Choosing the Right Way to Deploy Your Project

Smooth teamwork for winning projects

When multiple heads come together for a project, making sure they think (and code) in sync is essential. This is where deployment strategies, a pillar in the DevOps world, step in. For our Web Dev Path website project, we adopted the Blue/Green adaptation, complementing it with Netlify. In this guide, we'll explore two prevalent deployment methods - GitHub Flow and the classic Blue/Green - and delve into our tailored adaptation.

The GitHub Flow: structured yet agile

Let’s break down how the GitHub Flow would typically work:

• Feature branch creation: When starting on a new task or feature, create a new branch from main. This branch can be named something like feature/user-login.
• Development and commits: Make your changes in this branch and commit them.
• Stage branch: After finishing your part, you merge your feature branch into a stage branch created previously. This branch was created from main and it's where the team can see combined updates.
• Pull request: Once testing is done in the stage branch and things look good, you raise a Pull Request (PR) from stage to main.
• Code review: Team members review the changes in the PR. They may suggest improvements or corrections.
• Merge & deploy: After approval, the PR gets merged into main. The code in main is then deployed to production.

This process, while structured, may feel a bit layered, especially for smaller teams or projects.

The classic Blue/Green strategy: continuous delivery with safety

Here's a quick overview of the Blue/Green method:

• Blue environment: This is your current production environment. It’s stable and serves your users.
• Green environment: Parallel to Blue, you have the Green environment. It's an identical setup but it’s where you deploy new changes for testing.
• Switch: Once you're confident that the Green environment is stable after thorough testing, you switch user traffic to Green. Green becomes Blue (the new production) and vice-versa.

The advantage? Zero downtime. The trade-off? Maintaining two identical production environments.

Our Blue/Green adaptation with Netlify: simplifying deployment

We've tailored the Blue/Green approach to make deployment straightforward and efficient. Here's how:

1. Blue control with Netlify:

On Netlify, we paused automatic updates for our primary site (Blue), the www.webdevpath.co environment. This gives us control over when we push the new changes live, but only after we've given them a comprehensive check.

2. Green testing environment:

We crafted a parallel environment, named webdevpathstage (Green), on Netlify also linked to our GitHub repository. Changes that merge into the main branch first roll out here, granting us a testing phase before going public (manual deploy) on the primary site (Blue).

3. Dedicated environment variables:

Tools like Google Analytics have bespoke settings for both Blue and Green, ensuring no mix-up or overlapping of data.

Advantages of our adaptation:

• Zero downtime: By separating the environments, we ensure continuous service for our users, eliminating disruptions during updates.
• Developers in the spotlight: This model lets developers stay in their element, focusing on code without getting bogged down in complex deployment procedures.
• DevOps hat ready: For those curious about the intricacies of deployment, our system provides an entry point. With the correct access and a bit of guidance, any team member can venture into DevOps, manually deploying in the production environment and gaining invaluable experience.

Finding what works for your project

The best method fits your team's style and your project's needs. While GitHub Flow is a step-by-step process, Blue/Green offers smooth and constant updates. Our version combines the strengths of both. The main point? Teamwork should be easy, and users should get value quickly. We learned a lot from our Web Dev Path project, and we think you can learn from our experience too!