Canary Deployment
Canary deployment is a software release strategy where new versions are gradually rolled out to a small subset of users or servers before being deployed to the entire infrastructure. This approach allows teams to monitor performance, detect bugs, and gather feedback with minimal risk, as any issues affect only a limited audience. It is named after the historical practice of using canaries in coal mines to detect toxic gases, serving as an early warning system for potential problems.
Developers should use canary deployment when releasing updates to production environments, especially for critical applications where downtime or bugs could have significant business impact. It is particularly valuable for continuous delivery pipelines, A/B testing new features, and ensuring stability in microservices architectures, as it reduces the blast radius of failures and allows for quick rollbacks if issues arise.