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Mathilde Lelong
Mathilde Lelong

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#TestCulture ๐Ÿฆ… Episode 6 - Mine canaries to Canary Releasing

Canary Release reminds ๐Ÿ๐Ÿ—๐ญ๐ก ๐š๐ง๐ ๐Ÿ๐ŸŽ๐ญ๐ก ๐œ๐ž๐ง๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ฒ, when miners tested new mines to avoid being poisoned or burned by flammable pockets of gases.

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Small animals like canaries were useful to detect ๐’‘๐’๐’Š๐’”๐’๐’ because of their rapid breathing rate and high metabolism. When the birds began to collapse, the miners knew that ๐’‘๐’๐’Š๐’”๐’๐’๐’๐’–๐’” ๐’ˆ๐’‚๐’” was nearby and that the area was dangerous.

If this practice ended ๐ข๐ง ๐Ÿ๐Ÿ—๐Ÿ–๐Ÿ• as new detection technology was developed, the concept has been resurrected in the DevOps context... but without canaries! ๐Ÿฃ

In the context of ๐˜ฟ๐™š๐™ซ๐™Š๐™ฅ๐™จ, Canary Releasing is the act of deploying a new release to a small group of users, before releasing it to all. This method reduces the risk of problems in the new release.

It's a way to test your software without blocking the delivery process, even with slow life cycles. ๐Ÿ”„
Canary Releasing provides a testing environment that can be ๐™ฅ๐™–๐™ง๐™ฉ๐™ž๐™˜๐™ช๐™ก๐™–๐™ง๐™ก๐™ฎ ๐™™๐™ž๐™›๐™›๐™ž๐™˜๐™ช๐™ก๐™ฉ with very large systems without a robust share-based architecture.

Canaries are no longer used as test subjects, but the expression persists in time in new areas...

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Thread on Twitter.


๐Ÿ“š ๐•Š๐• ๐•ฆ๐•ฃ๐•”๐•–๐•ค:
๐ŸŽด https://agilitest.com/cards/canary-releasing
๐Ÿ“– https://magazine.cim.org/en/in-search/who-brought-the-canary-into-the-coal-mine-en/
๐ŸŒ https://martinfowler.com/bliki/ImmutableServer.html

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