Deployment patterns

Classical deployment pattern

Dev -> Test -> Staging -> Production

In a classical development and deployment environment, (monolithic) software moves in stages between environments culminating in a "feature release" like a dump truck delivering a load of dirt.

Dump truck in Acre, Brazil

Modern deployment patterns

In a Continuous Delivery environment, where testing is encouraged in "Production", changes are not delivered in a "big bang". It's possible to deploy features without exposing them to all users.

For example:

•    Blue-green deployments
•    Canary releases
•    Dark launching
•    A/B testing
•    Progressive exposure or ring-based deployment
•    Feature toggles