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Deployment strategies sit at the heart of everything DevOps practitioners do—they're the bridge between writing code and getting it safely into users' hands. You're being tested on your understanding of risk management, availability patterns, and feedback loops in production systems. Each strategy represents a different trade-off between speed, safety, and complexity, and exam questions will probe whether you understand when to use which approach.
Don't just memorize the names of these strategies—know what problem each one solves and what risks it introduces. The real test is whether you can recommend the right deployment approach for a given scenario, explain why blue-green differs from canary, or identify when feature toggles make more sense than a full redeployment. Master the underlying principles, and you'll handle any question they throw at you.
These strategies maintain multiple complete environments simultaneously, allowing instant traffic switching. The core principle: eliminate downtime by never modifying the live system directly.
Compare: Blue-Green vs. Shadow—both maintain parallel environments, but Blue-Green switches user traffic while Shadow never exposes the new version to users. Use Shadow when you need to validate performance under real load without any user risk; use Blue-Green when you're ready to release but want instant rollback.
These strategies expose new versions to increasing percentages of users over time. The core principle: limit blast radius by controlling who sees changes and when.
Compare: Canary vs. Rolling Update—Canary controls which users see changes (percentage-based), while Rolling Update controls which instances run new code. If an FRQ asks about minimizing user impact, Canary is your answer; if it asks about infrastructure updates, think Rolling.
These strategies decouple deployment from release, allowing code to ship without being activated. The core principle: separate the act of deploying code from the decision to expose functionality.
Compare: Feature Toggles vs. Dark Launches—toggles control visibility of shipped features, while dark launches specifically test hidden features under production load. Both enable testing in production, but dark launches focus on performance validation before any user sees the feature.
These strategies focus on gathering data to inform product decisions. The core principle: use production traffic to validate hypotheses about user behavior and system performance.
Compare: A/B Testing vs. Canary—both split traffic, but Canary validates technical stability while A/B Testing measures user behavior. Canary asks "does it work?" while A/B asks "does it perform better?"
These strategies prioritize simplicity over sophistication, accepting trade-offs in availability. The core principle: sometimes the simplest approach is the right one.
Compare: Recreate vs. Rolling Update—both replace existing instances, but Recreate accepts downtime for simplicity while Rolling maintains availability through incremental replacement. If an exam scenario mentions "acceptable downtime," Recreate is likely the answer.
| Concept | Best Examples |
|---|---|
| Zero-downtime switching | Blue-Green, Shadow |
| Gradual user exposure | Canary, Ramped |
| Infrastructure-level updates | Rolling Update, Recreate |
| Feature-level control | Feature Toggles, Dark Launches |
| Data-driven decisions | A/B Testing |
| Instant rollback capability | Blue-Green, Feature Toggles |
| Production load testing | Shadow, Dark Launches |
| Multi-component coordination | Multi-Service Deployment |
Which two deployment strategies both maintain parallel environments but differ in whether users ever see the new version? Explain when you'd choose each.
A team wants to test whether a new checkout flow increases conversions. Which strategy should they use, and how does it differ from Canary deployment?
Compare and contrast Feature Toggles and Dark Launches—what problem does each solve, and when might you use them together?
Your application can tolerate 30 minutes of downtime during off-peak hours. Which deployment strategy offers the simplest implementation, and what trade-off are you accepting?
An FRQ describes a scenario where a critical bug is discovered 10 minutes after deployment. Rank Blue-Green, Rolling Update, and Canary by how quickly each enables rollback, and explain why.