Migrating Your Workflow to Reg2Run: Step-by-Step ChecklistTransitioning an established workflow to a new platform is a tactical project that affects people, processes, and outcomes. Reg2Run promises streamlined automation, clearer observability, and faster deployments — but realizing those benefits requires planning. This step-by-step checklist walks you through preparation, migration, validation, and post-migration optimization so your team moves safely and efficiently.
1. Define goals and success criteria
- Identify the business drivers for migration (e.g., reduced deployment time, lower costs, better traceability).
- Set measurable success criteria: e.g., 30% faster deployment, % failed runs, mean time to recover (MTTR) reduced by 40%.
- Determine timelines, budget, and stakeholder responsibilities.
2. Audit current workflow and inventory assets
- Catalog all components of your current workflow: scripts, pipelines, CI/CD jobs, scheduled tasks, containers, secrets, configuration files, and monitoring/alerting rules.
- Map dependencies and data flows between components.
- Note runtime environments, required resources (CPU, memory), and external integrations (APIs, databases, cloud services).
- Identify compliance or security constraints (data residency, encryption, auditing).
3. Evaluate Reg2Run capabilities and gaps
- Compare existing features against Reg2Run’s features: orchestration model, triggers, scheduling, secret management, artifact storage, observability, RBAC, and API connectivity.
- Identify features that need custom implementation or workarounds (e.g., unsupported integrations or specific deployment strategies).
- Decide whether to adopt Reg2Run managed services or run self-hosted components.
4. Plan architecture and mapping
- Design the target architecture on Reg2Run: where workflows live, how environments (dev/stage/prod) map, and how secrets and artifacts are stored.
- Create a migration map for each workflow: source location → Reg2Run equivalent (e.g., Jenkins pipeline → Reg2Run pipeline; cron job → Reg2Run scheduled trigger).
- Define network/security boundaries and access controls (VPCs, service accounts, IAM roles).
- Plan for data migration if workflows reference persisted state or artifacts.
5. Prepare environment and prerequisites
- Provision Reg2Run accounts, workspaces/projects, and required cloud resources.
- Configure identity and access management: users, teams, roles, and least-privilege permissions.
- Set up secret management and integrate with your vaults (HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, etc.) or Reg2Run’s secrets.
- Configure CI/CD credentials, container registries, artifact repositories, and monitoring endpoints.
6. Create a migration pilot
- Select 1–3 representative, low-risk workflows to migrate first. Choose pipelines that exercise common patterns and integrations.
- Convert pipelines to Reg2Run format or re-author steps using Reg2Run’s UI/CLI/SDK. Keep the original workflows unchanged during the pilot.
- Implement equivalent triggers, runtime images, environment variables, and secrets.
- Run the pilot in a separate environment (staging) and collect logs, metrics, and traces.
7. Validate functionality and performance
- Execute end-to-end tests: unit/test/acceptance tests, integration tests, and smoke tests.
- Validate observability: logs, distributed traces, metrics, and dashboards. Ensure alerts fire correctly.
- Measure performance against your success criteria (deployment time, throughput, failure rate).
- Perform security and compliance checks: secret leakage, least-privilege access, audit logs.
8. Iterate and document
- Triage issues found in pilot runs; update configurations, resource sizing, or step implementations.
- Create runbooks for common failures and rollback procedures.
- Document converted workflows, environment mappings, and operational procedures. Include examples for developers to follow.
9. Roll out in phases
- Prioritize remaining workflows by risk and business impact. Use a phased rollout: migrate noncritical → critical → cross-team/shared pipelines.
- For each phase, follow a standard checklist: backup current configs, migrate, verify in staging, run parallel for a set period (dual-run), cut over, monitor closely.
- Communicate migration windows and expected impacts to stakeholders and users.
10. Establish rollback and contingency plans
- Define clear rollback criteria and automated rollback steps where possible.
- Maintain the ability to re-run old pipelines or keep the previous orchestration system available until fully confident.
- Keep backups of configuration, secrets, and artifacts.
11. Train teams and update developer workflows
- Run training sessions and create quick-start guides for developers and SREs.
- Integrate Reg2Run into developer tooling and CI templates (examples for common languages and frameworks).
- Update on-call runbooks and incident response playbooks.
12. Monitor, measure, and optimize
- Track KPIs established in step 1 and produce regular reports (weekly during rollout, then monthly).
- Use telemetry to spot regressions or performance bottlenecks. Tune resource allocations, concurrency, and caching.
- Automate routine operational tasks (cleanups, artifact retention, scheduled pruning).
13. Decommission legacy systems
- Once confidence thresholds are met, plan decommissioning of old orchestrators and related infrastructure.
- Archive logs and artifacts according to retention/compliance policies.
- Reclaim resources and update billing allocations.
14. Continuous improvement
- Solicit feedback from users and iterate on templates, libraries, and integration patterns.
- Maintain a migration retrospective: what went well, what didn’t, and update the migration playbook.
- Keep an eye on Reg2Run updates and roadmap to adopt new features that can simplify workflows further.
Quick Migration Checklist (Compact)
- Define goals & success metrics
- Inventory current workflows & dependencies
- Map features & identify gaps in Reg2Run
- Design target architecture & security model
- Provision Reg2Run environment & IAM
- Migrate pilot workflows (staging)
- Validate tests, metrics, and security
- Iterate, document, and create runbooks
- Phased rollout with dual-run period
- Implement rollback & contingency plans
- Train teams and update developer tooling
- Monitor KPIs and optimize
- Decommission legacy systems
- Hold retrospective and continuous improvements
If you want, I can: convert this into a one-page checklist PDF, generate example migration templates for common CI/CD systems (Jenkins/GitHub Actions/GitLab CI), or draft a communication plan for stakeholders. Which would you like next?
Leave a Reply