Tony's Tech Terms: Deployment process

We use the term “deploy” a lot. But what happens when we do that? There are two processes, the classic path and new path, that are triggered by the App Dev team, but otherwise automated.

The classic path

For applications the run on Linux servers:

• Copy the code to the server.
• Compile any front-end code.
• Update configuration files.
• Execute any database changes.
• Start the new version of the application.
• Note the deployment time.
• Keep copies of the last five versions for easy rollback if needed.

The new path

For applications in containers:

• Compile the code inside a container.
• Upload the container to a University service called Artifactory.
• Download the container to the Traefik server.
• Perform a "health check" to ensure it runs correctly.
• Switch traffic to the new container once it passes the health check.
• Store previous versions in Artifactory for easy rollback if needed.

Both of these processes allow us to roll back quickly if something goes awry because we keep previous copies available. It also allows for little or no downtime because the new version of the application doesn’t come online until it’s completely ready.