Roll Back Faulty Deployment

Rolling back a deployed app that is faulty involves a series of steps to revert to a previous stable state.

1. Identify the Problem

• Monitoring & Logs: Check monitoring systems and logs to confirm the issue with the deployed app (performance issues, crashes, etc.).

• Error Tracing: Ensure that the issue is related to the deployment, not external factors.

2. Trigger Rollback

• Blue/Green Deployment or Canary Release: If you're using blue/green or canary deployment strategies, switching back to the previous version is often a matter of rerouting traffic to the healthy environment or stable nodes.

• Automated Rollback: In many continuous delivery pipelines, you can automate the rollback if tests fail or issues are detected. CI/CD tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI, or AWS CodeDeploy offer rollback features.

Depending on the deployment strategy, the rollback mechanism can vary:

a. Kubernetes Rollback (if using Kubernetes):

• Use kubectl rollout undo deployment <deployment-name> to revert to the last working version.

• Kubernetes keeps track of deployment revisions, so it allows you to roll back to a specific revision if necessary.

b. Version Control System (VCS) Based Rollback:

• Revert to the previous commit in the source code, and re-trigger the deployment pipeline.

• Push the reverted changes, and redeploy using the CI/CD pipeline.

c. Container-based Rollback (if using Docker):

• If using a containerized setup (e.g., Docker):

  • Roll back to a previous container version by pulling and deploying an older, stable image version.

  • Example: Change the image tag in your deployment manifest to the previous version and redeploy.

d. Cloud Service Rollback (AWS, Azure, GCP):

• For cloud-native apps, services like AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Services, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) provide rollback options.

• On AWS Elastic Beanstalk, for example, you can redeploy a previous version with a single click in the management console.

3. Rollback Verification

• Test: After rolling back, perform tests to ensure the previous version is functioning correctly.

• Monitor: Keep an eye on performance metrics and logs to ensure stability.

4. Post-Rollback Actions

• Root Cause Analysis: Investigate the root cause of the issue in the faulty deployment and fix the code/configuration that caused the failure.

• Improve Rollback Process: Document the rollback process and refine your deployment pipeline to handle such situations more efficiently in the future.

By implementing effective rollback strategies, such as blue/green deployments, canary releases, or Kubernetes-managed rollouts, teams can mitigate risks of faulty deployments and maintain application uptime.