Continuous Blue-Green Deployments With Kubernetes

The article explores the implementation of blue-green deployments in a CI/CD pipeline using Kubernetes, detailing the process of managing two identical environments—blue and green—to facilitate risk-free updates. The blue-green deployment strategy allows continuous updates by having one environment serve users while the other is updated, tested, and prepared for production, thereby minimizing downtime and enabling quick rollbacks if necessary. Kubernetes is highlighted as an ideal orchestration platform due to its ability to dynamically manage resources and automate the deployment process. The article outlines the creation of Kubernetes manifests and the use of Istio for routing and traffic management, as well as the integration of Semaphore for continuous integration and delivery. It further provides instructions on setting up deployment, testing, and activation pipelines, emphasizing the importance of sanity checks and the use of Git tags to manage releases. The piece concludes with suggestions for adapting the pipeline for various applications and cloud environments, encouraging experimentation and modification to suit different needs.