Production Checklist

Overview

This checklist ensures your Blnk deployment is production-ready, secure, performant, and maintainable. Review each section before going live.

Infrastructure Setup

Hardware Requirements

Minimum server specifications met
- 4+ CPU cores
- 8GB+ RAM (16GB recommended)
- SSD storage with adequate IOPS
- Minimum 100GB storage (database + logs)
Network configuration
- Static IP addresses assigned
- DNS records configured
- Load balancer setup (if using multiple instances)
- Firewall rules configured
High availability considered
- Multi-AZ deployment for cloud
- Database replication configured
- Redis clustering or Sentinel setup
- Backup infrastructure in different region

Container/Docker Setup

Docker images verified
- Using specific version tags (not latest)
- Image: jerryenebeli/blnk:0.13.2 or your specific version
- Images pulled and verified on production servers
- Container security scanning completed
Docker Compose configuration
- Resource limits defined for all services
- Health checks configured
- Restart policies set to on-failure or unless-stopped
- Volume mounts configured for persistence
- Network isolation implemented
Container orchestration (if using Kubernetes)
- Namespaces created
- Resource quotas set
- Pod disruption budgets defined
- Horizontal pod autoscaling configured

Database Configuration

PostgreSQL Setup

Installation and version
- PostgreSQL 16+ installed
- Running on dedicated server or managed service
- SSL/TLS encryption enabled
- Connection string uses sslmode=require
Database initialization
- Database blnk created
- Dedicated user with limited privileges created
- Schema migrations completed: blnk migrate up
- Initial ledger created (General Ledger)

Connection pooling optimized

{
  "data_source": {
    "max_open_conns": 25,
    "max_idle_conns": 10,
    "conn_max_lifetime": "30m",
    "conn_max_idle_time": "5m"
  }
}

Performance tuning
- shared_buffers set to 25% of RAM
- effective_cache_size set to 75% of RAM
- work_mem calculated based on connections
- random_page_cost set to 1.1 for SSD
- Autovacuum enabled and tuned
Monitoring configured
- Slow query log enabled (>1s queries)
- pg_stat_statements extension installed
- Connection monitoring active
- Disk space alerts configured

Database Backups

Backup strategy implemented
- Daily full backups scheduled
- Backup retention policy defined (7-30 days)
- Backups stored in separate location/region
- Automated backup verification
Recovery tested
- Restore procedure documented
- Restore tested in staging environment
- RTO (Recovery Time Objective) < 4 hours
- RPO (Recovery Point Objective) < 1 hour
Point-in-time recovery
- WAL archiving enabled
- Archive location configured
- Restore procedure documented

Redis Configuration

Redis Setup

Installation and version
- Redis 7.2.4+ installed
- Running on dedicated server or managed service
- Password authentication enabled
- TLS encryption configured (if required)

Connection pool configured

{
  "redis": {
    "dns": "redis://:password@redis:6379",
    "pool_size": 100,
    "min_idle_conns": 20,
    "skip_tls_verify": false
  }
}

Persistence enabled
- AOF (Append-Only File) enabled
- appendfsync everysec configured
- RDB snapshots configured as backup
- Persistence files backed up regularly
High availability (production workloads)
- Redis Sentinel configured for failover, OR
- Redis Cluster for horizontal scaling
- Minimum 3 nodes for quorum
Memory management
- maxmemory limit set
- maxmemory-policy configured (allkeys-lru recommended)
- Memory alerts configured at 80% usage

Queue Configuration

Queue settings optimized

{
  "queue": {
    "number_of_queues": 20,
    "webhook_concurrency": 20,
    "insufficient_fund_retries": true,
    "max_retry_attempts": 3
  }
}

Worker monitoring
- Worker health endpoint accessible: http://localhost:5004
- Queue depth monitoring configured
- Alerts for queue buildup (>1000 items)

Blnk Application Configuration

Configuration File (blnk.json)

Core configuration complete

{
  "project_name": "Your Production Blnk",
  "data_source": {
    "dns": "postgres://user:pass@host:5432/blnk?sslmode=require"
  },
  "redis": {
    "dns": "redis://:password@host:6379"
  },
  "server": {
    "port": "5001",
    "secure": true,
    "secret_key": "32-character-secret-key-here"
  }
}

Transaction processing tuned

{
  "transaction": {
    "batch_size": 100000,
    "max_queue_size": 1000,
    "max_workers": 10,
    "lock_duration": "30m"
  }
}

Rate limiting configured

{
  "rate_limit": {
    "requests_per_second": 5000,
    "burst": 10000,
    "cleanup_interval_sec": 10800
  }
}

Notifications configured

{
  "notification": {
    "slack": {
      "webhook_url": "https://hooks.slack.com/..."
    },
    "webhook": {
      "url": "https://your-app.com/blnk-webhook",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer your-token"
      }
    }
  }
}

Security Configuration

Secrets management
- Database passwords stored securely (not in code)
- Redis password set and secured
- API secret key is 32 characters (AES-256)
- Tokenization secret configured (32 bytes)
- Environment variables or secret manager used
API security
- API key authentication enabled
- Server secure mode enabled: "secure": true
- Secret key configured for token signing
- CORS configured appropriately
SSL/TLS certificates
- SSL enabled if exposing to internet
- Valid SSL certificates installed
- Certificate auto-renewal configured (Let’s Encrypt)
- cert_storage_path configured: /var/lib/blnk/certs
Network security
- Firewall configured (allow only necessary ports)
- Database not directly exposed to internet
- Redis not directly exposed to internet
- VPC/private network configured

Observability Configuration

Telemetry settings

{
  "enable_telemetry": false,
  "enable_observability": true
}

OpenTelemetry configured
- Jaeger or other OTLP collector running
- OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT set correctly
- Traces being collected and viewable
- Trace sampling rate configured
TypeSense search (optional)
- TypeSense 29.0+ installed
- API key configured
- Collections created and indexed
- Reindexing tested

Health Checks and Monitoring

Health Endpoints

Server health check
- Endpoint active: GET http://localhost:5001/health
- Returns {"status": "UP"} when healthy
- Checks database connectivity
- Response time < 3 seconds
Worker health check
- Monitoring port accessible: http://localhost:5004
- Queue metrics available
- Worker status visible

Application Monitoring

Logging configured
- Log level appropriate for production (INFO or WARN)
- Logs centralized (ELK, Loki, CloudWatch, etc.)
- Log rotation enabled
- Retention policy defined
Metrics collection
- Transaction throughput monitored
- Queue depth monitored
- API response times tracked
- Error rates monitored
Alerting configured
- High error rate alerts
- Database connection failures
- Redis connection failures
- Queue depth threshold alerts
- Disk space alerts (>80% usage)
- Memory usage alerts (>85% usage)

Performance Metrics

Baseline established
- Load testing completed
- Transaction throughput measured
- API response time benchmarked (p50, p95, p99)
- Concurrent user capacity tested
Resource monitoring
- CPU usage < 70% under normal load
- Memory usage < 80%
- Disk I/O within acceptable limits
- Network bandwidth adequate

Backup and Disaster Recovery

Backup Verification

Automated backups running
- PostgreSQL daily backups
- Redis persistence verified
- Backup success monitoring
- Backup size monitoring
Backup integrity
- Automated restore testing
- Backup encryption enabled
- Offsite backup copy maintained
- Backup access restricted

Disaster Recovery Plan

Documentation complete
- Recovery procedures documented
- Runbook for common failures
- Contact information for team
- Escalation procedures defined
Recovery tested
- Database restore tested in staging
- Full system recovery tested
- Failover procedure tested (if HA)
- Recovery time meets RTO target

Scaling Considerations

Horizontal Scaling

Load balancing configured
- Load balancer distributing traffic
- Health check integration
- Session affinity configured (if needed)
- SSL termination at load balancer
Multiple instances
- At least 2 server instances for redundancy
- Worker instances scaled based on queue depth
- Stateless application design verified
- Shared storage for certificates (if using SSL)

Vertical Scaling

Resource headroom
- CPU usage < 70% during peak
- Memory usage < 80% during peak
- Scaling plan for growth documented
- Resource monitoring and alerts

Database Scaling

Read replicas (if needed)
- Read replicas configured
- Read traffic routed to replicas
- Replication lag monitored
- Failover tested
Connection pooling
- PgBouncer or similar considered for high traffic
- Connection pool size optimized
- Connection pool monitoring

Compliance and Governance

Data Protection

Encryption
- Data encrypted at rest
- Data encrypted in transit (SSL/TLS)
- Encryption keys managed securely
- Key rotation policy defined
Data retention
- Retention policy documented
- Automated data archival (if required)
- Data deletion procedures
- Compliance with regulations (GDPR, PCI-DSS, etc.)

Audit and Compliance

Audit logging
- Transaction audit trail maintained
- Admin actions logged
- Logs tamper-proof
- Log retention meets compliance
Access control
- Principle of least privilege applied
- API keys with limited scopes
- Database user permissions restricted
- Administrative access restricted and logged

Pre-Launch Testing

Functional Testing

Core functionality verified
- Create ledgers
- Create balances
- Process transactions
- Query transaction history
- Reconciliation operations
API testing
- All critical endpoints tested
- Error handling verified
- Rate limiting tested
- Authentication/authorization tested

Performance Testing

Load testing completed
- Normal load tested (expected TPS)
- Peak load tested (2-3x normal)
- Sustained load tested (24+ hours)
- No memory leaks detected
Stress testing
- Breaking point identified
- Graceful degradation verified
- Recovery after overload tested
- Queue handling under stress tested

Security Testing

Security scan completed
- Container vulnerability scan
- Dependency vulnerability scan
- Penetration testing (if applicable)
- SQL injection testing
Access testing
- Unauthorized access blocked
- API key validation working
- Rate limiting effective
- Input validation working

Documentation

Operational Documentation

Runbooks created
- Deployment procedure
- Rollback procedure
- Common troubleshooting steps
- Incident response playbook
Configuration documented
- Production configuration file documented
- Environment variables documented
- Infrastructure architecture diagram
- Network topology documented

Team Readiness

Team training
- Operations team trained on Blnk
- Monitoring dashboard access granted
- Alert notification setup
- On-call rotation defined
Knowledge transfer
- Architecture overview presented
- Deployment process reviewed
- Monitoring and alerting reviewed
- Escalation procedures communicated

Go-Live Checklist

Final Verification

Pre-launch checks
- All above items completed
- Staging environment matches production
- Data migration tested (if applicable)
- Rollback plan ready
Communication
- Stakeholders notified of go-live time
- Maintenance window scheduled
- Status page prepared
- Support team on standby

Launch Day

Deployment execution
- Deployment during low-traffic period
- Incremental rollout (if possible)
- Monitoring dashboards open
- Team available for quick response
Post-deployment verification
- Health checks passing
- Test transactions processed successfully
- No error spikes in logs
- All metrics within normal range
- Critical user journeys tested

Post-Launch

First 24 hours
- Continuous monitoring
- Metrics trending normally
- No critical issues
- Performance meets expectations
First week
- All alerts reviewed and tuned
- Performance baselines updated
- Any issues documented and resolved
- Post-launch retrospective completed

Ongoing Maintenance

Regular Tasks

Daily
- Monitor system health
- Review error logs
- Check backup success
- Verify queue processing
Weekly
- Review performance metrics
- Analyze slow queries
- Check disk space trends
- Review security logs
Monthly
- Review and rotate logs
- Test backup restoration
- Update dependencies
- Review and optimize database
- Capacity planning review

Updates and Upgrades

Update strategy
- Blnk version update schedule
- Testing procedure for updates
- Rollback plan for failed updates
- Maintenance window scheduling

Additional Resources

Support

If you encounter issues during deployment:

Check the troubleshooting guide
Join the Blnk community
Open an issue on GitHub
Contact support at [email protected]

Remember: Production deployment is not just about making the system work—it’s about making it work reliably, securely, and maintainably. Take the time to complete each item on this checklist thoroughly.

Getting Started

Core Concepts

Guides

Advanced

Deployment

​Overview

​Infrastructure Setup

​Hardware Requirements

​Container/Docker Setup

​Database Configuration

​PostgreSQL Setup

​Database Backups

​Redis Configuration

​Redis Setup

​Queue Configuration

​Blnk Application Configuration

​Configuration File (blnk.json)

​Security Configuration

​Observability Configuration

​Health Checks and Monitoring

​Health Endpoints

​Application Monitoring

​Performance Metrics

​Backup and Disaster Recovery

​Backup Verification

​Disaster Recovery Plan

​Scaling Considerations

​Horizontal Scaling

​Vertical Scaling

​Database Scaling

​Compliance and Governance

​Data Protection

​Audit and Compliance

​Pre-Launch Testing

​Functional Testing

​Performance Testing

​Security Testing

​Documentation

​Operational Documentation

​Team Readiness

​Go-Live Checklist

​Final Verification

​Launch Day

​Post-Launch

​Ongoing Maintenance

​Regular Tasks

​Updates and Upgrades

​Additional Resources

​Support

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