This document discusses canary deployments as a technique for reducing risk when introducing new code to production. It defines canary deployments as deploying new code to a small subset of servers first before fully deploying. Canary deployments allow testing the new code on real users before rolling out widely. CA Release Automation supports defining and executing canary deployments to help reliably deploy new functionality while mitigating risks of failures. The document provides examples of how Netflix and Etsy use canary deployments and demonstrates a typical canary deployment workflow supported by CA Release Automation.

1. TechTalk: Reducing Risk with Canary
Deployments
Marta Benach
DevOps: Continuous Delivery
CA Technologies
Sr. Engineering Services Architect
DO4T32T
@TwitterHandle
#CAWorld

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© 2015 CA. All rights reserved. All trademarks referenced herein belong to their respective companies.
The content provided in this CA World 2015 presentation is intended for informational purposes only and does not form any type of
warranty. The information provided by a CA partner and/or CA customer has not been reviewed for accuracy by CA.
For Informational Purposes Only
Terms of this Presentation

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Abstract
During this session, we’ll discuss concepts like
Canary, Blue/Green and A/B deployments. We
will show you just how easy it is to use CA
Release Automation to automate these
advanced techniques to reduce your overall risk
and ensure that the applications you are
deploying will perform as expected.
Marta
Benach
CA Technologies
Principal Engineering
Services Architect

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Agenda
WHAT IS A CANARY DEPLOYMENT
DEPLOYMENT TYPES
NETFLIX/ETSY CANARY DEPLOYMENT
HOW RELEASE AUTOMATION SUPPORTS CANARY DEPLOYMENTS
QUESTIONS
1
2
3
4
5

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Every company
is becoming a
technology company,
every business a digital
business.
Re-think how the
business operates to find
new ways to create and
deliver customer value.DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
Increase agility Increase qualityIncrease release
velocity and cadence
CONTINUOUS DELIVERY
The Ability to Reliably Release High-Quality Applications at Any Time

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What is a canary deployment?
The basic idea of a canary
deployment is to deploy
new code to a small
subset of your production
infrastructure to see how
the new code (the canary)
compares to the old code
(the baseline).

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How do canary deployments help us?
 Reducing risk/increases
confidence in the release
 Contain failure/faster
recovery due to failure
 Faster time to end user
 Key technique of
Continuous Delivery

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Deployment and Testing Techniques
A/B
Testing performance
and usability,
generally front-end
testing
Blue/Green
Two identical
product systems in
which one is live and
the other is standby
Canary
Rolling out code to a
small subset of
servers/users at a
time, sometimes
referred to as a
phased or
incremental rollout

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A/B Testing
 A randomized experiment
with variations in the
application.
 A subset of users is exposed
to each version.
 Metrics are collected and
used to determine
effectiveness (performance,
usability). Christian Posta, “Dzone, Blue-green Deployments, A/B Testing and Canary Releases,”
https://dzone.com/articles/blue-green-deployments-ab-testing-and-canary-relea-2
50% visitors
see variation A
50% visitors
see variation B
variation A
variation B
23%conversion
11%conversion

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Blue Green Deployments
Releasing Applications in a consistent manner with limited down time
 Two identical production systems,
Blue and Green
 Either Blue or Green is live at any
given time
 New code is pushed to the standby
system(Green) and tested
 New users are directed to Green, active
Blue users are gradually directed to
Green when active sessions timeout
 Blue then becomes standby system
Reverse
proxy
App1 App3
DB
App2
App1 App3
DB
App2
Reverse
proxy
App1 App3
DB
App2
App1 App3
DB
App2
Christian Posta —Dzone —Blue-green Deployments, A/B Testing and Canary Releases
https://dzone.com/articles/blue-green-deployments-ab-testing-and-canary-relea-2

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Canary Deployments
Christian Posta —Dzone —Blue-green Deployments, A/B Testing and Canary Releases
https://dzone.com/articles/blue-green-deployments-ab-testing-and-canary-relea-2
 Canary in the coalmine—warns
of danger.
 A small subset of servers are taken off
the load balancer.
 The latest build is deployed to the
subset and tested.
 After successful testing, code is
fully deployed.
LOADBALANCER
v1 v1 v1
v1 v1

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A Few Examples
 Online video streaming service
 Continuous delivery model
 Deploy after every commit
 Canary deployments
– Test.
– Gather metrics.
– Analyze.
– Release to full production.
 A premier destination for handmade
goods, vintage items and craft supplies.
 Continuous delivery model
 Configuration as code/database schema
changes
 Canary Deployments
– Test.
– Gather Metrics.
– Analyze.
– Release.
ETSYNETFLIX

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Canary Deployments with Release Automation
 Ability to deploy code to limited number of servers
during deployment
 Dynamically add/remove servers to canary group
 Ability to execute canary deployments in all
environments not just prod
 Rollback for failures
 Run staggered and scheduled deployments
 Clear visualization of the deployment status
 Consistent delivery of the artifacts

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A Typical Canary Deployment Scenario with
CA Release Automation
Stage artifacts for
deployments, including:
build artifacts, test scripts,
config files and deployment
manifests.
Remove canary servers
from load balancing.
Upgrade canary
application.
Proceed with automated
testing
of application
Restore Canary servers
to load balancing
(connectivity and
sanity checks).
Upgrade the rest of the
servers if the Canary
testing with live usage is
successful (otherwise
rollback).

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Pipeline Report
Canary Environment

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Pre-Deployment

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Deployment

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Post Deployment

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Canary Deployments with CA Release Automation
• A deployment technique helps to reduce risk while introducing new content to production.
• Easily define and execute canary deployments with CA Release Automation.
• Consistently and reliably deploy new functionality to production environments.
• Fail faster and mitigate risk.
Notice: No canaries were harmed during the creation of this presentation.
Summary

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Recommended Sessions
SESSION # TITLE DATE/TIME
DO4T06S
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Solutions Help You Lead the Way
11/18/2015 at 2:00 pm
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Q & A

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For More Information
To learn more, please visit:
http://cainc.to/Nv2VOe
CA World ’15