[APM] Add messaging for users who may need to upgrade APM server or migrate old data

[jasonrhodes]

This issue is replacing #29510 for the reasons outlined in this comment: #29510 (comment)

AC:

• When no "historical data" is found in the service overview, in addition to the existing message and set up instructions link, a new message should be added: "Upgrading from a pre-7.0 version? Make sure you've also upgraded APM Server to 7.0+. You may also need to migrate your old data using the Kibana Migration Assistant."

Note: For now we'll just show the message unconditionally when there is no data found. After the 6.x data filtering is merged, we should explore how to make a conditional request to look for 6.x data and only show this message if we find old 6.x data.

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/apm-ui

[formgeist]

@jasonrhodes Just to be clear, this page has no conditionals so it'll be the same message for all users, not only ones that simply don't have 7.x data to view? cc @sqren

[sorenlouv]

True, it doesn't currently support conditional messaging but we might be able to add it in.

[formgeist]

Would it be possible to investigate first before we settle on copy?

[formgeist]

My initial proposal would be to add something like this in the top of the instructions since it's related to the APM server.

[sorenlouv]

@formgeist I like it! And it works even if we can't make it conditional, right?

[formgeist]

@sqren Yeah, this is kind of the most generic "warning" I could write. I would obviously prefer if we can make it conditional, so it's not displaying for all customers. At the very least customers who have an updated setup running.

[formgeist]

Not that I expect customers with working setup to checkout the setup instructions a lot, but still.

[sorenlouv]

Come to think of it: we can make the status check for the server succeed only if it finds onboarding docs from 7.0 or higher. The current error message is:

"APM Server has still not connected to Elasticsearch"

which can be changed to:

"APM Server has still not connected to Elasticsearch. Please makes sure it is running and is version 7.0 or higher"

[formgeist]

That sounds far better than adding it to Setup instructions. I'm assuming that we're currently just writing out the error message on a blank page. Might make sense to at the very least update the design to this?

Edited: Updated copy

[formgeist]

Update from Zoom meeting with @sqren: We talked about investigating adding the callout to the Setup instructions. Since it's a significantly more complex setup than say in APM UI, it might be a bigger task, but I'm sure in the end the placement is right for where we want to nudge the user. The callout will have to be present through-out 7.x because a customer could update from i.e. version 6.6 to 7.3, and still not know that they should also look at updating their APM server or migrate their 6.x indices.

Second, we'll update the copy of the APM Server status check if the server doesn't connect to Elasticsearch, as per @sqren's comment above: "APM Server is still not connected to Elasticsearch. Please make sure it is running and you have updated to 7.0 or higher.". I'll add this to an updated description of this issue along with the callout design and copy.

[jasonrhodes]

Just checking: are we sure we want to do all of this right now or just the simple, unconditional messaging to all users in the setup instructions and improve on it later?

[sorenlouv]

This is how I understand it:

1. We are going to add an unconditional callout to the setup instructions. This is the hard part.
2. We are going to update the copy of the existing status check, to indicate that APM Server 7.0 or higher is required. This is the easy part.

[roncohen]

just FYI, users might connect APM Server to Logstash or something else which will eventually put the documents into Elasticsearch. So APM Server isn't necessarily going to be connected to Elasticsearch. Could we write something slightly more generic?

No APM Server 7.0 detected

or something like that?

[formgeist]

You mean for the status check copy?

No APM Server detected. Please make sure it is running and you have updated to 7.0 or higher. Better?

[jasonrhodes]

@formgeist @sqren Can one of you point me to what you're referring to with "The existing APM server status check"?

[jasonrhodes]

Is the "APM server status check" referring to this?

[formgeist]

@jasonrhodes Yup, that's it

[jasonrhodes]

Just updated the ticket with what we talked about this morning on zoom with me, @sqren, and @formgeist.

Re: the final note in the ticket, I'm curious to hear if @makwarth thinks the extra check for 6.x data is necessary vs just showing the message whenever users have no historical data found, i.e. they may have no data or they may just have all old unmigrated 6.x data.

[makwarth]

I'm still OK with the unconditional message. We need this to go into 7.0.0-beta1.