Types of Deployment Strategies

Introduction

How do businesses ensure that software updates are seamless and do not disturb the user experience? Which deployment strategies do businesses prefer? How can you choose the best strategy for your needs? The answers to these questions will determine how successful modern software deployment is. This blog will discuss software deployment strategies, the best options available, and how to select the one that best suits your business’s goals. Let’s discuss the details!

What is “Deployment Strategy”?

Deployment strategy is an approach followed by most businesses to streamline their software development, deployment, and delivery. It focuses on designing a structured approach to build, test, and deploy the application with minimal downtime, failure, and disruptions.

While deployment and release seem to be similar, however, there are differences in them. ‘Deployment’ is a rolling-out application that may or may not be immediately available to the end users. It may be available for further feature testing. On the other hand, ‘Release’ is rolling out a specific version of the software already in production.

Why do we need a deployment strategy?

Every IT sector has its IT setup and environment. Requirements and complexity may differ depending on the type and size of the organization. Hence, it becomes an important aspect for the Dev-Ops team to Plan the cloud deployment strategies that aligns with those requirements.

This planning helps in maintaining a smooth and consistent deployment. Making use of continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD), rollback to a previous version in case of any failure and tracking the health and performance of the software in production in real-time without affecting the user experience are some of the benefits of defining application deployment strategy for an IT organization.

Types of deployment strategies

A/B Testing deployment

This deployment strategy involves routing a portion of user traffic to another version and then comparing both versions against the analytical data collected via the monitoring tool. In this, both the Versions of the software to be tested run side by side. The version that performs better, i.e. good user experience and stability, is production ready.

A/B testing deployment seems similar to canary deployment. However, it differs from Canary via the fact that A/B deployment is about comparing the two test versions of a software release. Whereas Canary is testing a new version of the software in a production-like environment before its release.

Benefits:

• Test in a production environment with the real user before release.
• Data-driven real-time insights
• Support for rollback
• Test features before affecting all the users

Canary deployment

This deployment strategy refers to progressively rolling out new releases of the software to a subset of users known as canary users and then gradually increasing the traffic or migrating the traffic to the new version via a load balancer. It’s useful in the early detection of issues and helps in mitigating any risks that may have affected a large number of users.

Benefits:

• Mitigates risk by affecting a small number of users if any potential issue exists.
• Immediate rollback
• No downtime

Blue-Green deployment

In this strategy, we have a blue environment (the stable/old version) and a green environment (the new version) which run simultaneously side by side. Once the new version is thoroughly tested for all the validations and requirements, the traffic is shifted from blue to green with the help of a load balancer. It’s also known as the “Red-Black deployment”. However, the database schema should remain the same for both environments. Once the traffic has been shifted to the green environment, the blue environment becomes idle. Future versions of the software can be tested and deployed in this environment.

Benefits:

• Zero downtime
• Easy rollback in case of version test failure
• Increased reliability because the blue (older version) is always available

Continuous deployment (CD)

It’s an automated software deployment strategy. This methodology is followed in most organizations. It works alongside CI (Continuous Integration) for the continuous delivery of software.

The code is pushed to the remote repository, followed by code build, test, deploy, and monitor. Scripts to automate this workflow are written in PowerShell or bash file format. Other languages such as Python can also be used to achieve this automation.

The testing has various phases:

• Unit testing: Individual components of the software application or modules are tested.
• Integration testing: once the individual modules are tested, the data between the dependent modules are tested.
• Security testing: Detecting potential threats and vulnerabilities in the application. This may include system software security, client and server-side application security, and network security.
• Performance testing: Recording the behavior of the application under a certain load. Factors like load, response time, and stability are key parameters that are focused here.
• User Acceptance testing: This testing is done at the user’s end to validate if the software is working according to the given business scenario.

Big-Bang deployment

In this deployment strategy, the changes are rolled out to the production environment all at once. This type of deployment requires enough testing to make sure that changes work perfectly and that there is no dependency issue. Unlike incremental deployment, where changes are deployed slowly in batches, this strategy focuses on deploying changes directly on the production server.

There are risks associated with this kind of deployment as changes are directly reflected in production. Any major issue unaddressed/skipped to validate changes may result in application downtime. And it would become difficult to roll back to the previous version.

Benefits:

• Simple deployment strategy.
• No complex requirements.
• Useful when the production team is experienced and large changes required to be deployed immediately

Shadow deployment

In this deployment strategy, a shadow version of the application runs side by side with the existing version. The requests received by the existing version are replicated and transferred through the new version to check how it will behave when it goes online. The new version is not immediately exposed to the users.

With this technique, one can test features and even updates in real time without having to wait for the post-deployment test. One needs to have a good infrastructure capacity to support this kind of deployment.

Benefits:

• Zero downtime
• Testing in a real scenario with cloned user traffic
• Useful for migrations such as databases

Recreate Deployment

This is the simplest deployment strategy which is manually achieved. This strategy is used when users on the application can handle downtime. In this deployment strategy, the older version of the application is shut down completely and the newer version is set to replace the older one. This results in downtime.

This approach is generally used when the organization wants a completely fresh version of the software. Since there is no migrating user traffic from one version to another, there is no requirement for a load balancer here.

Benefits:

• Simplest and clean deployment.
• Cheaper option as there is only one environment to manage

Rolling deployment

Suppose we have a set of servers utilized in our production environment. We want to roll an update to the production environment to test the changes. With rolling deployment, changes are rolled to one server at a time in a round-robin fashion. This allows us to test each server before moving to the next.

This is in contrast with “Ramped deployment” in a way that it focuses on rolling changes/updates to the percentage of servers, testing them, and then increasing that percentage gradually over a period when stability is achieved after every test. However, the rollback may take the same amount of time as the roll as it will have to follow the same algorithm.

Benefits:

• Zero downtime as some instances are always running.
• Efficient use of the infrastructure
• Easy monitoring.

How to choose the right deployment strategy?

Planning, testing, automating, and applying updates are all part of a well-defined strategies deployment process, which guarantees seamless delivery, little downtime, and peak performance. There are many important considerations for seamless, efficient, and reliable deployments. Let’s explore these crucial pointers!

Assessing the budget and resources required for the defined deployment strategy i.e. do we have the required budget and resources to set up the infra?

Does the chosen approach align with the business requirements i.e. minimal risk and downtime, secured networks?

If there is an application downtime, then what level of impact will it have on the ongoing business, and can the organization handle such scenarios?

Analyzing the need for immediate rollback to the previous version of the software in case of any potential bugs and issues.

Does the project be worked on require advanced deployment architecture or can it be limited to simple deployment strategies in cloud deployment?

Conclusion

Choosing the right deployment approach is critical to ensure smooth software upgrades, minimal downtime, and a positive user experience. Understanding your project will help you choose the best deployment approach. A thoughtful deployment strategy guarantees effective delivery and business continuity, regardless of your goals for automation, simplicity, or real-time testing. Make smart evaluations and encourage software releases that are successful!

FAQ

What are software deployment strategies?
Software deployment strategies are systematic approaches to plan release, testing, and deployment that guarantee smooth updates with minimal downtime, improved user experience, and fewer risks.

Why is a seamless software update critical for businesses?
Businesses can remain competitive while implementing improved features and improvements effectively with seamless upgrades, which guarantee ongoing operations, maintain consumer trust, and continue productivity.

What are the most commonly preferred deployment strategies?
Popular deployment strategies that are suited to specific needs like risk reduction, testing, and scalability. Some of the popular techniques are Blue-Green, Canary, A/B Testing, Rolling, and Continuous Deployment.

What is Canary Deployment, and why is it widely used?
Canary Deployment is ideal for reducing risk in production situations since it enables safe rollbacks and discovers problems early by introducing adjustments to a subset of users steadily.

How can businesses minimize downtime during deployments?
Businesses reduce downtime by using approaches such as Blue-Green Deployment, Canary Deployment, and Continuous Deployment, as well as solid CI/CD pipelines and real-time monitoring tools.

How do businesses ensure data security during deployments?
Encrypted connections, secure authentication, periodic vulnerability testing, and compliance with industry requirements such as GDPR or ISO certifications through deployment all enhance data security.

How can I determine the best deployment strategy for my business?
Evaluate factors like project size, downtime tolerance, rollback needs, infrastructure, and business goals to choose a deployment strategy that aligns with your requirements.

What tools are commonly used for deployment automation?
Jenkins, Kubernetes, Docker, GitLab CI/CD, Ansible, and Terraform are well-known tools that facilitate effective, automated, and reliable deployment procedures.

What are the challenges in implementing deployment strategies?
The management of downtime, rollback capabilities, automation tool integration, infrastructure scalability, and data security during the deployment process are among the challenges.

How does CodeStore Solutions help businesses with deployment strategies?
CodeStore offers customized deployment plans with cutting-edge solutions that guarantee smooth upgrades, less downtime, improved security, and scalability to meet the objectives of your business.