that is provided through the frequency options.
- Repeat Until: The ending of the recurrent maintenance window specification can be specified in one of the following ways:
- A date: The specific date on which the recurrent maintenance window specification ends.
- Number of occurrences: A total number of times the specification must recur.
- Forever: The specification never ends and keeps recurring.
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In the Timing section, you can specify when and for how long each maintenance window is active by completing the following fields:
- Start Time and Start Date Determines when the maintenance window starts.
- Duration Specifies for how long the maintenance window is active (in minutes, hours or days).
- All day Schedules the maintenance window for 24 hours that begins at 12 midnight on the specified start date. If you enable this toggle, you don't need to configure the Start Time and the Duration.
The following figure shows how to set a recurrent maintenance window:
Step 2: Determine scope
To mute the entities, apply a filter on the entities by selecting one of the following options:
- Application Perspective
- Selected entities (Dynamic Focus query)
- Synthetic Tests (beta)
- All available entities
On selecting the Dynamic Focus query, if the query field is empty, all alerts are turned off during this maintenance window.
The following figure shows how to filter entities to mute alert notifications for specific entities:
Step 3: Name + preview
Preview the first four occurrences of the recurrent maintenance window specification. After you confirm the following items in the Schedule Maintenance Window wizard, click Create.
- Name: Enter a name for the maintenance window configuration.
- Preview: Lists a preview of the first four occurrences of the recurrent maintenance window specification.
The following figure shows the recurrent maintenance window specification:
The new configurations or changes take up to 4 minutes to take effect.
You can also configure maintenance windows by using the Instana Backend REST API.
Viewing maintenance windows
To view the status of maintenance window configurations, go to Settings > Maintenance Windows. The Maintenance Window Configurations table with the status of each configuration is displayed.
Maintenance window states
The maintenance windows are grouped by the following states:
- Scheduled: The next occurrence of the maintenance configuration is scheduled in the future.
- Active: The maintenance configuration is active now.
- Paused: The current or next maintenance window occurrence is paused. Alerts for the events that match the scope of this maintenance configuration is not muted. If you resume, the status of the configuration changes to Active or Scheduled, depending on when the next occurrence happens.
- Expired: All the scheduled maintenance window occurrences for this configuration are finished.
- Unscheduled: The maintenance configuration does not specify a valid time configuration and can never be active in the future.
The following figure displays maintenance window states:
Pausing or resuming maintenance windows
Click the pause icon in the Maintenance Window Configurations table to pause or resume the Active and Scheduled Maintenance windows.
You can pause or resume only the Active and Scheduled Maintenance windows.
When you click the pause icon, the current or next maintenance window occurrences are paused until the configuration is resumed. When you click the play icon, the maintenance configuration is resumed and takes effect as scheduled.
The following figure shows the pausing or resuming of maintenance windows:
