The imperative of canary launches
In a world where testing or development environments often fail to accurately represent the complexities of the production environment, every software deployment can feel like a leap of faith: an adventure into the unknown, fraught with uncertainties and potential dangers. Despite investing a lot in validating the changes in isolation (Shift left)We are constantly reminded of the harsh reality that awaits us in the living environment. This is where Canary Releases emerges as a lifesaver, offering a structured approach to testing and validation that minimizes risk and maximizes impact, bridging the gap between controlled environments and the unpredictable nature of reality.
These are just a few ways Canary builds will help our teams:
1. Risk mitigation: In the highly distributed and fast-paced world of software development, risk is inevitable. Canary Releases allow us to mitigate this risk through a gradual rollout, closely monitoring performance metrics and user feedback along the way. This iterative approach allows us to identify and address potential unforeseen issues before they escalate, ensuring a smooth and seamless experience for our customers.
2. Improved quality assurance: Quality is the cornerstone of everything we do at bowl. Canary Releases serve as an additional layer of quality assurance, allowing us to validate changes in a real-world environment before large-scale deployment. By proactively identifying and addressing issues during the Canary phase, we ensure that only the highest quality features reach our customers.
3. Optimized resource utilization: Canary Releases automates deployment, significantly reducing manual monitoring and rollback efforts. By introducing incremental updates and automated validation processes, teams can allocate resources efficiently, alleviating the intense manual effort traditionally required to monitor and roll back based on identified issues.
Conceived by the Road to Pro initiative
At bol, we thrive on innovation and are constantly looking for new ways to push the boundaries of what is possible. Recently, we embarked on a journey with the Road to Pro initiative, a pioneering effort that will revolutionize the way we approach software development. Driven by the combination of minds and optimized across several horizontal technology initiatives, Road to Pro has envisioned how to simplify our implementation processes, allowing us to deliver value to our customers with unprecedented speed and efficiency.
Simplicity redefined: enabling Canary versions in bowl
Gone are the days of complex deployment processes and cumbersome configurations. Thanks to the collaborative efforts of the Horizontal Technology Initiative – 146 – Testing in Production with the Bifrost team, bol’s now has a new approach to Canary Releases by relying on the power of Argo Rollouts. Now enabling this powerful feature is as simple as flipping a switch in the Infrastructure as Code settings and outlining the deployment steps and validation process, making it easier than ever for our teams to adopt Canary Releases as standard practice. .
Simplified validation and implementation steps
Once the canary flow is enabled, our teams follow a simple validation and deployment process provided by Argo Rollouts in combination with our standard monitoring tools:
1. Define validation criteria: Clearly define success criteria for your Canary implementation, which can include everything from technical criteria to key performance indicators (KPIs) and user experience metrics. The sky is the limit!
2. Phased implementation: Gradually release the new feature, automatically monitoring performance metrics and relying on configurable thresholds to automatically decide whether the rollout should continue or roll back.
3. Real-time monitoring: Leverage bol’s robust monitoring and observability tools to track Canary release performance in real time, identifying any issues or anomalies as they arise.
