Deployment Strategies: Blue-Green, Canary and Rolling

AWS Cloud & DevOps Engineering · Lesson 34 · DevOps Automation and IaC

Lesson Overview

Provisioning with Terraform or CDK is not the same as releasing safely. When TechLearningPro cuts over a new progress API or enrollment service build, learners are mid-session and payments may be in flight. Blue/green, canary, and rolling deployments shift traffic with different risk, cost, and speed profiles. On AWS you realize them with ALB target groups, ECS deployment controllers, Lambda aliases/versions with weighted traffic, and CodeDeploy for coordinated cutovers—including the classic TechLearningPro API cutover story.

Elastic Load Balancing and Route 53, Amazon ECS and AWS Fargate, and AWS Lambda and Serverless Fundamentals supply the primitives. CI/CD Pipeline Fundamentals and CodePipeline/GitHub Actions lessons supply the promotion path. This lesson designs health gates, rollback, and database compatibility so cutovers do not require wishful thinking.

Budget for dual fleets during blue/green. Tag Project=tlp-lesson34. Clean up extra target groups and services after labs.

Learning Objectives

1. Compare blue/green, canary, and rolling on risk, cost, and complexity.
2. Map strategies onto ALB, ECS, Lambda, and CodeDeploy capabilities at teaching depth.
3. Design health gates: what must be green before more traffic moves.
4. Plan rollback: instant weight shift vs re-deploy vs scale-down green.
5. Keep database schemas forward/backward compatible across overlapping versions.
6. Narrate a TechLearningPro API cutover using weighted target groups or CodeDeploy.
7. Choose canary metrics: error rate, latency, business KPIs (enrollment success).
8. Avoid “deploy without observe” and “all traffic at once on Friday.”
9. Account for warm-up, connection draining, and task/Lambda concurrency.
10. Integrate strategy choice into ADRs and pipeline stages.
11. Recognize when rolling is enough vs when canary is mandatory.
12. Budget for parallel environments during blue/green.
13. Test failure injection: force unhealthy green and prove rollback.
14. Connect to observability Module 4 teasers—alarms as gates.
15. Preview policy-as-code preventing unapproved wide-open cutovers (lesson 35).

Prerequisites

• ALB/Route 53, ECS/Fargate, Lambda, API Gateway lessons.
• CI/CD and GitHub Actions / CodePipeline lessons.
• IaC lessons 29–33 for provisioning target groups and services as code.
• Budget alert; comfort reading CloudWatch metrics at a basic level.

Detailed Core Concepts

Rolling

Replace instances/tasks gradually in place. Cost-efficient; rollback can be slower; mixed versions coexist briefly. ECS rolling updates with minimum healthy percents are the common shape.

Blue/green

Two full environments: blue (live) and green (new). Switch traffic via ALB listener rules, target group weights, DNS (careful with TTL), or CodeDeploy. Fast rollback by switching back. Costs roughly 2× compute during the window.

Canary

Send a small percentage of traffic to the new version; raise gradually if healthy. Lambda weighted aliases and CodeDeploy canary configs are canonical. Best when blast radius must stay tiny.

Health gates

Automated checks: ALB health checks, CloudWatch alarms, synthetic canaries, error-rate thresholds. Human gates for high-risk schema changes. Gates that do not block traffic are decorations.

Rollback

Precompute the rollback action: set weight to 0 on green; revert alias; ECS previous task def. Practice it. Rollback that requires rebuilding artifacts is not rollback—it is a new project.

Database compatibility

Expand/contract migrations: add columns nullable first; dual-write if needed; remove later. Never deploy a green that cannot read blue’s rows or vice versa during overlap. Enrollment and payments tables are especially unforgiving.

TechLearningPro API cutover

Example: progress API on ECS behind ALB. Green service registers to green target group. CodeDeploy or manual weight shift 10% → 50% → 100% with alarms on 5xx and p95 latency. If enrollment start fails spike, weight returns to blue in minutes. Communicate in status page language learners understand—“degraded progress sync” beats silence.

Architecture and Design Diagrams

mermaidCopy
flowchart LR
  Users[Learners]
  ALB[ALB listener]
  BlueTG[Blue target group]
  GreenTG[Green target group]
  Blue[Blue tasks/versions]
  Green[Green tasks/versions]
  Users --> ALB
  ALB -->|weights| BlueTG --> Blue
  ALB -->|weights| GreenTG --> Green

Canary decision loop:

mermaidCopy
flowchart TB
  Deploy[Deploy green/canary]
  Gate{Health gates}
  More[Increase traffic %]
  Hold[Hold / rollback]
  Deploy --> Gate
  Gate -->|pass| More --> Gate
  Gate -->|fail| Hold

Technical Explanation

ALB weighted target groups

Listeners can forward with weights across target groups. Shift gradually; drain connections; watch unhealthy host counts.

ECS

Deployment configuration controls rolling behavior. Blue/green with CodeDeploy for ECS is a documented pattern—verify current ECS/CodeDeploy integration requirements (load balancer hooks, IAM).

Lambda

Publish versions; alias weights for canary. Integrate with CodeDeploy for automatic rollback hooks when alarms fire—configure per current Lambda/CodeDeploy docs.

CodeDeploy

Orchestrates traffic shifting and lifecycle hooks (prove green before continue). Appspec semantics differ by compute platform—read the guide for ECS vs Lambda vs EC2/On-Premises.

Performance

Cold starts on Lambda canaries can skew latency—evaluate with enough samples. ECS may need warm tasks before shifting.

Security

Deploy roles least privilege; do not grant prod traffic shift to every developer laptop. Audit who changed weights.

Practical Implementation or Design Walkthrough

Problem

Design a canary release for TechLearningPro progress API with automated health evaluation and rollback path—implemented at least as a detailed design with optional sandbox ALB weights lab.

Steps

1. Define SLOs: error rate, latency, enrollment/progress success proxy.
2. Provision blue/green target groups (IaC) or Lambda alias.
3. Deploy green without traffic.
4. Shift small weight; observe window.
5. Inject fault (bad health check path); prove rollback.
6. Document DB compatibility checklist for the release.
7. Clean up lab dual fleets.

Enterprise Real-World Scenarios

DNS cutover with high TTL

Rollback slow. Prefer ALB weights.

Incompatible migration

Green writes column blue cannot read. Outage. Expand/contract fix.

Canary too small to see errors

1% of tiny traffic never trips alarms. Size the bake time and traffic to statistical usefulness.

Rolling during peak without min healthy

Capacity collapse. Fix percentages.

No rollback owner

Everyone watches dashboards; nobody has permission to shift weights. Pre-authorize.

Best Practices

1. Choose strategy explicitly in ADR.
2. Automate gates.
3. Practice rollback.
4. Expand/contract DB.
5. Prefer ALB weights over DNS for app cutovers.
6. Budget dual fleets.
7. Align canary metrics with business KPIs.
8. Drain connections.
9. Keep artifacts immutable (image digests/versions).
10. Separate deploy permission from everyday IAM.
11. Communicate during enrollment week.
12. Load test green before large shifts.
13. Tag blue/green resources.
14. Cleanup unfinished canaries.
15. Feed alarms into Module 4 observability.

Common Mistakes and Anti-Patterns

1. All-at-once Friday deploys.
2. No health gates.
3. Breaking schema changes mid-canary.
4. DNS-only cutovers with long TTL.
5. Canary without rollback permission.
6. Ignoring cost of blue/green windows.
7. Mixed configs not just mixed code versions.
8. Using rolling when regulatory risk needs canary.
9. Measuring only CPU not error rate.
10. Leaving green fleets running for weeks.

Troubleshooting and Design Review

Interview Questions and Answers

Q1: Blue/green vs canary? A: Full parallel env switch vs gradual %-based exposure.
Q2: Rolling downside? A: Mixed versions; slower rollback sometimes.
Q3: ALB role? A: Weighted target groups for traffic shift.
Q4: Lambda canary? A: Version + alias weights / CodeDeploy.
Q5: Health gate examples? A: ALB checks, CloudWatch alarms, synthetics.
Q6: DB compatibility? A: Expand/contract; dual versions must coexist.
Q7: Rollback? A: Predefined traffic shift back; practiced.
Q8: Cost? A: Blue/green doubles compute during window.
Q9: When rolling enough? A: Low risk, stateless, easy revert artifacts.
Q10: CodeDeploy? A: Orchestrates shifts and hooks.
Q11: Enrollment week? A: Prefer canary with tight alarms.
Q12: Metrics? A: Errors, latency, business success.
Q13: Connection draining? A: Let in-flight finish before deregister.
Q14: IaC relation? A: Target groups/services defined as code.
Q15: Failure injection? A: Prove gates and rollback in lab.

Hands-On Exercises

Exercise: Design a canary with automated health evaluation

Produce architecture, metric gates, rollback steps, DB checklist, and optional ALB weight lab evidence.

Challenge ADR

Pick strategy for payments API vs static content service—different answers expected.

Lab evidence checklist

Diagram, gate thresholds, rollback runbook snippet, cost note, cleanup.

Narrative: TechLearningPro API cutover

Walk 0→10→50→100 with a mid-course rollback when p95 spiked; blue saved the board.

Continuity

Policy as code next—prevent pipelines from skipping canary on prod.

TechLearningPro API cutover playbook (teaching depth)

1. Green ECS service reaches steady healthy count on green target group with 0% listener weight. 2. Synthetic checks hit green directly via test listener rule or internal header routing if designed. 3. Shift 5–10% of production traffic; watch 5xx, p95, enrollment/progress success counters for a bake window. 4. Raise to 50% if healthy. 5. Raise to 100%. 6. Keep blue scaled for rapid rollback until soak completes. 7. Decommission blue per change ticket.

If step 3 fails, set green weight to 0 immediately; leave blue at 100%; open incident; do not “quickly fix forward” on enrollment week without a second decision maker.

Record every weight change with identity—CodeDeploy helps; manual console clicks need chat + ticket evidence.

Lambda canary specifics

Publish version N; alias live sends 5% to N and 95% to N-1; CloudWatch alarms on errors/throttles trigger CodeDeploy rollback when hooked. Mind concurrency: a tiny canary that only hits warm containers may hide cold-start issues—evaluate honestly. Payload compatibility: new versions must accept old event shapes until consumers move.

Rolling update parameters that matter

Minimum healthy percent and maximum percent during ECS rolling deployments determine capacity. Too aggressive and you dip below what ALB needs. Pair with circuit breakers / deployment failure detection features as documented for your platform version. Rolling is not “no strategy”—it is a strategy with knobs.

Database expand/contract worked example

Release A adds nullable progress_schema_version. Green writes it; blue ignores it. Release B makes green read/write new structure. Release C removes legacy fields after blue is gone. Never combine C with the first green cutover. Payments tables follow the same discipline with even less humor.

Health checks that lie

A shallow /health that returns 200 without checking dependency connectivity will pass canaries that cannot reach DynamoDB. Prefer dependency-aware health or separate readiness vs liveness semantics—and do not DDoS yourself with health checks that hit expensive queries.

Cost model without fake prices

Blue/green doubles task count during the window; NAT and ALB are mostly shared; idle green after cutover is waste. Set calendar reminders to scale down. Finance should see tags DeploymentColor=green.

Route 53 vs ALB for cutover

DNS can blue/green entire environments across regions; TTL and client caching complicate rollback. For service-level API cutover inside one region, ALB weights (or API Gateway stage/canary features where applicable) are usually tighter. Use DNS for coarse geographic or domain-level shifts you already designed in lesson 12.

CodeDeploy hooks narrative

BeforeAllowTraffic runs integration proves; AfterAllowTraffic runs post checks; failures stop the train. Implement hooks as small Lambdas with clear logs. Flaky hooks create fear that causes engineers to skip CodeDeploy—fix the flakes.

Game day: forced unhealthy green

Deliberately break green health; prove automatic or manual rollback; time it; write the minutes into the lab report. Untested rollback is fictional rollback.

Choosing strategy matrix for interviews

Session stickiness complications

If sticky sessions pin learners to blue, canary traffic percentages lie. Prefer sticky-free progress APIs with shared state in DynamoDB/Redis. If stickiness is required, design canary measurement accordingly.

Linking back to Step Functions versions

Workflow definition changes are also releases—lesson 23 teased versioned machines. Apply canary thinking: dual versions, gradual EventBridge target shift, rollback to prior ARN.

Extended practice scenario 1 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 2 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 3 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 4 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 5 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 6 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 7 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 8 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 9 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 10 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 11 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 12 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 13 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 14 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 15 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 16 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 17 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 18 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 19 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 20 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 21 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 22 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 23 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 24 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Extended practice scenario 25 — 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling

In a timed drill, implement or design the core lab for 34 deployment strategies blue green canary and rolling with a partner observing. The observer’s job is to stop any step that invents API flags, hardcodes secrets, or skips budget and cleanup. After the drill, rewrite your ADR in ten lines: context, decision, consequences. Attach evidence: commands run, screenshots of tagged resources, policy or plan output, and destroy confirmation.

Discuss how this lesson’s tooling interacts with IAM least privilege, VPC private placement, and CI promotion rules from earlier modules. List two failure modes you personally witnessed or simulated, including detection and fix. Estimate cost drivers you touched and how long resources remained before teardown.

Finally, teach back the lesson overview paragraph from memory, then check against the text. Gaps in the teach-back become your flashcards. Premium courses are not finished when the Markdown ends—they are finished when you can operate the ideas under time pressure without opening the console as a first resort.

Lesson Summary

Blue/green, canary, and rolling are deliberate traffic strategies with different cost and risk. Realize them with ALB, ECS, Lambda, and CodeDeploy; gate on health; keep schemas compatible; practice rollback. TechLearningPro’s API cutover succeeds when weights and alarms—not hope—decide.

Next: Policy as Code and Infrastructure Compliance.

Further Reading

• CodeDeploy User Guide
• ECS deployment strategies
• Lambda aliases
• ALB listener rules
• Elastic Load Balancing docs