Full-Stack Architecture Patterns

Chapter 14: Deployment Architecture

14.1 Deployment Patterns

Deployment patterns define how applications are released to production. Choose patterns based on requirements.

Blue-Green Deployment:

• Run two identical production environments
• Deploy to inactive environment (green)
• Switch traffic from blue to green
• Zero downtime deployment
• Easy rollback

Canary Deployment:

• Deploy new version to small subset of users
• Monitor for issues
• Gradually increase traffic
• Rollback if problems detected
• Lower risk than full deployment

Rolling Deployment:

• Update servers incrementally
• Deploy to subset of servers
• Gradually update remaining servers
• Maintains service availability

Feature Flags:

• Deploy code with features disabled
• Enable features via configuration
• Test in production safely
• Quick rollback by disabling flag

14.2 CI/CD Pipelines

CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) automates testing and deployment processes.

Continuous Integration (CI):

• Automatically test code on commit
• Run unit and integration tests
• Check code quality
• Build application
• Provide feedback quickly

Continuous Deployment (CD):

• Automatically deploy to production
• After successful CI pipeline
• Reduces manual deployment errors
• Faster release cycles

# CI/CD Pipeline Example (.github/workflows/deploy.yml)
name: Deploy
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm install
      - name: Run tests
        run: npm test
      - name: Build
        run: npm run build
  
  deploy:
    needs: test
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Deploy to production
        run: ./deploy.sh

CI/CD Tools:

• GitHub Actions: Built into GitHub
• GitLab CI: Integrated with GitLab
• Jenkins: Self-hosted automation
• CircleCI: Cloud-based CI/CD
• AWS CodePipeline: AWS-native pipeline

14.3 Containerization

Containers package applications with dependencies for consistent deployment.

Docker:

• Containerization platform
• Consistent environments
• Easy deployment
• Isolation from host system

# Dockerfile example
FROM node:16
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm install
COPY . .
EXPOSE 3000
CMD ["npm", "start"]

Container Orchestration:

• Kubernetes: Container orchestration
• Docker Swarm: Docker-native orchestration
• ECS: AWS container service

14.4 Monitoring and Rollback

Monitor deployments and have rollback strategies ready.

• Monitor application health after deployment
• Track error rates and performance metrics
• Set up alerts for issues
• Maintain previous version for quick rollback
• Test rollback procedures