Devops for Growth

Imagine a team that can reliably deploy a single feature to a live environment without disrupting it. They develop new features on a development-environment. The team integrates work through version-control (e.g. Git). Features are developed on a ‘develop’-branch in their version-control system. When a feature is done, it is committed to a ‘master’-branch in their version-control system. A build server picks up the commit, builds the entire codebase from scratch and runs all the automated tests it can find. When there are no issues, the build is packaged for deployment. A deployment server picks up the package, connects to the webserver/webfarm, creates a snapshot for rapid rollback and runs the deployment. The webfarm is updated one server at a time. If a problem occurs, the entire deployment is aborted and rolled back. The deployment takes place in such a manner that active users don’t experience disruptions. After a deployment, a number of automated smoke tests are run to verify that critical components are still functioning and performing. Various telemetry sensors monitor the application throughout the deployment to notify the team as soon as something breaks down.