Canary Deployments, A/B testing, and Microservices using Edge Stack

Canary deployments are a technique for incrementally testing changes on real-world traffic, allowing service teams to test multiple versions of their service simultaneously. A microservices architecture enables canary deployments by providing control over which versions of the service are being tested and when. A Layer 7 reverse proxy is necessary to support these capabilities, with Envoy Proxy or Edge Stack (a Kubernetes-native open source API Gateway built on Envoy) serving as a suitable choice. Canary deployments can be deployed using Kubernetes annotations, allowing for dynamic configuration and control over traffic routing. The process involves deploying a stable version of the service, making changes to test a canary deployment, and then rolling back if necessary, all while monitoring performance and traffic routing. This enables service teams to validate specific fixes and run A/B testing in a controlled environment.