OPS06-BP05 Deploy using parallel environments - AWS Well-Architected Framework (2023-04-10)

OPS06-BP05 Deploy using parallel environments

Implement changes onto parallel environments, and then transition over to the new environment. Maintain the prior environment until there is confirmation of successful deployment. Doing so minimizes recovery time by permitting rollback to the previous environment.

Common anti-patterns:

  • You perform a mutable deployment by modifying your existing systems. After discovering that the change was unsuccessful, you are forced to modify the systems again to restore the old version extending your time to recovery.

  • During a maintenance window, you decommission the old environment and then start building your new environment. Many hours into the procedure, you discover unrecoverable issues with the deployment. While extremely tired, you are forced to find the previous deployment procedures and start rebuilding the old environment.

Benefits of establishing this best practice: By using parallel environments, you can pre-deploy the new environment and transition over to them when desired. If the new environment is not successful, you can recover quickly by transitioning back to your original environment.

Level of risk exposed if this best practice is not established: Medium

Implementation guidance

Resources

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