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Exercise - Ring-based deployment

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In this exercise, you'll investigate ring-based deployment.

Steps

Let's look at how a release pipeline can stage features using ring-based deployments.

When I have a new feature, I might want to release it to a few users first, just in case something goes wrong.

I could do it in authenticated systems by having those users as members of a security group and letting members of that group use the new features.

However, on a public website, I might not have logged-in users. Instead, I might want to direct a small percentage of the traffic to use the new features.

Let's see how that's configured.

We'll create a new release pipeline that isn't triggered by code changes but manually when we slowly release a new feature.

We start by assuming that a new feature has already been deployed to the Green site (the staging slot).

1. In the main menu for the PU Hosted project, click Pipelines, then click Release, click +New, then click New release pipeline.

2. When prompted to select a template, click Empty job from the top of the pane.

3. Click on the Stage 1 stage and rename it to Ring 0 (Canary).

   

4. Hover over the New release pipeline name at the top of the page, and when a pencil appears, click it, and change the pipeline name to Ring-based Deployment.

   

5. Select the Ring 0 (Canary) stage from the Tasks drop-down list. Click the + to add a new task, and from the list of tasks, hover over Azure CLI when the Add button appears, click it, then click to select the Azure CLI task in the task list for the stage.

   

6. In the Azure CLI settings pane, select your Azure subscription, set Script Location to Inline script, set the Inline Script to the following, then click Save and OK.

   az webapp traffic-routing set --resource-group $(ResourceGroupName) --name $(WebsiteName) --distribution staging=10

   This distribution will cause 10% of the web traffic to be sent to the new feature Site (currently the staging slot).

7. From the menu above the task list, click Variables. Create two new variables as shown. (Make sure to use your correct website name).

   

8. From the menu above the variables, click Pipeline to return to editing the pipeline. Hover over the Ring 0 (Canary) stage and click the Clone icon when it appears. Select the new stage and rename it to Ring 1 (Early Adopters).

   

9. Select the Ring 1 (Early Adopters) stage from the Tasks drop-down list and select the Azure CLI task. Modify the script by changing the value from 10 to 30 to cause 30% of the traffic to go to the new feature site.

   

   az webapp traffic-routing set --resource-group $(ResourceGroupName) --name $(WebsiteName) --distribution staging=30

   It allows us to move the new feature into broader distribution if it works ok in smaller users.

10. From the menu above the tasks, click Pipeline to return to editing the release pipeline. Hover over the Ring 1 (Early Adopters) stage and when the Clone icon appears, click it. Click to select the new stage and rename it to Public. Click Save and OK.

    

11. Click the Pre-deployment conditions icon for the Ring 1 (Early Adopters) stage and add yourself as a pre-deployment approver. Do the same for the Public stage—Click Save and OK.

    

    The first step in releasing the new code to the public is to swap the new feature site (that is, the staging site) with the production so that production is now running the new code.

12. From the Tasks drop-down list, select the Public stage. Select the Azure CLI task, change the Display name to Swap sites and change the Inline Script to the following command:

    az webapp deployment slot swap -g $(ResourceGroupName) -n $(WebsiteName) --slot staging --target-slot production

    

    az webapp deployment slot swap -g $(ResourceGroupName) -n $(WebsiteName) --slot staging --target-slot production

    Next, we need to remove any traffic from the staging site.

13. Right-click the Swap sites task and click Clone tasks(s). Select the Swap sites copy task, change its Display name to Stop staging traffic, and set the Inline Script to the following:

az webapp traffic-routing set --resource-group $(ResourceGroupName) --name $(WebsiteName) --distribution staging=0

1. Click Save, then OK to save your work.

2. Click Create release and Create to start a release. Click the release link to see the progress.

   

   Wait until Ring 0 (Canary) has succeeded.

   

   Currently, 10% of the traffic will go to the new feature site.

3. Click Approve on the Ring 1 (Early Adopters) stage, and then Approve.

   When this stage completes, 30% of the traffic will go to the early adopters in ring 1.

   

4. Click Approve on the Public stage, and then Approve.

   When this stage completes, all the traffic will go to the swapped production site, running the new code.

   

The new feature has been fully deployed.

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