A team wants to expose a new release to a sliver of live users, watch error rates, and widen exposure only if the signals stay healthy. Which strategy matches?
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A
A canary release sends a small share of live traffic to the new version while the rest stays on the stable version. The team watches errors and latency, then increases the share in steps if signals stay healthy. This limits the blast radius of a bad release. Blue/green, recreate and shadow strategies each differ in how and when users reach the new version.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Blue/green switches all traffic in one step rather than widening exposure gradually, so the blast radius is not limited in the same way.
- C. Recreate stops the old version before starting the new one, which causes downtime and offers no gradual exposure.
- D. Shadow traffic never reaches users, so it cannot show customer-facing error rates as the release widens.