How To Limit Automation to Specific Hours

By default, automation can apply changes at any time. To limit changes to the hours that suit your organization, for example an approved change window, edit the maintenance window in the Automation Profile.

Automation is opt-in. Automation is disabled by default and enabled by you. When you enable automation, RealTheory can make configuration changes within the scope and parameters of your automation profiles, including any default values that you have not changed. See Automation Opt-In Requirements Explained.

Background

Teams limit when automation can apply changes for several reasons: to follow change-management processes that allow changes only in approved windows, to avoid peak traffic because most automated changes restart the affected pods, or to make sure that someone is available to watch the results. The maintenance window in an Automation Profile limits when automation can apply changes to the workloads that the profile includes. The maintenance window starts with one interval that covers all day, every day. You can narrow that interval, add intervals for different days and hours, and exclude specific dates, such as holidays or release freezes.

The maintenance window never cancels a change. Outside the window, RealTheory continues to recommend the change, and automation applies the change when the window next allows.

Each profile has one maintenance window. If groups of clusters need different hours, for example clusters in different regions, create a profile for each group, and apply each profile with a policy. See Automation Policies Explained.

Solution

Prerequisites

You have the sys_admin or automation_admin role.
See Automation Opt-In Requirements Explained.

Procedure

Navigate to Settings > Automation > Workloads > Automation Profiles.
In the row for the profile, click EDIT PROFILE.
In Profile Settings, under Maintenance window, choose the Timezone.
In the interval, select the days, and set From and To to the hours when automation can apply changes.

Note: An interval can cross midnight. For example, an interval from 22:00 to 04:00 continues into the next day.
(Optional) To use different hours on different days, click Add interval, and set the days and times for the new interval.
(Optional) To prevent changes on a specific date, click Add exclusion, choose the Date, and then click ADD.
Click SAVE.

The new maintenance window can take a few minutes to take effect.

Note: To let automation apply changes at any time without losing your schedule, click Pause schedule. To restore the schedule, click Resume schedule.