Best practices for monitoring dark launches

A dark launch is a deployment strategy for testing new versions of a service in production without affecting users. Monitoring is essential during a dark launch to ensure the success of the new version and prevent any issues in infrastructure. Key practices include tracking SLIs, identifying unexpected response payloads, ensuring proper capacity, and spotting unintended service interactions. Datadog provides a comprehensive platform for monitoring dark launches with features like Unified Service Tagging, Deployment Tracking, Synthetic API tests, browser tests, SLO management, collaboration tools, and integration with various services and technologies.