When an OCA reaches an end-of-life state, there are two high-level processes that we will ask for your assistance to complete:
- We must complete a remote decommissioning process, which wipes all data from the OCA and sets it to a Retired state.
- We will request that you either return or e-waste the OCA.
Important: The remote decommissioning process, once it has completed, is not reversible. After the final step completes, the OCA will no longer be functional and cannot be reused.
Remote decommissioning process
When an OCA is marked for decommission by Netflix, you will receive a automatic notification via our ticketing system. You can correspond with the Netflix Open Connect team via this ticket if you have questions. This ticket will also be updated with comments as the workflow runs and completes.
In the Partner Portal, you can view the OCAs that have been marked for decommission, schedule the timing of the remote decommission and retirement process, and view the status of any running decommission processes.
To run the remote decommissioning process:
- In the Partner Portal, find OCAs that have been marked for decommission.
These OCAs will display "EOL" (End of Life) and "Retirement Pending" icons, and you will see a Retirement Pending tab on the OCA's details page:
- Navigate to the site or OCA that is pending retirement and click the Retirement Pending tab.
If you navigated from a site, you'll have the option to select any or all appliances that are marked for decommission in the site.
- On the Retirement Pending tab, specify a schedule for the process.
You can immediately begin the process, or you can set a future date for the process to run.
Optional: Cancel or reschedule the process.
On the Retirement Pending tab, you can modify the date for any decommissions that are scheduled to run in the future, or you can cancel a running process as long as it has not already completed any irreversible actions. See the next section for more details.
Decommissioning workflow steps
Once the decommissioning workflow begins, you will see the status of the each step in the Partner Portal. The workflow will run through the following steps:
- If the OCA is in the process of serving live traffic, the OCA will be drained of live streaming sessions as described in the following article: Disabling appliances for maintenance. This step typically takes between 30 min and 2 hours to complete. During the draining phase, you can cancel the decommissioning process.
- If the OCA is not serving live traffic or is offline, a standard 15 min waiting period will be observed. During this waiting period, you can cancel the decommissioning process.
- After the draining or waiting period, all of the data on the OCA will be deleted (sanitized). This phase of the process is irreversible. Once the the sanitation step begins, you can no longer cancel the decommissioning process.
- After the sanitation step completes, the OCA will be set to Retired in our system. If the OCA was offline or not reachable throughout the process, we will log its offline status and proceed directly to the Retired state. Once the OCA has been set to Retired, the OCA cannot serve traffic or connect to our control plane services in the future.
- After the completion of the entire workflow, the OCA will no longer appear in the Partner Portal. This can take up to 24 hours to propagate through our systems. Before the OCA disappears from view, you may see a reference to it in the portal, but no metrics or actions will be available.
Return or e-waste
After the remote decommissioning process completes, you will be notified via the ticket thread. At this point, you can disconnect the OCA, power it down, and either package it for return or e-waste. The ticket thread will be updated to let you know which of these next steps to take.
More information
- End-of-Life OCA Versions
- Best practices for replacing OCAs in a site
- Returns and Replacements (RMAs)