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🔧 Operations Documentation


📋 Overview

Comprehensive operational procedures and guidelines for maintaining the Azure Real-Time Analytics platform in production. This documentation covers monitoring, performance optimization, disaster recovery, and routine maintenance tasks.

📑 Table of Contents


📊 Monitoring & Observability

System Health Dashboard

Key Metrics:
  Availability:
    - Platform Uptime: 99.99% target
    - Service Health: All components green
    - API Response: <100ms p50, <500ms p99

  Performance:
    - Throughput: 1.2M events/second
    - Latency: <5 seconds end-to-end
    - Error Rate: <0.1%

  Resource Utilization:
    - Compute: 65% average, 85% peak
    - Storage: 2.3PB used, 5PB capacity
    - Network: 4.2GB/s sustained

Monitoring Stack

Component Tool Purpose
Infrastructure Azure Monitor Resource metrics and logs
Application Application Insights Application performance
Security Azure Sentinel Security monitoring
Business Power BI Business KPIs
Costs Cost Management Budget tracking

Alert Configuration

Critical Alerts:
  - Service Down: Any core service unavailable
  - Data Loss: Missing data in pipeline
  - Security Breach: Unauthorized access detected
  - Cost Overrun: Budget exceeded by 20%

Warning Alerts:
  - High Latency: Processing >10 seconds
  - Resource Pressure: >85% utilization
  - Error Spike: Error rate >1%
  - Quota Limit: 80% of quota reached

Information Alerts:
  - Deployment Complete: New version deployed
  - Backup Success: Daily backup completed
  - Maintenance Window: Scheduled maintenance

🚀 Performance Management

Performance Optimization Procedures

Daily Performance Review

#!/bin/bash
# daily_performance_review.sh

# Check cluster utilization
databricks clusters list --output JSON | \
  jq '.clusters[] | {cluster_id, state, num_workers}'

# Review slow queries
az monitor metrics list \
  --resource $DATABRICKS_RESOURCE_ID \
  --metric "query.duration" \
  --aggregation Average \
  --interval PT1H

# Analyze data skew
spark.sql("""
  SELECT 
    partition_id,
    COUNT(*) as record_count,
    AVG(record_count) OVER() as avg_count,
    (COUNT(*) - AVG(record_count) OVER()) / AVG(record_count) OVER() * 100 as skew_percentage
  FROM bronze.events
  GROUP BY partition_id
  HAVING skew_percentage > 20
""")

Performance Tuning Checklist

  • Cluster Optimization
  • Right-size cluster nodes
  • Enable auto-scaling
  • Use spot instances where appropriate
  • Configure Photon acceleration

  • Query Optimization

  • Analyze query plans
  • Add appropriate indexes
  • Implement partition pruning
  • Use broadcast joins for small tables

  • Storage Optimization

  • Run OPTIMIZE regularly
  • Configure Z-ORDER by common filters
  • Implement data compaction
  • Archive old data

  • Network Optimization

  • Use Azure backbone
  • Implement caching strategies
  • Optimize data serialization
  • Minimize cross-region transfers

Capacity Planning

# capacity_planning.py
import pandas as pd
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
from azure.monitor.query import MetricsQueryClient

def forecast_capacity(metric_name, days_ahead=30):
    """Forecast capacity requirements."""
    client = MetricsQueryClient(credential)

    # Get historical data
    end_time = datetime.now()
    start_time = end_time - timedelta(days=90)

    response = client.query_resource(
        resource_uri=resource_id,
        metric_names=[metric_name],
        timespan=(start_time, end_time),
        granularity=timedelta(hours=1)
    )

    # Create forecast
    df = pd.DataFrame(response.metrics[0].timeseries[0].data)
    df['timestamp'] = pd.to_datetime(df['timestamp'])
    df.set_index('timestamp', inplace=True)

    # Simple linear regression forecast
    from sklearn.linear_model import LinearRegression

    X = df.index.astype(int).values.reshape(-1, 1)
    y = df['average'].values

    model = LinearRegression()
    model.fit(X, y)

    # Predict future
    future_dates = pd.date_range(
        start=end_time,
        periods=days_ahead,
        freq='D'
    )

    predictions = model.predict(
        future_dates.astype(int).values.reshape(-1, 1)
    )

    return {
        'current': y[-1],
        'predicted_30d': predictions[-1],
        'growth_rate': (predictions[-1] - y[-1]) / y[-1] * 100
    }

🛡️ Disaster Recovery

RPO and RTO Targets

Component RPO RTO Backup Frequency
Data Lake 1 hour 4 hours Continuous replication
Databricks 4 hours 2 hours Daily snapshots
Kafka 5 minutes 30 minutes Multi-region replication
Power BI 24 hours 4 hours Daily export
Configuration 1 hour 1 hour Git versioning

Backup Procedures

Automated Backups:
  Data Lake:
    - Type: Geo-redundant storage
    - Frequency: Continuous
    - Retention: 30 days

  Databricks:
    - Notebooks: Git sync every commit
    - Jobs: Daily export to JSON
    - Clusters: Configuration in IaC

  Metadata:
    - Unity Catalog: Daily export
    - Schemas: Version controlled
    - Permissions: Backed up to Key Vault

  Configuration:
    - Infrastructure: Terraform state in remote backend
    - Secrets: Azure Key Vault with soft delete
    - Policies: Azure Policy definitions

Recovery Procedures

Data Recovery

#!/bin/bash
# data_recovery.sh

# Parameters
RECOVERY_POINT="2025-01-28T12:00:00Z"
SOURCE_CONTAINER="backup"
TARGET_CONTAINER="bronze"

# Restore from backup
az storage blob copy start-batch \
  --source-account-name $BACKUP_STORAGE \
  --source-container $SOURCE_CONTAINER \
  --account-name $PRIMARY_STORAGE \
  --destination-container $TARGET_CONTAINER \
  --pattern "*" \
  --source-sas $SOURCE_SAS

# Verify restoration
az storage blob list \
  --account-name $PRIMARY_STORAGE \
  --container-name $TARGET_CONTAINER \
  --query "length(@)" \
  --output tsv

Service Recovery

# service_recovery.py
import asyncio
from typing import List, Dict

class DisasterRecoveryOrchestrator:
    def __init__(self):
        self.services = [
            "storage",
            "databricks",
            "kafka",
            "powerbi"
        ]

    async def failover_to_secondary(self):
        """Execute failover to secondary region."""
        tasks = []

        for service in self.services:
            tasks.append(self.failover_service(service))

        results = await asyncio.gather(*tasks)
        return results

    async def failover_service(self, service: str) -> Dict:
        """Failover individual service."""
        try:
            # Update DNS
            await self.update_dns(service)

            # Start secondary instance
            await self.start_secondary(service)

            # Verify health
            is_healthy = await self.health_check(service)

            return {
                "service": service,
                "status": "success" if is_healthy else "failed",
                "timestamp": datetime.utcnow()
            }
        except Exception as e:
            return {
                "service": service,
                "status": "error",
                "error": str(e)
            }

🔧 Maintenance Procedures

Scheduled Maintenance

Task Frequency Duration Impact
Cluster Restart Weekly 15 min Minimal - rolling restart
Security Patching Monthly 2 hours None - staged deployment
Platform Upgrade Quarterly 4 hours Read-only mode
DR Testing Quarterly 8 hours Secondary region only
Capacity Review Monthly 2 hours None

Maintenance Runbooks

Cluster Maintenance

# cluster_maintenance.py
from databricks.sdk import WorkspaceClient
import time

def perform_cluster_maintenance(cluster_id: str):
    """Perform rolling cluster maintenance."""
    w = WorkspaceClient()

    # Step 1: Create temporary cluster
    temp_cluster = w.clusters.create(
        cluster_name=f"temp-{cluster_id}",
        spark_version="13.3.x-scala2.12",
        node_type_id="Standard_D16s_v3",
        num_workers=10
    )

    # Step 2: Redirect traffic
    update_load_balancer(temp_cluster.cluster_id)

    # Step 3: Restart original cluster
    w.clusters.restart(cluster_id)

    # Step 4: Wait for healthy state
    while True:
        state = w.clusters.get(cluster_id).state
        if state == "RUNNING":
            break
        time.sleep(30)

    # Step 5: Redirect traffic back
    update_load_balancer(cluster_id)

    # Step 6: Terminate temporary cluster
    w.clusters.delete(temp_cluster.cluster_id)

Storage Optimization

-- optimize_storage.sql

-- Optimize Delta tables
OPTIMIZE bronze.events
WHERE date >= current_date() - INTERVAL 7 DAYS
ZORDER BY (event_type, customer_id);

-- Vacuum old files
VACUUM bronze.events RETAIN 168 HOURS;

-- Analyze table statistics
ANALYZE TABLE bronze.events COMPUTE STATISTICS;

-- Check table health
DESCRIBE HISTORY bronze.events LIMIT 10;

🔍 Troubleshooting

Common Issues and Resolutions

Issue Symptoms Root Cause Resolution
High Latency Processing >10s Cluster undersized Scale up cluster
Data Skew Uneven partitions Poor partition key Repartition data
Memory Errors OOM exceptions Large broadcasts Optimize joins
Connection Timeout Failed queries Network issues Check firewall rules
Cost Spike Budget alerts Runaway jobs Implement job timeout

Diagnostic Scripts

# diagnostics.py
import pandas as pd
from typing import Dict, List

class SystemDiagnostics:
    def __init__(self):
        self.checks = [
            self.check_cluster_health,
            self.check_storage_health,
            self.check_streaming_health,
            self.check_network_health
        ]

    def run_diagnostics(self) -> Dict:
        """Run all diagnostic checks."""
        results = {}

        for check in self.checks:
            check_name = check.__name__
            try:
                results[check_name] = check()
            except Exception as e:
                results[check_name] = {
                    "status": "error",
                    "error": str(e)
                }

        return results

    def check_cluster_health(self) -> Dict:
        """Check Databricks cluster health."""
        # Implementation
        pass

    def check_storage_health(self) -> Dict:
        """Check storage account health."""
        # Implementation
        pass

🚨 Incident Management

Incident Response Process

graph TD
    A[Incident Detected] --> B{Severity?}
    B -->|Critical| C[Page On-Call]
    B -->|High| D[Alert Team]
    B -->|Medium| E[Create Ticket]
    B -->|Low| F[Log Issue]

    C --> G[Triage]
    D --> G
    E --> G

    G --> H[Investigate]
    H --> I[Mitigate]
    I --> J[Resolve]
    J --> K[Post-Mortem]

Escalation Matrix

Severity Response Time Escalation Authority
Critical 15 minutes Immediate page Can stop production
High 1 hour Team notification Can modify config
Medium 4 hours Next business day Can restart services
Low 24 hours Weekly review Can update docs

Post-Incident Review Template

## Incident Post-Mortem

**Incident ID:** INC-2025-001
**Date:** January 29, 2025
**Duration:** 45 minutes
**Impact:** 5% of queries failed

### Timeline
- 14:00 - Alert triggered for high error rate
- 14:05 - On-call engineer acknowledged
- 14:15 - Root cause identified
- 14:30 - Fix deployed
- 14:45 - System recovered

### Root Cause
Memory pressure on streaming cluster due to large broadcast join

### Resolution
- Increased cluster memory
- Optimized join strategy
- Added monitoring for broadcast size

### Action Items
- [ ] Implement automatic broadcast size limits
- [ ] Add pre-emptive scaling rules
- [ ] Update runbook with new procedure


Last Updated: January 29, 2025
Version: 1.0.0
Maintainer: Platform Operations Team