Terms

Canary Releases

What are Canary Releases?

Canary releases, also known as canary deployments, are a deployment pattern that allows new code or features to be rolled out to a subset of users as an initial test. This technique reduces the risk of introducing a new software version in production by slowly rolling out the change to a small group of users before making it available to everyone, allowing developers to monitor the impact on the production environment and providing a safe rollback strategy if issues are found.

Introduction

Canary deployments, a technique originating from the coal mining days, involve rolling out new code or features to a small subset of users for initial testing. This approach offers benefits such as zero downtime, easy rollouts, quick rollbacks, and added safety due to the gradual release process. Canary releases are particularly useful for web-based systems and high-risk changes that cannot be adequately tested in staging environments.

Implementing canary releases involves hosting two versions of a product and controlling the traffic routed to each. For installed products, a new version is made available to a subset of users, but the update application process is less controlled. Companies like Facebook use multiple canaries, with the first one being visible only to their internal employees. This strategy helps reduce the risk of introducing new software versions in production environments.

Benefits of Canary Releases

  • Early Warning: Provides early detection of potential issues, allowing developers to address problems before they affect the entire user base.
  • Capacity Testing: Enables testing in a production environment with a safe rollback strategy if problems arise.
  • Monitor and Capture Metrics: Allows gradual rollout of changes while monitoring and capturing metrics on how the new version impacts the production environment.
  • A/B Testing: Facilitates A/B testing due to similarities in technical implementation.
  • Deploy High-Risk Changes: Suitable for deploying high-risk changes that cannot be adequately tested in staging environments.
  • CI/CD Integration: Effective strategy in Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, limiting the impact of issues by initially releasing changes to a small subset of users.

Steps to Implement

To implement canary releases, follow these steps:

  • Create Clones: Create two clones of the production environment.
  • Set Up Load Balancer: Set up a load balancer that initially sends all traffic to one version.
  • Develop New Functionality: Create new functionality in the other version.
  • Deploy and Shift Traffic: Deploy the new software version and shift a percentage (e.g., 10%) of the user base to the new version while maintaining the rest on the old version.
  • Gradual Rollout: Gradually roll out the new version to more users if no errors are reported, or roll back if issues arise.

Consider these best practices during implementation:

  • Deploy Subset: Start by deploying the new version to a subset of the infrastructure with no users routed to it.
  • Select Users: Choose a strategy to select users who will see the new version (e.g., random sample, internal users, or based on user demographics).
  • Increase Confidence: Gain confidence in the new version by releasing it to more servers and routing more users to it.
  • Use PhoenixServers or ImmutableServers: Repurpose or provision new infrastructure using these methods.
  • Apply ParallelChange: Manage multiple versions of the software and database changes effectively.

Challenges and Solutions

Despite the benefits of canary releases, challenges may arise, such as ensuring new software versions work properly without causing issues for users, balancing the need for a fast deployment strategy with the need to catch bugs, managing the expense of maintaining multiple server instances, and deciding whether to clone databases during canary deployment. To overcome these challenges, consider implementing canary deployment to gradually roll out new features, using feature flags and feature management platforms like Split, and leveraging resources and community support to learn about best practices and strategies.

Innovative approaches to tackle challenges include using random sampling, internal users, or user demographics to choose which users will see the new version, repurposing existing infrastructure using PhoenixServers or provisioning new infrastructure using ImmutableServers, and using partitioning strategies in large, distributed scenarios. Successful solutions include Facebook's release process, which uses multiple canaries, and IMVU's cluster immune system, which monitors business metrics and automatically rolls back a release on a statistically significant regression.

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