Vitess Release v21 Tracking Issue

[rohit-nayak-ps]

Feature Description

This is a tracking issue for the upcoming release of Vitess 21. The aim is to host all the pending todos and document the process some more. 21.0 Team: Rohit (Release Manager), Shlomi (Previous RM), Florent (Release Wizard and Next RM)

Clarification: The vitess-releaser is automates most of the release process including creating release-related PRs. This PR is a complement to it, for tracking progress and ongoing issues/todos, but it will never be used by the tool itself.

Backports for v21 RC2

• [ ] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16920
• [ ] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/17004
• [ ] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16980
• [ ] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16986
• [ ] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/17006
• [ ] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/17010
• [ ] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/17012
• [ ] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16982

Todos

• [ ] Generate Cobra Docs manually
• [ ] CNCF Blog Post final Google Docs (by 18 Oct)
• [ ] Summary verification (by Deepthi by 25 Oct)
• [ ] Update vitess-releaser for cobradocs generation: pre-release
• [ ] Update vitess-releaser checklist for vttestserver image generation: post-release
• [ ] Update vitess-releaser checklist for removing Bypass Protection from vitess repo: post-release
• [ ] Add to vitess-releaser checklist for verifying that /releases artifacts are created: post-release
• [x] Add to vitess-releaser checklist for GA to message CNCF about blog post (already there?)
• [x] Announce on OSS Slack, upcoming code freeze and release two weeks before code freeze: https://vitess.slack.com/archives/C0PQY0PTK/p1727123807991129
• [x] Vitess Releaser changes for v21 https://github.com/vitessio/vitess-releaser/pull/112
• [x] Announcement on OSS Slack two days before code freeze
• [x] Deepthi to check release notes Oct 2nd
• [x] CNCF Blog Post initial

(Potential) Backports for v21 RC1

• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16923
• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16933
• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16936
• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16932
• [x] https://github.com/planetscale/vitess-operator/pull/613

Issues to Merge before RC code freeze

• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16844
• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16880
• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16833
• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16860
• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16078
• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16851
• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16897
• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16879
• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16886
• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16829
• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16378
• [x] https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/pull/16857

Stuff to add to summary.md

• [x] atomic transactions
• [x] mysql 8.4 support

Release artifacts

The goal of a Vitess release is to generate the following artifacts for every release including GA and intermediate RCs (and subsequent patches).

1. A git hash that marks the commit at which the release is cut.
2. Vitess binary and operator Images should be pushed to Docker Hub: should be visible at https://hub.docker.com/u/vitess like https://hub.docker.com/r/vitess/lite/tags?name=v20
3. Java packages to be pushed to Maven/SonaType
4. Notifications to Twitter/Slack
5. CNCF Blog post
6. Updated vitess.io Website documentation

Prep Work

• Monitor PRs that need to go into the release from a few days before
• Validate release notes

Dates

Tentative dates, pending schedule alignment:

• Before October 8: Pre-Requisites for a release (check environment, check GH rights, check release notes, etc)
• Tuesday 8 October: release-21.0 Code Freeze (Zoom Meeting needed)
• Between the 8th and 14h: v21.0.0 RC-1 Pre-Requisites
• Monday 14 October: v21.0.0 RC-1 Pre-Release (Zoom Meeting needed)
• Tuesday 15 October: v21.0.0 RC-1 Release (Zoom Meeting needed)
• Monday 21 October: v21.0.0 RC-2 Pre-Release (optional) (Zoom Meeting needed)
• Tuesday 22 October: v21.0.0 RC-2 Release (optional) (Zoom Meeting needed)
• Between the 22nd and 28h: v21.0.0 GA Pre-Requisites
• Monday 28 October: v21.0.0 GA Pre-Release (Zoom Meeting needed)
• Tuesday 29 October: v21.0.0 GA Release (Zoom Meeting needed)

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