From Big Bang to Canary: Exploring Software Deployment Strategies for a Flawless Release with Cheatsheet

Love Sharma
ByteByteGo System Design Alliance
6 min readJul 18, 2023

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Software deployment is a challenging and integral aspect of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). Developers and teams must deploy software applications efficiently and effectively as the software industry proliferates. Continuous deployment and integration have become mainstream with DevOps and Agile practices. Consequently, various software deployment strategies have emerged, each with unique strengths and potential applications.

This article explores eight key software deployment strategies: Big Bang, Rolling, Canary, Blue-Green, A/B Testing, Shadow, Immutable, and Feature Toggle. We'll explore what they entail and how they can be applied in real-world scenarios.

Software Deployment Strategies: Cheatsheet

Top 5 Most widely used strategies

1. Big Bang Deployment

The Big Bang deployment strategy refers to an all-at-once approach. It means the new software version is made live simultaneously, replacing the older version. While this approach can be simple, it also carries risks. If there's a problem, the entire system can be affected.

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Love Sharma
ByteByteGo System Design Alliance

Love is an experience cloud engineer with a demonstrated history of building large scale enterprise application.